Books like Between friends by Gillian E. Hanscombe

After moving from California to Massachusetts eleven-year-old Jill is eager to make new friends.

xxi, 164 p.; 20 cm

Drawing on moving first-person interviews and candid photographs, a collection of profiles focuses on fifteen people--from a high-school student to a gay minister--who explain what being gay has meant in their own lives.

This pioneering collection of essays explores some of the many and varied ways that women might use a particular idea of being lesbian to invent themselves, to understand how they are connected in the world, and to imagine notions of community. Focused through an anthropological lens, contributors explore a wide range of expressions that bind different lesbian communities together—from dance club culture to lesbian wedding ceremonies, from lesbian life in the 1920s to lesbian motherhood today. As a whole, Inventing Lesbian Cultures in America shows how communities and identities allow for a sense of collective meaning for lesbians today. Defined in terms of culture, the activities, alliances, and identities that make up the experience of being lesbian imbue their lives with dignity and stability. Inventing Lesbian Cultures in America will become required reading for anyone interested in gender and sexual identity.

The reclamation of the term queer over the last several decades marked a shift in the study of sexuality from a focus on supposedly essential categories such as gay and lesbian, to more fluid notions of sexual identity. On the cutting-edge of this significant shift was Annamarie Jagose’s classic text Queer Theory: An Introduction. In this groundbreaking work, Jagose provides a clear and concise explanation of queer theory, tracing it as part of an intriguing history of same-sex love over the last century. Blending insights from prominent theorists such as Judith Butler and David Halperin, Jagose illustrates that queer theory's challenge is to create new ways of thinking, not only about fixed sexual identities such as straight and gay, but about other supposedly immovable notions such as sexuality and gender, and man and woman. First released almost 25 years ago, this groundbreaking work has provided a foundation for the continuing evolution of queer theory in the twenty-first century.

On the surface, thirty-six-year-old Brooke Valentine has a picture-perfect life: a gorgeous. Main Line husband, a precocious pre-teen daughter, a great career in advertising, and a stunning house in Philadelphia's Society Hill. But when her husband cheats on her--again--Brooke is devastated. Reeling from the blow, she takes her daughter and heads to the one place she feels safe: home. Alcott is a beautiful seaside town on the coast of New Hampshire. It's where Brooke and her two best friends, Sara Kemper and Claudia Reynolds, survived the trials and tribulations of high school--and forged a bond that could never be broken. Now, Brooke's marriage is crumbling, homemaker Sara has left her abusive husband, and Claudia--a successful designer--may actually be in love for the first time. Brooke would never have guessed that they'd all end up back in Alcott--and need each other more than ever. With her friends to lean on, Brooke learns to laugh again, to trust again, to love again--and discovers that though life may blow you off course, friendship can help you weather any storm.

School outsider Jesse, a lesbian, is having secret trysts with Emily, the popular student council vice president, but when they find themselves on opposite sides of a major issue and Jesse becomes more involved with a student activist, they are forced to make a difficult decision.