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Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson’s novels have established her as a major figure in world literature. She has written some of the most admired books of the past few decades, including her internationally bestselling first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, the story of a young girl adopted by Pentecostal parents that is now often required reading in contemporary fiction.

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a memoir about a life’s work to find happiness. It's a book full of stories: about a girl locked out of her home, sitting on the doorstep all night; about a religious zealot disguised as a mother who has two sets of false teeth and a revolver in the dresser, waiting for Armageddon; about growing up in an north England industrial town now changed beyond recognition; about the Universe as Cosmic Dustbin.

It is the story of how a painful past that Jeanette thought she'd written over and repainted rose to haunt her, sending her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her biological mother.

Witty, acute, fierce, and celebratory, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a tough-minded search for belonging—for love, identity, home, and a mother.

The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant

Dan Savage

Dan Savage's nationally syndicated sex advice column, "Savage Love," enrages and excites more than four million people each week. In The Kid, Savage tells a no-holds-barred, high-energy story of an ordinary American couple who wants to have a baby. Except that in this case the couple happens to be Dan and his boyfriend. That fact, in the face of a society enormously uneasy with gay adoption, makes for an edgy, entertaining, and illuminating read. When Dan and his boyfriend are finally presented with an infant badly in need of parenting, they find themselves caught up in a drama that extends well beyond the confines of their immediate world. A story about confronting homophobia, falling in love, getting older, and getting a little bit smarter, The Kid is a book about the very human desire to have a family.

"A disarmingly frank, wickedly funny account of an ultimately successful quest to adopt a baby." --People

"Very funny . . . Compelling and moving." --Newsday

Out of a Far Country: A Gay Son's Journey to God. A Broken Mother's Search for Hope.

Christopher Yuan, Angela Yuan

Coming Out, Then Coming Home
 
 Christopher Yuan, the son of Chinese immigrants, discovered at an early age that he was different. He was attracted to other boys. As he grew into adulthood, his mother, Angela, hoped to control the situation. Instead, she found that her son and her life were spiraling out of control—and her own personal demons were determined to defeat her.
 
Years of heartbreak, confusion, and prayer followed before the Yuans found a place of complete surrender, which is God’s desire for all families. Their amazing story, told from the perspectives of both mother and son, offers hope for anyone affected by homosexuality.
 
God calls all who are lost to come home to him. Casting a compelling vision for holy sexuality, Out of a Far Country speaks to prodigals, parents of prodigals, and those wanting to minister to the gay community.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.”  - Luke 15:20
 
Includes a discussion guide for personal reflection and group use.

Mommy, Mama, and Me

Lesléa Newman

Rhythmic text and illustrations with universal appeal show a toddler spending the day with its mommies. From hide-and-seek to dress-up, then bath time and a kiss goodnight, there's no limit to what a loving family can do together.

Shares the loving bond between same-sex parents and their children.

Love, Ellen: A Mother/Daughter Journey

Betty Degeneres

Betty DeGeneres tells her story: the complicated path to acceptance and the deepening of her friendship with her daughter; the media's scrutiny of their family life; the painful and often inspiring stories she's heard on the road as the first non-gay spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign's National Coming Out Project.

In a Family Way

Rochelle Hollander Schwab

In this contemporary novel, the death of a baby girl's biological mother leads to a 3-way custody fight between lesbian co-mother, sperm donor and grandparents bent on rescuing their grandchild from a "homosexual lifestyle."

The Ultimate Guide to Pregnancy for Lesbians: How to Stay Sane and Care for Yourself from Pre-conception through Birth, 2nd Edition

Rachel Pepper

The Ultimate Guide to Pregnancy for Lesbians covers everything you need to make the thrilling and challenging journey to motherhood: from choosing a donor to tracking fertility to signing the right papers on the dotted lines. Rachel Pepper's lively, easy-to-read guide is the first place to go for up-to-date information and sage advice on everything from sex in the sixth month to negotiating family roles.

Why a second edition? When the acclaimed first edition appeared, the author's daughter was only a few months old. This new edition takes into account the parenting know-how Pepper has developed over the intervening six years, as well as the evolving legal status of lesbian parents, and the increasing importance of the Internet for information on fertility, sperm banks, and donors. The resource section is greatly expanded, as are the sections on each trimester of pregnancy, on childbirth, and on life with a newborn. And Pepper provides more insight into preconception planning for both single lesbians and couples. An indispensable resource, The Ultimate Guide to Pregnancy for Lesbians is now bigger and better.

The Wild One

Lyn Denison

Since her husband's untimely death, Rachel Weston has had little time to think about anything except the needs of her two young children and her growing landscaping business. But for reasons she could never understand, she sometimes thought of Quinn Farrelly...

A survivor from the wrong side of the tracks, the roguish Quinn had reveled in the role of the town's lovable black sheep. Until that day 12 years ago when she was sentenced to prison for a tragedy she may, or may not, have caused.

Released on parole, Quinn needs a job - and Rachel needs a hired hand. Rachel knew that helping Quinn would cause an uproar among her neighbors, but she never expected the dizzying upheaval in her own heart... or that Quinn's wild yearnings would change her life forever...

Families We Choose

Kath Weston

This classic text, originally published in 1991 and now revised and updated to include a new preface, draws upon fieldwork and interviews to explore the ways gay men and lesbians are constructing their own notions of kinship by drawing on the symbolism of love, friendship, and biology.

Six of One

Rita Mae Brown

Perched right on the Mason-Dixon line, tiny Runnymede, Maryland, is ripe with a history almost as colorful as the women who live there—from Celeste Chalfonte, headstrong and aristocratic, who murders for principle and steals her brother’s wife, to Fannie Jump Creighton, who runs a speakeasy right in her own home when hard times come knocking. Then of course, there’re Louise and Julia, the boldly eccentric Hunsenmeir sisters. Wheezie and Juts spend their whole lives in Runnymede, cheerfully quibbling about everything from men to child-rearing to how to drive a car. But they never let small-town life keep them from chasing their biggest dreams—or from being true to who they really are. Sparkling with a perfect combination of sisterhood and sass, Six of One is a richly textured Southern canvas—Rita Mae Brown “at her winning, fondest best”(Kirkus Reviews).
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