Philly AIDS Thrift @ Giovanni's Room

Sasha and Jesse are professionally creative, erotically adventurous, and passionately dysfunctional twentysomethings making a life together in Brooklyn. When a pair of older, richer lesbians–prominent news host Jules Todd and her psychotherapist partner, Miranda–invites Sasha and Jesse to their country home for the holidays, they’re quick to accept. Even if the trip includes a third couple–Jesse’s best friend, Lou, and their cool-girl flame, Darcy–whose It-queer clout Sasha ridicules yet desperately wants.

ZAMI is a fast-moving chronicle. From the author’s vivid childhood memories in Harlem to her coming of age in the late 1950s, the nature of Audre Lorde’s work is cyclical. It especially relates the linkage of women who have shaped her . . . Lorde brings into play her craft of lush description and characterization. It keeps unfolding page after page.

Winner of the 2023 Pacific Northwest Book Award.
Finalist for the 2023 Lesbian Memoir/Biography Lambda Literary Award

“A nuanced mediation on love, identity, and belonging. This story of survival radiates with resilience and hope.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“This openhearted memoir . . . opens the door to include queer descendants of war survivors into the growing American library of love.” –Sarah Schulman, author of Let the Record Show

When Putsata Reang was eleven months old, her family fled war-torn Cambodia, spending twenty-three days on an overcrowded navy vessel before finding sanctuary at an American naval base in the Philippines. Holding what appeared to be a lifeless baby in her arms, Ma resisted the captain’s orders to throw her bundle overboard. Instead, on landing, Ma rushed her baby into the arms of American military nurses and doctors, who saved the child’s life. “I had hope, just a little, you were still alive,” Ma would tell Put in an oft-repeated story that became family legend.

An energetic, interactive YA novel about five solo pop artists navigating drama, finding their sound, and discovering what it truly takes to chase their dreams of music stardom after being forced into a pop group together.