Books like Amateur by Thomas Page McBee

Amanda Palmer, a rock star, crowdfunding pioneer and TED speaker, shares her candid journey of asking for help, revealing the politics of generosity and creative survival in the 21st century.

A guide for gay men to overcome shame, rejection, and anger, drawing on psychology and personal experience to offer stages of emotional well‑being and tips for authentic living, including updated discussions of marriage and diverse backgrounds.

340 pages ; 21 cm1080L Lexile

Thomas Page McBee’s memoir follows his transition from female to male while wrestling with painful memories of his abusive father and a life‑changing encounter with a mugger, exploring the broader struggles of identity, legacy, and forgiveness.

"It's no secret that men often behave in mystifying ways, but in recent years we've witnessed so many spectacular public displays of male excess--indecent politicians, sleazy academics, philandering sports stars--that we're left to wonder whether something has come unwired in the collective male psyche. In the essays collected here, Kipnis revisits the archetypes of wayward masculinity that have captured her imagination over the years: the scumbag, the con man, the critic, the obsessive, cheaters, and many others. Examining men who have figured in her own life alongside the more notorious public examples, she draws out the masculine angst and sexual contradictions implicit in the erratic conduct of each. Far from the reactions of condescension and scorn that habitually greet such characters, Kipnis finds that they provoke in her complicated forms of sympathy and identification. Pushing past the usual cliche about differences between the sexes, Kipnis mixes intellectual rigor and careful analysis to give us an honest and compelling survey of the affinities, jealousies, longings, and erotics that structure the male-female bond"--

"... a comprehensive and contemporary reader for the growing field of men's and masculinities studies. It takes a conceptual approach by covering the wide range of scholarship being done on masculinities beyond the model of hegemonic masculinity. C.J. Pascoe and Tristan Bridges extend the boundaries of the field and provide a new framework for understanding masculinities studies. Rather than taking a topics-based approach to masculinity, Exploring Masculinities offers an innovative conceptual approach that enables students to study a given phenomenon from a variety of perspectives. It divides up the field in ways that provide accessible introductions to complex debates and key intra- and interdisciplinary distinctions. The book provides a portable set of conceptual tools on which scholars and students can rely to analyze masculinities in different contexts, time periods, and embodiments."--Back cover