Gay bars have operated as the most visible institutions of the LGBTQ+ community in the United States for the better part of a century, from before gay liberation until after their assumed obsolescence. In The Bars Are Ours Lucas Hilderbrand offers a panoramic history of gay bars, showing how they served as the medium for queer communities, politics, and cultures. Hilderbrand cruises from leather in Chicago and drag in Kansas City to activism against gentrification in Boston and racial discrimination in Atlanta; from New York City’s bathhouses, sex clubs, and discos and Houston’s legendary bar Mary’s to the alternative scenes that reimagined queer nightlife in San Francisco and Latinx venues in Los Angeles. The Bars Are Ours explores these local sites (with additional stops in Denver, Detroit, Seattle, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and Orlando as well as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Texas) to demonstrate the intoxicating---even world-making---roles that bars have played in queer public life across the country.

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY: The New York Times * NPR * Vogue * Gay Times * Artforum * “Gay Bar is an absolute tour de force.” –Maggie Nelson "Atherton Lin has a five-octave, Mariah Carey-esque range for discussing gay sex.” –New York Times Book Review As gay bars continue to close at an alarming rate, a writer looks back to find out what’s being lost in this indispensable, intimate, and stylish celebration of queer history. Strobing lights and dark rooms; throbbing house and drag queens on counters; first kisses, last call: the gay bar has long been a place of solidarity and sexual expression—whatever your scene, whoever you’re seeking. But in urban centers around the world, they are closing, a cultural demolition that has Jeremy Atherton Lin wondering: What was the gay bar? How have they shaped him? And could this spell the end of gay identity as we know it? In Gay Bar, the author embarks upon a transatlantic tour of the hangouts that marked his life, with each club, pub, and dive revealing itself to be a palimpsest of queer history. In prose as exuberant as a hit of poppers and dazzling as a disco ball, he time-travels from Hollywood nights in the 1970s to a warren of cruising tunnels built beneath London in the 1770s; from chichi bars in the aftermath of AIDS to today’s fluid queer spaces; through glory holes, into Crisco-slicked dungeons and down San Francisco alleys. He charts police raids and riots, posing and passing out—and a chance encounter one restless night that would change his life forever. The journey that emerges is a stylish and nuanced inquiry into the connection between place and identity—a tale of liberation, but one that invites us to go beyond the simplified Stonewall mythology and enter lesser-known battlefields in the struggle to carve out a territory. Elegiac, randy, and sparkling with wry wit, Gay Bar is at once a serious critical inquiry, a love story and an epic night out to remember.

A vivid, electric tale set in New York and personally recommended by bestselling author Nick Hornby (Fever Pitch, About a Boy): These Days Are Ours is an irresistible coming-of-age story for the Lena Dunham generation from debut author Michelle Haimoff. New York City, six months after 9/11: everything has changed and nothing has. Hailey graduated college months ago but she's still living in her family's Fifth Avenue penthouse, spending her nights falling in and out of bars across Upper East Side Manhattan - and the thrill is starting to wear off. It isn't easy being young, rich and beautiful. Overnight, it seems like everyone suddenly has their lives completely sorted. Katie has a great job at Morgan Stanley, Michael Brenner is training to be a human rights lawyer and trust-fund kid Randy is just content to carry on having fun. Hailey is lost somewhere in the middle, torn between chasing down the next wild party and admitting that it might be time to grow up. She craves something more meaningful - but what? Perhaps Brenner holds the answer: gorgeous, charismatic and aloof, Hailey is convinced he is the missing piece in her puzzle. But when she meets Adrian, a man so totally different from her usual privileged crowd, she begins to realise she's been looking for happiness in all the wrong places... These Days Are Ours captures the feverish excitement and exhilarating uncertainty of the city, where bright young things are forever brimming with possibility and buckling under the pressure. Michelle Haimoff is a writer and blogger whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, PsychologyToday.com and The Huffington Post. She is a founding memebr of NOW-New York State's Young Feminist Task Force and blogs about feminist issues at genfem.com. She was raised in New York City, curently lives in Los Angeles, and can be found online at MichelleHaimoff.com. These Days Are Ours is her first novel.

The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.

In April of 2000, Gary Erickson turned down a $120 million offer to buy his thriving company. Today, instead of taking it easy for the rest of his life and enjoying a luxurious retirement, he's working harder than ever. Why would any sane person pass up the financial opportunity of a lifetime? Raising the Bar tells the amazing story of Clif Bar's Gary Erickson and shows that some things are more important than money. Gary Erickson and coauthor Lois Lorentzen tell the unusual and inspiring story about following your passion, the freedom to create, sustaining a business over the long haul, and living responsibly in your community and on the earth. Raising the Bar chronicles Clif Bar's ascent from a homemade energy bar to a $100 million phenomenon with an estimated 35 million consumers, and a company hailed by Inc. magazine as one of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. four years in a row. The book is filled with compelling personal stories from Erickson's life-trekking in the Himalayan mountains, riding his bicycle over roadless European mountain passes, climbing in the Sierra Nevada range--as inspiration for his philosophy of business. Throughout the book, Erickson--a competitive cyclist, jazz musician, world traveler, mountain climber, wilderness guide, and entrepreneur--convinces us that sustaining one's employees, community, and environment is good business. If you are a manager, executive, business owner, or board member, Raising the Bar is your personal guide to corporate integrity. If you are a sports enthusiast, environmentalist, adventure lover, intrigued by a unique corporate culture, or just interested in a good story, Raising the Bar is for you.