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The Good Soldiers
by David FinkelIt was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. He called it the surge. Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. "Well, here are the differences," he told a skeptical nation. Among those listening were the young, optimistic army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the battalion nicknamed the Rangers. About to head to a vicious area of Baghdad, they decided the difference would be them. Fifteen months later, the soldiers returned home forever changed. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David Finkel was with them in Bagdad, and almost every grueling step of the way. What was the true story of the surge? And was it really a success? Those are the questions he grapples with in his remarkable report from the front lines. Combining the action of Mark Bowden's Black Hawk Down with the literary brio of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, The Good Soldiers is an unforgettable work of reportage. And in telling the story of these good soldiers, the heroes and the ruined, David Finkel has also produced an eternal tale-- not just of the Iraq War, but of all wars, for all time.
The Pure Lover: A Memoir of Grief
by David PlanteA powerful and tragic memoir about the lifelong love between two men, from a well-loved and critically acclaimed author.
The Spanish Pearl
by Catherine FriendWhen Kate Vincent and her partner travel to Spain, Kate is accidentally transported back in time ... way back in time ... to 1085. What does a woman like Kate do in a world of no antibiotics, no feminism, no Diet Coke? She denies it as long as possible, then sets her mind to getting home. Tricky with her now useless twenty-first century skills. Things don't go well. Kate is captured by a band of mercenary soldiers and becomes an unwitting pawn in the violent conflict between the Catholic kings and the Islamic Moors. In her struggle to stay alive and return to the future, Kate must flee exotic harems, filthy dungeons, and treacherous Moorish courts. But when a sword-brandishing woman with an astonishing secret sweeps into Kate's life, Kate is suddenly torn between two women, and between two centuries.
Holy Hell (Lillian Byrd Crime Story #1)
by Elizabeth SimsLillian Byrd is a small-time reporter with a flair for making big-time mistakes--so her investigation into the disappearances of women around the Detroit area might not be the best idea. But when one of the victims turns up dead and Lillian recognizes the curiously mutilated corpse, she is in too deep to get out. After simultaneously blowing the case for the police and revealing herself to the killers, she is completely on her own. Can she catch the murderers before they catch up with her? Elizabeth Sims is a 10-year veteran of bookselling. She was a winner of the 1986 Writer's Digest short fiction contest. A longtime resident of the Detroit area, where Holy Hell is set, Sims now lives in Northern California.
Easy Street (Lillian Byrd Crime Story #4)
by Elizabeth SimsHer old Caprice is convulsing through the last of its death throes, her pet rabbit and constant companion Todd ails, and as usual, Lillian Byrd is flat broke. For a few extra bucks she agrees to help an old friend renovate her house, but as fans of "Holy Hell", "Damn Straight", and "Lucky Stiff "have come to realize, nothing ever goes smoothly in the life of Lillian Byrd. By the end of the first day on the job there is a partially demolished wall, a mysterious stash of cash, and a dead body. And Lillian's attentions have been diverted by the appearance of a drop-dead gorgeous neighbor. Elizabeth Sims is the author of three previous books in the Lillian Byrd Crime Stories series: "Holy Hell", "Damn Straight", and "Lucky Stiff".
The Crown of Valencia
by Catherine FriendEx-lovers can really mess up your life. Kate Vincent's ex, Anna, certainly does. Not only does Anna interfere in Kate's love life, but she totally screws up the world by travelling back in time to 11th century Spain and changing one crucial event. As any sane person knows, you cannot alter an event in history without altering everything that follows - but Anna has an agenda, and a score to settle. When Kate follows Anna back to the 11th century to clean up Anna's mess before she and those she loves cease to exist, she finds herself fighting not only Anna and her hired thugs, but also another woman - the woman Kate has never stopped loving.
Stepping Stone
by Karin KallmakerMotion picture producer Selena Ryan has the impossible: Fame and fortune and her integrity. Her reputation for playing fair in an industry rife with games has earned her respect from other producers, writers, and actors. She's learned the lesson that plenty of people would like to use her to get what they want--a starring role or some other way into the movies. Most of them feel no obligation to return any favors she might give. Burned badly by actress Jennifer Lamont, who used her and left her with a devastating aftermath, she's wary of everyone related to the industry. Surrounded by gatekeepers to keep the hopeful at bay, aspiring starlets have tried every trick in the book to make Selena's acquaintance. When Gail Welles literally lands in Selena's lap, she suspects another ploy. Jennifer's sudden announcement that Selena is still her one-and-only is equally ill-timed and suspect. Selena wants everyone to leave her alone, even if that means living without love. Lights, camera and action are the backdrop for this novel of taking chances by Golden Crown and Lambda Literary award-winning author Karin Kallmaker.
Step on a Crack
by Mary AndersonSarah suffers from frightening nightmares and compulsive stealing. A friend helps explore the dark areas of her mind, exposing some disturbing facts.
The Mirror and the Mask (Jane Lawless #17)
by Ellen HartMinneapolis restaurateur Jane Lawless is at crossroads. The rough economy has put her plans for a third restaurant on hold, and her long distance romance is on the rocks and quite possibly unsalvageable. Unsure of what to do next, she takes her good friend A. J. Nolan up on his standing offer to take her on as a private investigator. While still in training, her first job seems simple enough. All she had to do is find Annie Archer's stepfather. Jane tracks down a likely match--a man who has made a small fortune in real estate. While she's happy to close her first case, she finds it hard to reconcile the difference between PI work, "finding what people pay you to find" and uncovering the truth, the whole truth, especially when clues in this seemingly simple case point to more threatening family secrets than where Annie's father has been hiding out. Ellen Hart's The Mirror and the Mask is another engrossing mystery filled with the deceit and psychological intrigue that fans have come to expect from this Lambda and Minnesota Book Award-winning author.
Robin and Ruby
by K. M. SoehnleinIn his award-winning bestseller The World of Normal Boys, K.M. Soehnlein introduced readers to the richly compelling voice of teenager Robin MacKenzie. In Robin and Ruby, he revisits Robin and his younger sister, masterfully depicting the turbulence of the mid-1980s--and that fleeting time between youth and adulthood, when everything we will become can be shaped by one unforgettable weekend. At twenty-years-old, Robin MacKenzie is waiting for his life to start. Waiting until his summer working at a Philly restaurant is over and he's back with his boyfriend Peter. . . until the spring semester when he'll travel to London for an acting program. . . until the moment when the confidence he fakes starts to feel real. Then, one hot June weekend, Robin gets dumped by his boyfriend and quickly hits the road with his best friend George to find his teenaged sister, Ruby, who's vanished from a party at the Jersey Shore. For years, his friendship with George has been the most solid thing in Robin's life. But lately there are glimpses of another George, someone Robin barely knows and can no longer take for granted. Ruby is on an adventure of her own, dressing in black, declaring herself an atheist, pulling away from the boyfriend she doesn't love--not the way she loves the bands whose fractured songs are the soundtrack to her life. Then a chance encounter puts Ruby in pursuit of a seductive but troubled boy who might be the key to her happiness, or a disaster waiting to happen. As their paths converge, Robin and Ruby confront the sadness of their shared past and rebuild the bonds that still run deep. In prose that is lyrical, compulsively readable, and exquisitely honest, K.M. Soehnlein brilliantly captures a family redefining itself and explores those moments common to us all--when freedom bumps up against responsibility, when sex blurs the line between friendship and love, and when what you stand for becomes more important than who you were raised to be.
Sweet Poison (Jane Lawless #16)
by Ellen HartJane Lawless is at her wit's end keeping her Minneapolis restaurants running while volunteering on her father's campaign for governor. With an eleven-point lead, the race is Ray Lawless's to lose, but all that changes when his rival posts a list of violent criminals that are back on the streets early, thanks to Ray's work during his career as a defense lawyer. Corey Hodge is one of the convicts that took Ray's advice to plead guilty for a crime that he swears he didn't commit. Bitter from time served, revenge lurks in the back of his mind. Then one of Ray's young campaign volunteers is killed, and with the murder mirroring the crime Corey was convicted of, Jane has to bring the killer to justice to save her father's political career and to keep Corey from going to prison again. The high stakes and political intrigue that fuelSweet Poison, the latest in Lambda and Minnesota Book Award--winning author Ellen Hart's absorbing Jane Lawless series, make for an intense mystery of ambition and obsession.
The Mortal Groove (Jane Lawless #15)
by Ellen HartMinneapolis restaurateur and amateur sleuth Jane Lawless is in the middle of ringing in the New Year the best way she knows how --with her family, friends, and some excellent champagne-- when the biggest financial backers in Minnesota politics break up the party with a little backroom proposition for her father: How'd he like to be the state's next governor? Flattered, Ray Lawless, a retired defense attorney, agrees to run, and the latecomer's sprint to the state capital is going great until reporters and opponents start digging up the kind of dirt that is more valuable than gold out on the campaign trail. He and his family are fair game, but worse than that, so are the men running his campaign. Their secrets, involving the mysterious death of a young woman, have been buried since the summer they all came home from Vietnam. Unfortunately for Jane and her father, those secrets won't stay that way for long. The Mortal Groove, the newest addition to Lambda and Minnesota Book Award-winning author Ellen Hart's multilayered Jane Lawless series, is a haunting tale of dark secrets that is sure to satisfy.
Lucky Stiff (Lillian Byrd Crime Story #3)
by Elizabeth SimsThere is what you believe, and then there is the truth. For Lillian Byrd, a chance encounter with an old friend means that everything she thought she knew about her shattered childhood is about to be revealed as a lie. One summer day when she was 12 years old, her best friend, Duane, left for summer camp. Later that night, flames ripped through the Polka Dot, a bar owned and run by Lillian's parents. Three bodies were found in the ashes: those of her mother, her father and Trix Hawley, a bartender and Lillian's frequent babysitter. Or so she has always thought. But Duane's story reveals something shocking. After summer camp, his father moved him to Florida, telling Duane that his mother had left, and for a short time Trix Hawley lived with them. Now Duane's father has disappeared as well. Who was the third body in the ashes of the Polka Dot? Was the fire an accident or arson? Where is Trix now? And where are Duane's mother and father? Lillian and Duane set out to find the truth about their parents, a truth that has been hidden well by members of both their families. The author of the best--selling mysteries Holy Hell and Damn Straight has crafted another nerve-tingling thriller rich with characterization, humor and humanity. Elizabeth Sims is the author of two previous Lillian Byrd crime stories, Holy Hell and Damn Straight. She lives in Port Angeles, Wash.
Death of a Dying Man (Micky Knight Mystery #5)
by J. M. RedmannFifth in the Mickey Knight mystery series based in New Orleans; lesbian detective.
Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America
by Nathaniel FrankWith unfailing logic, Frank dissects the patterns of bigotry and fear that have fought to preserve a gay ban in the military and shows that the time to do away with it has come--not just as a moral issue, but also as a practical matter of survival for the military itself.
Murder by the Book (Helen Black Mysteries #1)
by Pat WelchChristmas in Berkeley is grim for Helen Black Private Investigator. Clients are scarce and her lover doesn't like Helen's new career. Then Helen lands her first important case: A wealthy lesbian whose lover is a murder suspect. Pat Welch's first novel.
Crybaby Butch
by Judith FrankDrawing on her experience as an adult literacy tutor, Judith Frank's first novel traces the difficult and sometimes hilarious connection between two butches of different generations - a middle-class, thirty-something adult literacy teacher and her older, working-class student. With a disparate group of adult learners as the backdrop, Frank examines, with warmth and wit, the relationship between education and gender, class, and racial identity.
What You Should Know about Politics... But Don't: A Nonpartisan Guide to the Issues
by Jessamyn ConradThe author presents a voter's guide to the major national issues and debates being contested within mainstream two-party politics in the United States. She offers chapters on elections, the economy, foreign policy, the military, health care, energy, the environment, civil liberties, culture wars, socioeconomic policy, homeland security, education, and trade. Each chapter provides brief background before attending to current debates. Breadth of coverage is emphasized over depth and, with the exception of some footnotes, no guides to further reading are provided. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
If Only: How to Turn Regret into Opportunity
by Neal J. RoeseIf you spend a lot of time thinking about "what might have been," you're not alone. In If Only, Neal Roese, Ph.D., one of the world's top scientists studying regret, shows us that thoughts about what might have been are practically unavoidable. In fact, they are produced spontaneously by the brain with a very practical goal--to guide us toward improvement. But the same thoughts can bring the pain of regret. Is it worth the pain to get the improvement? Or should you live life with no regrets? Luckily, it's not a package deal. The surprising message of If Only is that we can manage our regret style to maximize the gain and minimize the pain. In an entertaining and upbeat book that weds lively science writing to practical self-help, Dr. Roese mines the research and shares simple strategies for managing your life to make the most of regret. You'll learn: *Don't Over-react.You may react to a regrettable situation by taking many fewer chances. Don't. This only ensures that you will miss out on new opportunities. *Think Downward. Consider the downward alternatives. How could a bad situation have gone even worse? This makes you feel appreciative of what you have. *Do It. If you decide to do something and it turns out badly, research shows that it probably won't haunt you down the road. (You'll reframe the failure and move on.) But you will regret the things left undone. *Regrets are Opportunities Knocking. Our brains produce the most "if only" thoughts about things in our lives that we can still change. So consider regret as a signal flashing: It's not too late! If Only also shows that "if only" thinking plays a huge role across our lives, from how best to buy, to why we enjoy movies, how juries decide, and the way we choose someone to love. If Only opens a new window into the way our minds work and offers clear lessons for living more happily with the past. "Fifteen years of research have been combined into a list of the top four biggest regrets of the average American: * not getting more education * career regrets * regrets in love * not spending enough time with kids The list is essentially a summary of the biggest traps, pitfalls, and mistakes into which people like you might blunder. Look over the list and try to identify areas of your life that represent the greatest vulnerability to future regret. And act now to avoid regret later." --from If Only.
Bit Literacy: Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload
by Mark HurstMore than a quick fix or another "how-to" guide, the book offers an entirely new way of attaining productivity that users at any level of expertise can put into action right away. This is "bit literacy," a method for working more productively in the digital age, with less stress.
The Fabulous Sylvester: The Legend, the Music, the Seventies in San Francisco
by Joshua GamsonA journey back through the music, madness, and unparalleled freedom of an era of change--the '70s--as told through the life of ultra-fabulous superstar Sylvester. Imagine a pied piper singing in a dazzling falsetto, wearing glittering sequins, and leading the young people of the nation to San Francisco and on to liberation where nothing was straight-laced or old-fashioned. And everyone, finally, was welcome to come as themselves. This is not a fairy tale. This was real, mighty real, and disco sensation Sylvester was the piper. Joshua Gamson--a Yale-trained pop culture expert--uses him, a boy who would be fabulous, to lead us through the story of the '70s when a new era of change liberated us from conformity and boredom. Gamson captures the exuberant life, feeling, energy, and fun of a generation's wonderful, magical waking up-from the parties to the dancing and music. The story begins with a little black boy who started with nothing but a really big voice. We follow him from the Gospel chorus to the glory days in the Castro where a generation shook off its shame as Sylvester sang and began his rise as part of a now-notorious theatrical troupe called the Cockettes. Celebrity, sociology, and music history mingle and merge around this endlessly entertaining story of a singer who embodied the freedom, spirit, and flamboyance of a golden moment in American culture.
Painted Moon
by Karin Kallmaker"...a delicious romance with just a hint of intrigue...an uncommonly realistic romance, one that surmounts class, race, and closets". -- Small Press Magazine
Risk
by Elana DykewomonRisk is a beautifully told story that spans the years from the mid-eighties to the post-9/11 world. Carol is an idealistic, Berkeley-educated, Jewish lesbian living in Oakland, California. Downwardly mobile, the Berkeley grad makes her living by tutoring high school students. Through Carol's life, Dykewomon explores the changing times and values in America.
The Teahouse Fire
by Ellis AveryA sweeping debut novel drawn from a history shrouded in secrets about two women--one American, one Japanese--whose fates become entwined in the rapidly changing world of late-nineteenth-century Japan. When nine-year-old Aurelia Bernard takes shelter in Kyoto's beautiful and mysterious Baishian teahouse after a fire one night in 1866, she is unaware of the building's purpose. She has just fled the only family she's ever known: after her French immigrant mother died of cholera in New York, her abusive missionary uncle brought her along on his assignment to Christianize Japan. She finds in Baishian a place that will open up entirely new worlds to her and bring her a new family. It is there that she discovers the woman who will come to define the next several decades of her life, Shin Yukako, daughter of Kyoto's most important tea master and one of the first women to openly practice the sacred ceremony known as the Way of Tea. For hundreds of years, Japan's warriors and well-off men would gather in tatami-floored structures-- teahouses--to participate in an event that was equal parts ritual dance and sacramental meal. Women were rarely welcome, and often expressly forbidden. But in the late nineteenth century, Japan opened its doors to the West for the first time, and the seeds of drastic changes that would shake all of Japanese society, even this most civilized of arts, were planted. Taking her for the abandoned daughter of a prostitute rather than a foreigner, the Shin family renames Aurelia "Urako" and adopts her as Yukako's attendant and surrogate younger sister. Yukako provides Aurelia with generosity, wisdom, and protection as she navigates a culture that is not accepting of outsiders. From her privileged position at Yukako's side, Aurelia aids in Yukako's crusade to preserve the tea ceremony as it starts to fall out of favor under pressure of intense Westernization. And Aurelia herself is embraced and rejected as modernizing Japan embraces and rejects an era of radical change. An utterly absorbing story told in an enchanting and unforgettable voice, The Teahouse Fire is a lively, provocative, and lushly detailed historical novel of epic scope and compulsive readability.
Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People
by Joan RoughgardenA celebration of the enormous diversity of genders and sexuality found in animals and among human cultures. Roughgarden explores how and why this range of bodies and behaviors evolved and exposes how biology, medicine, anthropology and Christianity have obstructed the recognition and acceptance of this diversity.