"The definitive biography of America's best-known and least understood food personality, and the modern culinary landscape he shaped. After World War II, a newly affluent United States reached for its own gourmet culture, one at ease with the French international style of Escoffier, but also distinctly American. Enter James Beard, authority on cooking and eating, his larger-than-life presence and collection of whimsical bow ties synonymous with the...

Paul Monette grew up all-American, Catholic, overachieving... and closeted. As a child of the 1950s, a time when a kid suspected of being a "homo" would routinely be beaten up, Monette kept his secret throughout his adolescence. He wrestled with his sexuality for the first thirty years of his life, priding himself on his ability to "pass" for straight. The story of his journey to adulthood and to self-acceptance with grace and honesty, this intimate...

"When Darnell L. Moore was fourteen years old, three boys from his neighborhood tried to set him on fire as he was walking home from school. Darnell was tall and awkward and constantly bullied for being gay. That afternoon, one of the boys doused him with gasoline and tried lighting a match. It was too windy, and luckily Darnell's aunt arrived in time to grab Darnell and pull him to safety. It was not the last time he would face death. What happens...

The sex-advice columnist for "Savage Love" draws on his experience with the It Gets Better campaign to share pithy insights into a range of topics including health care, gun control, and marriage equality.

Combining memoir, social criticism, and research, the author explores what it means to be solitary and celebrates the notion, common in his Roman Catholic childhood, that solitude is a legitimate and dignified calling. Delves into the lives and works of nearly a dozen iconic "solitaries," including Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, Bill Cunningham, Cézanne, and Zora Neale Hurston. "A meditation on solitude as a font of creativity and spirituality. Known...

Recounts the events that have shaped the author's adulthood, describing his experiences with his aging parents, his beloved AIDS-victim brother, and his distant boyfriend as well as the music of the B-52s and the appearance of Iranian objects mysteriously found in his luggage.

The memoir of a man looking back over eight tumultuous decades at the complications brought on by the discovery, during adolescence, of his attraction to other men.

"Funny Boy: The Richard Hunt Biography is the life story of Muppet performer Richard Hunt. As one of the "Original Five" performers in the Muppet troupe, Hunt's characteristic irreverence was an integral part of Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, three major Muppet movies, a handful of short-lived shows, countless specials and even a couple of non-Muppet films. Hunt died in the AIDS epidemic at just 40 years old, predeceased by many friends...

This is the first post-mortem, unauthorized insight into Merv Griffin, a failed singer and unsuccessful actor who unexpectedly rewrote the rules of America's broadcasting industry. He became the richest man in TV, befriended everyone in media who mattered, bought a casino, and maintained a secret life as America's most famously closeted homosexual. From a controversial writer whose previous work has virtually re-defined the art of the celebrity biography,...

Edward Everett Tanner III, under his pseudonyms of Patrick Dennis and Virginia Rowans, was the author of sixteen novels - most of them bestsellers - including the classics Little Me and Genius. But, despite the success of his other works, he is by best known and best remembered for his most indelible creation - Auntie Mame. Born and raised in the affluent suburbs of Chicago, Tanner moved to New York City after World War II and embarked upon a writing...