Springtime Books in Brief
Illustrated Men & Women:
The intimate photos in "Lyudmila and Natasha" (The New Press) by photojournalist Misha Friedman follow a lesbian couple living in St. Petersburg, Russia, as their relationship develops during the period of a year.
Described as "a book for kids - and their parents, teachers, and cool grown-up friends," "Rad American Women A-Z" (City Lights), by Kate Schatz with illustrations by Miriam Klein Stahl, features queer heroines such as Angela Davis and Billie Jean King in just the first couple of pages, as well as trans activist Kate Bornstein and friends of the LGBT community such as Patti Smith and Carol Burnett.
Based on cross-dressing artist, potter, and Turner Prize recipient Grayson Perry's Reith Lectures, "Playing to the Gallery" (Penguin) features the artist-author's colorful and comical illustrations and text to aid gallery-goers in the pursuit of understanding what's hanging on the walls.
Photographer Kike Arnal trains his lens on Mexico City's transgender community in "Bordered Lives" (The New Press), and in doing so attempts to "challenge society's preconceived notions of sexuality, gender, and beauty in Mexico" and beyond.
"The Completely Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green" (Northwest Press) by Eric Orner, a gay cartoonist who appears to be influenced as much by Alison Bechdel and Howard Cruse as he is by Linda Barry and Nicole Hollander, collects Orner's comic strips about his (mostly) unlucky-in-love character, which ran in gay publications from 1989-2005.
Poets' Corner:
Queer poets Mark Doty, C.P. Cavafy, James Merrill, Richard Blanco, Thom Gunn, W.H. Auden, Frank O'Hara, Elizabeth Bishop, and Allen Ginsberg, as well as Stephen Sondheim, are among the folks getting a nod from poet David Lehman in "The State of the Art: A Chronicle of American Poetry, 1988-2014" (U. of Pittsburgh), which collects all 29 of the forewords written by Lehman for the annual Best American Poetry anthologies.
"Angel Park" (Tincture), the fabulous debut poetry collection by Oakland-based gay poet Roberto F. Santiago, a welcome and refreshing voice on the scene, features poetry touching on geography, culture, sexuality, heritage and more.
"On Elizabeth Bishop" (Princeton) by gay writer Colm Toibin blends biography and literary appreciation for the celebrated lesbian poet as the author writes about the connections he feels to Bishop, particularly in the way that her experiences of loss and exile resonate with his own.
"Dark Sparkler," (Harper Perennial) a poetry collection by actress and writer Amber Tamblyn, focuses on the theme of the "lives of women who glimmered on-screen and crashed in life," including Sharon Tate, Marilyn Monroe, Brittany Murphy, Jayne Mansfield, Dana Plato, Frances Farmer, Jean Harlow, Dominique Dunne and Anissa Jones.
Prolific and award-winning gay poet Jim Elledge returns with a brand new collection, "Tapping My Arm for a Vein" (Lethe Press), with several poems featuring more than a dozen poems about his character "Mister."
In "More Money than God" (U. of Pittsburgh), poet and children's book author Richard Michelson brings his trademark sense of humor, as well as his sensitive and witty observations, over the course of more than 30 poems.
Non-fiction Shelf:
"You're Not Edith" (George Braziller) by lesbian essayist Allison Gruber is a splendid collection of "autobiographical essays," mainly set in Chicago and Milwaukee, at the heart of which is the author's cancer battle.
As feisty as the man himself, "Frank" (Farrar Straus Giroux), by out retired congressman Barney Frank, allows the outspoken politician to tell his story, "from Bayonne to Boston," in his own words. You can almost hear his distinctive voice while you read.
Actress, activist and writer Maria Bello, author of "Whatever - Love is Love: Questioning the Labels We Give Ourselves" (Dey Street), asks and answers a series of questions: "Am I a Partner?," "Am I a Good Mom?," "Am I a Humanitarian?," "Am I a Feminist?," "Am I Enough?" and "Am I LGBT or W?," in this unusual take on the memoir.
Jacqueline Rose's "Women in Dark Times" (Bloomsbury) examines the lives of nine women: Revolutionary socialist Rosa Luxembourg, painter Charlotte Salomon, movie star Marilyn Monroe, "honor killing" victims Shafilea Ahmed, Fadime Sahindal and Heshu Yones, and visual artists Esther Shalev-Gerz, Yael Bartana and Therese Oulton, in a tome about establishing "a new template for feminism."
Subtitled "Conversations about Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity," "The Human Agenda" (Trans Uber), by writer and activist Joe Wenke, features interviews with "The Noonday Demon" author Andrew Solomon, trans comedian Ian Harvie, "RuPaul's Drag Race" contestant Carmen Carrera, hip-hop artist Y-Love and others.
Fiction Shelf:
The fantastic "JD" (U. of Wisconsin), by acclaimed gay writer Mark Merlis (American Studies), is the writer's first novel in a dozen years. It's told in two voices. The first is that of the late gay writer Jonathan Ascher, and we hear from him through his journals. The second belongs to his widow Martha, who learns more about Jonathan than she ever imagined while reading the journals after agreeing to help a biographer of her late husband.
"Orient" (Harper), the second novel by Interview magazine editor Christopher Bollen, is a taut murder mystery set in a community of transplanted artists in the titular isolated town on the North Fork of Long Island.
Set in a "pitiless, bleak, futuristic America," "Haw" (Harvard Square Editions), the debut novel by North Carolina-based Sean Jackson, is described as a " 'Brave New World' for modern times" by writer Mitch Cullin.
Wendy Lee's second novel "Across a Green Ocean" (Kensington) introduces us to closeted and untethered gay man Michael and his immigration lawyer sister Emily, coming to terms with the death of their father.
A collaboration between trans writer T Cooper, whose 2006 "Lipschitz 6 or Two Angry Blondes" is a must read, and his wife Allison Glock-Cooper, "Changers: Book Two - Oryon" (Black Sheep/Akashic) is the second in a series of YA novels about "an ancient race of humans who must live out each year of high school as a completely different person."