Books like Two Boys Kissing — picked by fans

Ever since I was a child, I’ve been dismayed by the humdrum monotony of everyday life. Of course, that is why one is drawn to books. The books on this list are historical fiction with otherworldly wonder. The world of the imagination is not an escape; it’s a portal to a new view of life. I’ve written four books set in the Italian Renaissance and two set in ancient Britain. Because of the depth of research, each one has taken about eight years. I’m constantly astonished at how imagination can fill the gaps history leaves. Striving always for plausibility, it is encouraging to count historians and archaeologists amongst my readers, cheering me on.

I’ve always been a big fan of sci-fi and fantasy, especially anything involving superheroes or D&D-style adventure. For the longest time, I had to find queer representation through subtle glances and creative readings of characters. I loved these stories for the sci-fi and fantasy elements, but it was frustrating that every love story that came up was straight. It didn’t feel possible for queer love to be a part of a plot, and even when there was a queer character it had a “very special episode” vibe to it. Finally, queer characters are becoming part of the story, and it doesn’t have to be a “big deal.”

I have always been a lover of love stories, yet it can be difficult to find “love stories” that aren’t put into other boxes or aren’t genre romances. My debut is also a family drama that spans sixty years of the twentieth century, but it’s a love story at its core. It’s sometimes classified as a romance because it’s a love story set on a beach. Still, it doesn’t quite fit into typical romance frameworks, which have characters meet and pulled apart before finally ending up back together. My book, instead, explores the reality of loving someone over decades and building a life together.

I have known that I was gay since I was in second grade and kissed a boy on the playground. But that wasn’t the only way that I knew. Coaches, bullies, religion, and family warned me by namecalling, violence, and intimidation. It wasn’t until I was in college that I heard homosexuality portrayed in a positive light. Thank you, Walt Whitman. Then I saw The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Dessert, and knew that I had to go on my own adventure in search of my gay tribe. Novels can be a tribe. I hope the books on my list give you a place to find acceptance and love.

I came of age in Oklahoma as a gay youth in the late 1970s and early 1980s, keeping myself hidden out of safety and shame. Once I was old enough to leave my small-minded town and be myself, I crashed headlong into the oncoming AIDS epidemic. It set me on a path to understanding the world and my place in it as a homosexual. I turned to reading about the lives and histories of those who came before me, to learn about their deaths and survivals in what could be an ugly, brutal world. These works continue to draw me, haunt me, and inspire me to share my story through my writing. 

I am a historian based in England, raised in Texas. While undertaking a summertime spoken Latin course at the Vatican in 2001 I found myself in the midst of Italian protests against that year’s G8 summit in Genoa. The strength of the anti-globalization movement, and the violent response from the Carabinieri, sparked an early interest in the historical controversies surrounding globalization and US foreign policy. Ten years later, I had a PhD in History from the University of Texas at Austin and the first draft of what would become my book, The “Conspiracy” of Free Trade. 

I believe I was put on this planet to help people learn how to connect with each other and, especially, how to connect across their myriads of differences. Helping others develop stronger and deeper relationships in service of leading more meaningful and satisfying lives has given my life purpose through multiple careers—including as an executive, consultant, Stanford professor, and start-up co-founder. I’ve additionally invested fully in developing exceptional relationships with my husband (of 40 years), my now adult kids, and my closest friends and colleagues. I have seen first-hand how being interpersonally competent is a determinant of both professional and personal success.

As an entrepreneur and a professional business valuation specialist, I have a passion for understanding entrepreneurship and its often-transformational impact on society/civilization. Having worked with many business owners and inventors over the years, I've noticed that money is not always the primary motivating factor for entrepreneurs. In many instances, the benefits their products and services are intended to provide—and, in some instances, the wider social implications of those benefits—are what animates these business adventurers the most. So, these days when the work of NewSpace entrepreneurs like Musk, Bezos, and Branson are likely leading humankind to a multiplanetary future, it's an opportune time to explore the impact of entrepreneurship on society. 

During my 37 years of teaching philosophy to undergraduate students, most of whom had no prior exposure to it, my purpose was to promote self-examination of the sort practiced and encouraged by Socrates. Such self-examination is upsetting, unsettling. It leads one to insights and realizations one would prefer not to have. But by undermining one’s assumptions, these insights break one open to a whole universe of which one had been oblivious. Breakdowns make possible breakthroughs. My students didn’t realize that, just as I was trying to provoke this kind of spiritual transformation in them, their questions, criticisms, challenges, and insights provoked it in me. 

My own collusion with white supremacy and anti-Blackness is a lifelong journey I mitigate for my soul’s redemption. I am a Mississippi-born redneck, alcoholic, psychotherapist, San Francisco Bay Area queer, higher education administrator with a Critical Race Theory doctorate. I first learned democracy by watching my Mississippi parents risk their lives and mine in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Three-Fifths Magazine recently published “My First English: The Vernacular of the KKK.” My book, “Twelve Steps for White America” won the BookFest 1st Place Gold Medal for “Society and Social Sciences: Race Culture Class and Religion.” I work to live in a USA where race no longer predicts outcomes.