Crossing the Lines: The Story of Three Homosexual New Zealand Soldiers in WWII by Brent Coutts

$50.00 NZD

Category: NZ History/Society

In Crossing the Lines, Brent Coutts brings to light the previously untold history of New Zealand homosexual soldiers in World War II, drawing on the experiences of ordinary men who lived through extraordinary times. At the centre of the story are New Zealand soldiers Harold Robinson, Ralph Dyer and Doug las Morison, who shared a queer identity and love of performance. Through their roles as female impersonators in Kiwi concert parties in the Pacific and Egypt they found a place to live as gay men within the military forces, boosting the morale of personnel in the Pacific Campaign and, along the way, falling in love with some of the men they met. Crossing the Lines is a richly illustrated account that follows the men from their formative pre-war lives, through the difficult wartime years to their experiences living in a postwar London where they embraced the many new possibilities available. It is a story of strong friendships, the search for love and belonging as homosexuals within the military and civilian worlds, and the creation of the foundation of the queer community today. ...Show more

Samoan Queer Lives by Yuki Kihara and Dan Taulapapa McMullin

$35.00 NZD

Category: Biography

Samoan Queer Lives delves into the unique lives of Samoan people who are 'fa`afafine' - broadly understood in the Western interpretation as persons who are of transgender, intersexed and third sex, or gay, lesbian and bisexual origin. This book, the first of its kind, is edited and written by fa`afafin e. Here fa`afafine share their stories in their own words. Twenty autobiographical stories. Includes personal accounts that cross lines of gender and culture, and span generations, professions and geography. Each chapter in the book is accompanied by a portrait. The stories are by turns angry, humorous, intimate and raw. ...Show more

Hudson and Halls: The Food of Love by Joanne Drayton

$50.00 NZD

Category: NZ Biographies

Hudson & Halls: The food of love is more than just a love story, though a love story it certainly is. It is a tale of two television chefs who helped change the bedrock bad attitudes of a nation in the 1970s and 80s to that unspoken thing - homosexuality. Peter Hudson and David Halls became reluctan t role models for a 'don't ask, don't tell' generation of gay men and women who lived by omission. They were also captains of a culinary revolution that saw the overthrow of Aunty Daisy and Betty Crocker and the beginnings of Pacific-rich, Asian-styled international cuisine. Their drinking, bitching and bickering on screen, their spontaneous unchoreographed movements across the stage that left cameras and startled production staff exposed broke taboos and melted formalities. They captivated an unlikely bunch of viewers, from middle-aged matrons to bush-shirted blokes. Hudson and Halls were pioneers of celebrity television as we know it today: the naughty, not-quite-normal boys next door who rocketed to stardom on untrained talent and a dream. When Peter Hudson became seriously ill with prostate cancer, David Halls was inconsolable. What remained unchanged through it all was their abiding love for each other. In this riveting, fast-paced and meticulously researched book, New York Times bestselling author Joanne Drayton celebrates the legacy of the unforgettable Hudson and Halls. ...Show more

To Be a Gay Man by Will Young

$40.00 NZD

Category: Biography

In To Be a Gay Man, Will Young speaks out about gay shame, revealing the impact it had on his own life, how he learned to deal with it, and how he can now truthfully say he is gay and happy. We know Will as a multi-platinum recording artist, Olivier-nominee, and the first winner of the Idol franchise. But his story began long before his first audition. Looking back on a world where growing up being called gay was the ultimate insult and coming out after a lifetime of hiding his sexuality, Will explores the long-lasting impact repressing his true self has had. As Will's own story demonstrates, internalised shame in childhood increases the risk of developing low self-worth, and even self-disgust, leading to destructive behaviours in adult life. Will revisits the darkest extremes he has been to, sharing his vulnerabilities, his regrets, tracing his own navigation through it all and showing the way for others who might have felt alone in the same experience. Here you will find a friend, champion and mentor, breaking taboos with frank honesty, and offering invaluable practical advice on overcoming the difficult issues too often faced within the LGBTQ+ community. ...Show more

Dear Oliver: Uncovering a Pakeha History by Peter Wells

$40.00 NZD

Category: NZ Biographies

When writer and historian Peter Wells found a cache of family letters amongst his elderly mother's effects, he realised that he had the means of retracing the history of a not-untypical family swept out to New Zealand during the great nineteenth-century human diaspora from Britain. His family experience d the war against Te Kooti, the Boer War, the Napier earthquake of 1931 and the Depression. They rose from servant status to thecomforts of the middle class. There was army desertion, suicide, adultery, AIDS, secrets and lies. There was also success, prosperity and social status. In digging deep into their stories, examining letters from the past and writing a letter to the future, Peter Wells constructs a novel and striking way to view the history of Pakeha New Zealanders. ...Show more

Hello Darkness by Peter Wells

$40.00 NZD

Category: Biography

It's now a year exactly since my urologist told me I had an aggressive cancer that was incurable. I was rushed into hospital and thus began a year of chemotherapy, radiation and all the ups and downs of a sickness that arrived in my life with the noise and terror of an old fashioned train. During that t ime I wrote about my experience on my Iphone, on Facebook, and I received in return an explosion of aroha on that most cynical of mediums - the internet. There was advice, commentary, encouragement, accompaniment. The posts became the basis for Hello Darkness. I made something out of nothing if near-death experiences can be said to be nothing. I learnt a lot. I am a different ... ...Show more

Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise by Scott Eyman

$65.00 NZD

Category: Biography

Film historian and acclaimed New York Times bestselling biographer Scott Eyman has written the definitive biography of Hollywood legend Cary Grant, one of the most accomplished--and beloved--actors of his generation, who remains as popular as ever today. Born Archibald Leach in 1904, he came to America as a teenaged acrobat to find fame and fortune, but he was always haunted by his past. His father was a feckless alcoholic, and his mother was committed to an asylum when Archie was eleven years old. He believed her to be dead until he was informed she was alive when he was thirty-one years old. Because of this experience Grant would have difficulty forming close attachments throughout his life. He married five times and had numerous affairs. Despite a remarkable degree of success, Grant remained deeply conflicted about his past, his present, his basic identity, and even the public that worshipped him in movies such as Gunga Din, Notorious, and North by Northwest. Drawing on Grant's own papers, extensive archival research, and interviews with family and friends, this is the definitive portrait of a movie immortal. ...Show more

All Boys Aren't Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto by George M. Johnson

$30.00 NZD

Category: Biography

This program is read by the author. In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys. Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color,All Boys Aren't Bluecovers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy. Johnson's emotionally frank style of writing will appeal directly to young adults. A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux ...Show more

To The End Of The World - Travels with Oscar Wilde by Rupert Everett

$40.00 NZD

Category: Biography

The extraordinary and outrageous memoir from award-winning writer and actor Rupert Everett. They say that sometimes ghosts don't realise they're dead and wander around screaming because no one is paying them any attention. Well, in show business you may have been dead five years before you finally twig . You howl around the corridors of power while the elect march straight through. Then one day you catch yourself in a mirror and there is nothing looking back. In his highly anticipated third memoir, Rupert Everett tells the story of how he set out to make a film of Oscar Wilde's last days, and how that ten-year quest almost destroyed him. (And everyone else.) Travelling across Europe for the film, he weaves in extraordinary tales from his past, remembering wild times, freak encounters and lost friends. There are celebrities, of course. But we also meet glamorous but doomed Aunt Peta, who introduces Rupert (aged three) to the joys of make-up. In '90s Paris, his great friend Lychee burns bright, and is gone. While in '70s London, a 'weirdly tall, beyond size zero' teenage Rupert is expelled from the Central School of Speech and Drama. Unflinchingly honest and hugely entertaining, To the End of the World offers a unique insight into the 'snakes and ladders' of filmmaking. It is also a soulful and thought-provoking autobiography from one of our best-loved and most talented actors and writers. ...Show more

Pride & Joy: LGBTQ Artists, Icons and Everyday Heroes by Kathleen Archambeau

$15.00 NZD

$30.00 (50% off)

Category: Non-Fiction

Stories of success, happiness and hope from the LGBT community Stories that comprise the best of LGBT history Pride and Joy: LGBTQ Artists, Icons and Everyday Heroes tells the stories of queer citizens of the world living OUT and proud happy, fulfilling, successful lives. Diverse and global. Famous and unsung. There is a story here for everyone in the LGBT community who has ever questioned their sexual orientation or gender identity, or discovered it. Discover LGBT community stories that will stir you and reveal: why Tony Kushner quit cello and how Colm Toibin found his voice. why Emma Donoghue calls her experience a fluke and the best advice Bill T. Jones got was from his mother. how being an inaugural poet changed Richard Blanco's life and how Ugandan activist "LongJones" escaped death threats and gained asylum. Award-winning writer and longtime LGBTQ activist Kathleen Archambeau tells the untold stories from diverse LGBT community voices around the corner or around the world. Not like the depressing, sinister, shadowy stories of the past, this book highlights queer people living open, happy, fulfilling and successful lives. Be inspired by LGBT community stories that celebrate the human spirit: Be emboldened by the bravery of a Uruguayan author who was rejected by her immediate family even as she began a family of her own. - Be inspired by the audacity to fight for justice that motivates National Center for Lesbian Rights Executive Director Kate Kendell, a Mormon who grew up in Utah. - Learn how two couples transcend time and distance to finally be together and how one NBA sports executive summoned the courage to come out. - Discover the message of love from the first openly lesbian United Methodist Church Bishop. - Learn the secrets of successful OUT IBM executive based in London and the rewards of Ballroom Basix founder in Harlem. - See how the Maori philosophy of whānau guided the MP who won marriage rights in New Zealand and how high expectations overcame disability and bullying for an acclaimed mezzo-soprano. - Know how the Armenian Genocide and family tensions impacted a professional violinist and composer. Pride & Joy is a window into the LGBTQ community for straight friends, allies, parents and families of this finally emerging marginalized group. There's hope that, in the words of Dan Savage, "It Gets Better" for: - the transgender choreographer and dancer who continues to break rules and enlighten audiences to the Dutch singer, songwriter and independent theater producer who breaks down stereotypes. - the Russian emigre award-winning computer scientist to the Chinese folk dancer. - the founder of an award-winning smoking cessation program to the California Political Director of the Obama re-election campaign. - and, for Entrepreneurs and gay dads, ballroom dancers and Hungarian activists on neo-Nazi "hit lists." ...Show more

Aidan, 19: So Far by Aidan Cahill

$5.00 NZD

$35.00 (85% off)

Category: Biography

Aidan was one of dozens and possibly hundreds of young men and women on New Zealand's streets. How do you meet someone in this situation, even if you have such an interest? How do they survive? Why are they in such a position? What are their aspirations? Such citizens of New Zealand are on the margins a nd few of us get anywhere close to those margins. Aidan's unconventional life story, so far, is a revelation for anyone interested in an aspect of life that is rarely, if ever, revealed with such candour. His story begins in his home town of Christchurch, New Zealand's Garden City in its South Island. His father died when he was four. His mother had her own challenges at that time and as a result, Aidan was left with an aunt, who having been asked to `baby sit' him, did so selflessly for ten years. Having moved to Wellington, New Zealand's capital, at the age of just 16, Aidan soon moved to Auckland, where he lived on the streets of New Zealand's largest city. There he worked out, on his own, how to survive in some of the city's toughest neighbourhoods. You will read of his good and bad decisions. When he makes mistakes, he describes how, with brutal honesty. This story shows how Aidan can now go into shops and offices and not feel out of place. How he can engage with people and not feel he's being judged. How he moved from the streets to his own room in an apartment in Auckland's CBD and then into his own room with a good friend in a lovely townhouse in an Auckland suburb. Aidan has now expanded his friendships to include people who are not necessarily on the margins of New Zealand's society. And most importantly, he has learned that there is something he can do, other than contribute to the sex industry, and that is to write. ...Show more

A Dutiful Boy - A Gay, Muslim Memoir by Mohsin Zaidi

$37.00 NZD

Category: Biography

A coming of age memoir about growing up queer in a strict Muslim household. Like Educated with a modern British context. Mohsin grew up in a deprived pocket of east London; his family was close-knit but very religiously conservative. From a young age Mohsin felt different but in a home where being gay w as inconceivable he also felt very alone. Outside of home Mohsin went to a failing inner city school where gang violence was a fact of life. As he grew up life didn't seem to offer teenage Mohsin any choices: he was disenfranchised as a poor, brown boy, and he was isolated from his family as a closet gay Muslim. However Mohsin had incredible drive and he used education as a way out of his home life and to throw himself into a new kind of life. He became the first person from his school to go to Oxford University and there he found the freedom to come out to his friends. But Oxford was a whole different world with its own huge challenges and Mohsin found himself increasingly conflicted. It came to a head when Mohsin went back to visit his parents only to be confronted by his father and a witchdoctor he'd invited to 'cure' Mohsin. Although Mohsin's story takes harrowing turns it is full of life and humour, and it ends inspiringly. Through his irrepressible spirit Mohsin breaks through emotional and social barriers and in the end he even finds acceptance from his family. Now Mohsin is a top criminal barrister who fights large-scale cases on a daily basis. Having faced battles growing up, he truly understands the importance of justice as a way of life. ...Show more