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BOOK LIST:

World AIDS Day Booklist

Updated: December 1, 2016

Book cover for AIDS : between science and politics
AIDS : between science and politics
Piot, Peter, 1949-
Call Number: 616.97 P662

Peter Piot, founding executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), recounts his experience as a clinician, scientist, and activist. As he struggled to get ahead of the disease, Piot found science does little good when it operates independently of politics and economics, and politics is worthless if it rejects scientific evidence and respect for human rights.


Book cover for AIDS at 30 : a history
AIDS at 30 : a history
Harden, Victoria Angela.
Call Number: 616.9709 H259

AIDS at 30is the first history of HIV/AIDS written for a general audience that emphasizes the medical response to the epidemic.


Book cover for The AIDS conspiracy : science fights back
The AIDS conspiracy : science fights back
Nattrass, Nicoli.
Call Number: 616.97 N284

Since the early days of the AIDS epidemic, many bizarre and dangerous hypotheses have been advanced to explain the origins of the disease. In this compelling book, Nicoli Nattrass explores the social and political factors prolonging the erroneous belief that the American government manufactured the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to be used as a biological weapon, as well as the myth's consequences for behavior, especially within African American and black South African communities.


Book cover for The AIDS generation : stories of survival and resilience
The AIDS generation : stories of survival and resilience
Halkitis, Perry N,
Call Number: 616.970973 H173

Perry N. Halkitis examines the strategies for survival and coping employed by HIV-positive gay men, who together constitute the first generation of long-term survivors of the disease.


Book cover for Being small
Being small
Brenchley, Chaz,

British Fantasy Award winner Chaz Brenchley has crafted a deeply personal ghost story of dead twins and mad mothers, of Moleskine notebooks and teen friendships, of AIDS caregivers and more.


Book cover for Body counts : a memoir of politics, sex, AIDS, and survival
Body counts : a memoir of politics, sex, AIDS, and survival
Strub, Sean O'Brien.
Call Number: 616.97 S927

Also available as an e-book.

Sean Strub, founder of the groundbreaking POZ magazine, producer of the hit play The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me, and the first openly HIV-positive candidate for U.S. Con gress, charts his remarkable life—a story of politics and AIDS and a powerful testament to loss, hope, and survival.


Book cover for The chimp and the river : how AIDS emerged from an African forest
The chimp and the river : how AIDS emerged from an African forest
Quammen, David, 1948-
Call Number: 616.97 Q16

Science journalist David Quammen traces the genetic origins of the AIDS epidemic by reviewing scientific literature, consulting researchers and traveling to the geographic source of the deadly disease.


Book cover for Christodora : a novel
Christodora : a novel
Murphy, Timothy, 1969-

Also available as an e-book and e-audiobook.

Murphy, who has long reported on HIV/AIDS, LGBTQ issues, pop culture, travel, and the arts, here travels through New York City from the AIDS-scarred 1980s to the hipster-dominated 2000s to the wealth-drenched 2020s, all by focusing on a single East Village building. “The Bonfire of the Vanities for the age of AIDS” (PW). -Library Journal


Book cover for Empty hands, a memoir : one woman's journey to save children orphaned by AIDS in South Africa
Empty hands, a memoir : one woman's journey to save children orphaned by AIDS in South Africa
Ntleko, Abegail, Sister,
Call Number: 616.970968 N961

Now 79 years old, Sister Abegail looks back over her life and recounts the remarkable events that led to her becoming the mother of dozens of children orphaned by the AIDS crisis in South Africa.


Book cover for Fairyland : a memoir of my father
Fairyland : a memoir of my father
Abbott, Alysia.
Call Number: 306.7662 A131

Also available as an e-book.

Reconstructing their life together from a remarkable cache of her father’s journals, letters, and writings, Alysia Abbott gives us an unforgettable portrait of a tumultuous, historic time in San Francisco as well as an exquisitely moving account of a father’s legacy and a daughter s love."


Book cover for The gentrification of the mind : witness to a lost imagination
The gentrification of the mind : witness to a lost imagination
Schulman, Sarah, 1958-
Call Number: 616.97 S386

Also available as an e-book.

In this gripping memoir of the AIDS years (1981–1996), Sarah Schulman recalls how much of the rebellious queer culture, cheap rents, and a vibrant downtown arts movement vanished almost overnight to be replaced by gay conservative spokespeople and mainstream consumerism.


Book cover for Holding on : African American women surviving HIV/AIDS
Holding on : African American women surviving HIV/AIDS
O'Daniel, Alyson.
Call Number: 616.970973 O22

An ethnographic portrait of HIV-positive black women and their interaction with the U.S. healthcare system, Holding On reveals how gradients of poverty and social difference shape women’s health care outcomes and, by extension, women’s experience of health policy reform.


Book cover for How To Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS
How To Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS
France, David
Call Number: 616.9709747 F815

2017 Lambda Literary award winner—
The definitive history of the battle to halt the AIDS epidemic, and the powerful stories of the gay activists who refused to die without a fight. France tells the story of the men and women who watched their friends and lovers fall: ignored by public officials, religious leaders, and the nation at large. Confronted with shame and hatred, they chose to fight for their right to live. We witness the founding of ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group), the rise of an underground drug market in opposition to the prohibitively expensive (and sometimes toxic) AZT, and the gradual movement toward a lifesaving medical breakthrough. —Provided by publisher.


Book cover for Our kind of people : a continent's burden, a country's hope
Our kind of people : a continent's burden, a country's hope
Iweala, Uzodinma.
Call Number: 616.97 I96

Iweala embarks on a remarkable journey through his native Nigeria, meeting individuals and communities that are struggling daily to understand both the impact and meaning of HIV/AIDS. He speaks with people from all walks of life—the ill and the healthy, doctors, nurses, truck drivers, sex workers, shopkeepers, students, parents, and children. Their testimonies are by turns uplifting, alarming, humorous, and surprising, and always unflinchingly candid.


Book cover for A plague on all our houses : medical intrigue, Hollywood, and the discovery of AIDS
A plague on all our houses : medical intrigue, Hollywood, and the discovery of AIDS
Hillman, Bruce J,
Call Number: 616.97 H654

Dr. Bruce J. Hillman dissects the war of egos, money, academic power, and Hollywood clout that advanced AIDS research even as it compromised the career of the scientist who discovered the disease.


Book cover for The rise and fall of the yellow house
The rise and fall of the yellow house
Treat, John Whittier.

Seattle, 1983. Frightened by the growing epidemic that has stricken his friends, Jeff flees New York for the Pacific Northwest, only to realize AIDS has a foothold in his new home.


Book cover for Sensing light : a novel
Sensing light : a novel
Jacobson, Mark A.

A stunning story of three doctors' struggles in San Francisco during the first decade of the AIDS epidemic.


Book cover for Smash cut : a memoir of Howard & art & the '70s & the '80s
Smash cut : a memoir of Howard & art & the '70s & the '80s
Gooch, Brad, 1952-
Call Number: 810.9 G645

Also available as an e-book.

Probably best known for his biographies City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara (definitive, that one) and the National Book Critics Circle Award
finalist Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor, Gooch turns his fine eye on himself. This memoir recalls his blazing life in 1980s New York and intense
affair with film director Howard Brookner, who suddenly fell ill with a devastating new illness called AIDS.


Book cover for Tell the wolves I'm home : a novel
Tell the wolves I'm home : a novel
Brunt, Carol Rifka
Call Number: F

After her beloved uncle dies of AIDS-related complications, fourteen-year-old June Elbus strikes up a secret friendship with his boyfriend in this heartbreaking coming of age story, set during the height of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.


Book cover for Visions and revisions : coming of age in the age of AIDS
Visions and revisions : coming of age in the age of AIDS
Peck, Dale.
Call Number: 810.92 P366

Also available as an e-audibook.

"Novelist and critic Dale Peck's latest work--part memoir, part extended essay--is a foray into what the author calls "the second half of the first half of the AIDS epidemic," i.e., the period between 1987, when the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) was founded, and 1996, when the advent of combination therapy transformed AIDS from a virtual death sentence into a chronic manageable illness.


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