A remarkable queer history resource offering plenty of engaging, unexpected stories.
Stern presents an extensive reference work compiling short biographies of notable queer figures throughout time.
“As you turn the pages,” writes actor Ian McKellen in this queer encyclopedia’s foreword, “you may gasp ‘I never knew!’ and ‘Surely not’ and ‘Listen to this!’” The author’s compilation (which runs to more than 700 pages) of short biographies certainly offers plenty of surprises, as McKellen suggests. The sheer number of names that Stern has amassed is already an impressive feat, but the book’s most intriguing aspect for readers curious about queer history will be the specific angle that the author brings to each short description. In every entry, he strives to bring out how the contours of these figures’ private lives shaped their public work. This new 2025 edition represents the 32nd anniversary of Stern’s first publication, which was made available on diskette and later on CD-ROM in 1993. The current update covers more than 5000 years of history while staying relevant to contemporary cultural discourse by including more trans figures omitted from previous editions. Organized alphabetically, with lengths ranging from short paragraphs to a few pages, Stern’s profiles focus on reporting basic facts. Nearly every entry includes a source for further reading, providing invaluable jumping-off points for students or anyone researching queer literature. Thumbing through the pages, famous names perhaps not immediately associated with queer culture, like actress Gillian Anderson (who has publicly confirmed her bisexuality) or the 19th-century Sioux leader Sitting Bull (one of his wives was a Two-Spirit man), jump off the page. Throughout the economical bios of hundreds of artists, politicians, choreographers, journalists, film producers, and so on that the author has researched, fascinating narratives of love, discrimination, and resistance come through in his brief descriptions. Stern’s work is first and foremost a research document, but readers may find themselves reading this encyclopedia as if it were an epic novel.
A remarkable queer history resource offering plenty of engaging, unexpected stories.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9798305273526
Page Count: 689
Publisher: Shoreham House
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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