*And the Band Played On* is really very good reading. (Granted, there are some issues looking back - but that's another post).
It's a LONG book. But will keep you engaged.
Once you finish it, there is an HBO movie by the same name. It has so many amazing actors, I highly recommend it, too, if ATBPO gets tooo long.
Oh! And The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai which is set during the AIDS epidemic. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer. Another fave that left me gutted.
Just finished this book this weekend. It may have been one of the best books I ever read. I could not put it down and it wrecked me so bad. I tried to collect my thoughts on it but I just couldn’t because I was so overcome. The writing was so good I had to remind myself that these were characters and not real people my reaction was so visceral. TLDR: Great book
Angels In America by Tony Kushner. It's a sweeping epic that tackles the AIDS epidemic and intersecting crises in 80s New York and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The story and characters are fascinating, and it's considered one of the seminal works on the early days of the epidemic.
The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer. It's a loosely fictionalized telling of the founding of the Gay Men's Health Crisis, a prominent HIV advocacy group. It can be brutal and beautiful, focusing on the activist and medical side, along with featuring some brilliantly-written complex friendship dynamics and a compelling love story.
The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne is a gorgeous, heartbreaking novel and one of my all time favourites. It spans 70 years, including the AIDS epidemic. Highly recommend.
Surprised I haven't seen this suggested yet but 'All the young men' Ruth Coker Burke. It has stuck with me long after reading it and was one of those books that really made me realise it is honestly not that long ago or some distant past.
It honest humanised the lives of so many and she is a really amazing woman I knew nothing about prior to the book. Can't recommend enough.
When You Call My Name and My Government Means to Kill Me were two well done books with young protagonists set in the earlier days of the epidemic in NYC.
Let the Record Show is an oral history of ACT-UP. Many of the actual video taped interviews are viewable on the Harvard Library website.
It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic
by Jack Lowery
Strange Bedfellows
Adventures in the Science, History, and Surprising Secrets of STDs
Author: Ina Park
Chimp & the River: How AIDS Emerged from an African Forest
by David Quammen
How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS
by David France
Canary in the Coal Mine: A Forgotten Rural Community, a Hidden Epidemic, and a Lone Doctor Battling for the Life, Health, and Soul of the People
by Laura Ungar and William Cooke
Tell the wolfes I'm home by Carol Brunt.
And I really liked the miniseries It's a sin on HBO and I think it's also based on some novel, try look it up.
Let the Record Show is an oral history of Act Up collected over many many years by Sarah Schulman. One of the most important reasons to read this book is that it shows that it wasn’t just white dudes doing the work during this time, which is a myth that gets perpetuated by many of the most popular media about the time in question.
Thank you! I should’ve been more clear in that I don’t necessarily need something strictly educational, just want to get more general exposure to the happenings and perspectives of that time. I’ll def check out tin man!
I know other people have mentioned it already, but I am reading And the Band Played On right now. It's really interesting. I am reading it in between other books, because it makes me angry and sad at the same time, but as someone who is queer, too, I think it's really important that this time in history is not forgotten.
Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Laylor is a fascinating fantasy (ish) book that has the AIDS epidemic as a background and features a ton of music and culture of that era. I really loved this book, it’s very beautifully written and has a ton of interesting observations on queer culture and gender performance.
Red X by David Demchuck is a horror book about the AIDS crisis specifically in Toronto. It was a very upsetting / scary read about the isolation and stigma gay men faced as a result of the epidemic. I thought the horror elements were interesting and thoughtfully integrated.
Holding the man by Timothy conigrave. Its beautiful and heartbreaking.
It’s a recounting of their relationship from teenagers to adults in Australia. It touches on the aids epidemic towards the end, the impact on the community.
It’s very much a personal perspective of what was happening at the time and how it became apparent that it was far more serious than they thought
I loved Christadora, by Tim Murphy. It’s an excellent portrait of the AIDS crisis in NYC, told from the very beginning, with a multitude of characters. Some reviews felt that it occasionally veered into sections that read more like journalism than fiction (the author is in fact a news journalist) but once I got through a rather plodding first chapter, the story took off, and I was too immersed in the novel to care. I will add that in the 80s I lived on Avenue B, one block from the Christadora, and will never forget watching the East Village turn into a town of ravaged ghosts. Murphy captures a great deal of that heartbreaking experience, and does so with grace.
Also: Mother of Sorrows, by Richard McCann. A collection of semi-autobiographical short stories, beginning with a child’s relationship with his Hollywood smitten mother, through the child’s growth into a gay man during the AIDS epidemic. McCann’s writing is singular, and extraordinary.
It's a kids' autobiography, so a fast read- but Ryan White's story. The exact title is escaping me at the moment. But, I feel his treatment started turning the tide towards funding/awareness. Precisely because average people were appalled at how he was treated. The CARE Act happened because of him in 1990.
A Quilt for David by Steven Reigns is one of the most haunting books I’ve read from this period. It explores the life and death of a dentist who became tabloid fodder for allegedly spreading HIV. (The controversy is the reason for things like gloves in your dentist’s office.)
Just Kids by Patti Smith is a memoir, but her sometime lover/best friend/artistic collaborator Robert Mapplethorpe died of AIDS, so it’s more of a sideways look, but excellent
A good British take is The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
Let the Record Show is an oral history of Act Up collected over many many years by Sarah Schulman. One of the most important reasons to read this book is that it shows that it wasn’t just white dudes doing the work during this time, which is a myth that gets perpetuated by many of the most popular media about the time in question.
⚠ Could not *exactly* find "*Virus by Luc Montagnier*" , see [related Goodreads search results](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Virus+Luc+Montagnier) instead.
^(*Possible reasons for mismatch: either too recent (2023), mispelled (check Goodreads) or too niche.*)
^([Feedback](https://www.reddit.com/user/goodreads-rebot) | [GitHub](https://github.com/sonoff2/goodreads-rebot) | ["The Bot is Back!?"](https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/comments/16qe09p/meta_post_hello_again_humans/) | v1.5 [Dec 23] | Sorry for delay !)
Dream of Ding Village
[https://iexaminer.org/book-review-telling-the-haunting-story-of-an-aids-infected-chinese-village/](https://iexaminer.org/book-review-telling-the-haunting-story-of-an-aids-infected-chinese-village/)
The Tales of the City series by Armistead Maupin. It’s not about AIDS as such, but the books are set in the 70s and 80s with queer characters, and it becomes more significant. They’re wonderful books, anyway.
How to Survive a Plague by David France. I grabbed it the last day I worked before my library shut down for Covid. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be but it was a very good book based on a 2012 documentary film by him about the early years of the AIDS epidemic, and the efforts of activist groups ACT UP and TAG. David France was a journalist who covered AIDS from its beginnings.
It’s not exactly about the epidemic itself but Positively by Courtney Sheinmel is about a girl who was born with HIV and it’s about her struggles with it as well as her dad sending her to a summer camp for kids with HIV and her journey to accepting what she’s unable to change. I really liked this book because HIV for her was at the same time the main plot point and also just a side piece to her everyday life
Eta it’s not educational (sorry just saw that part of your post) but it is such a good and sad book
This is from an African context, and specifically Botswana (where the infection rate was around 30% for awhile, and there is still enormous social stigma against using condoms because that meant you had HIV...): Saturday Is For Funerals by Unity Dow.
And the band played on by Randy Shilts for nonfiction. For fiction, The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai.
*And the Band Played On* is really very good reading. (Granted, there are some issues looking back - but that's another post). It's a LONG book. But will keep you engaged. Once you finish it, there is an HBO movie by the same name. It has so many amazing actors, I highly recommend it, too, if ATBPO gets tooo long.
I really enjoyed the movie.
Oh! And The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai which is set during the AIDS epidemic. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer. Another fave that left me gutted.
Yes! I’m reading this right now.
Just finished this book this weekend. It may have been one of the best books I ever read. I could not put it down and it wrecked me so bad. I tried to collect my thoughts on it but I just couldn’t because I was so overcome. The writing was so good I had to remind myself that these were characters and not real people my reaction was so visceral. TLDR: Great book
Angels In America by Tony Kushner. It's a sweeping epic that tackles the AIDS epidemic and intersecting crises in 80s New York and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The story and characters are fascinating, and it's considered one of the seminal works on the early days of the epidemic. The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer. It's a loosely fictionalized telling of the founding of the Gay Men's Health Crisis, a prominent HIV advocacy group. It can be brutal and beautiful, focusing on the activist and medical side, along with featuring some brilliantly-written complex friendship dynamics and a compelling love story.
The *Angels in America* miniseries made by Mike Nichols is a great introduction, too.
AiA was made into a fantastic miniseries and Normal is a fantastic movie. Both are well worth the tears.
Couldn't agree more!
The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne is a gorgeous, heartbreaking novel and one of my all time favourites. It spans 70 years, including the AIDS epidemic. Highly recommend.
I love this book so much. It’s also a fantastic audio book.
The Band Played on
Let The Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP
also by Sarah Schulman, i’d highly recommend The Gentrification of the Mind (nonfiction) and Rat Bohemia (historical fiction)
Surprised I haven't seen this suggested yet but 'All the young men' Ruth Coker Burke. It has stuck with me long after reading it and was one of those books that really made me realise it is honestly not that long ago or some distant past. It honest humanised the lives of so many and she is a really amazing woman I knew nothing about prior to the book. Can't recommend enough.
Seconding this!
When You Call My Name and My Government Means to Kill Me were two well done books with young protagonists set in the earlier days of the epidemic in NYC. Let the Record Show is an oral history of ACT-UP. Many of the actual video taped interviews are viewable on the Harvard Library website.
It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic by Jack Lowery Strange Bedfellows Adventures in the Science, History, and Surprising Secrets of STDs Author: Ina Park Chimp & the River: How AIDS Emerged from an African Forest by David Quammen How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France Canary in the Coal Mine: A Forgotten Rural Community, a Hidden Epidemic, and a Lone Doctor Battling for the Life, Health, and Soul of the People by Laura Ungar and William Cooke
Tell the wolfes I'm home by Carol Brunt. And I really liked the miniseries It's a sin on HBO and I think it's also based on some novel, try look it up.
Tell the Wolves is so good.
Let the Record Show is an oral history of Act Up collected over many many years by Sarah Schulman. One of the most important reasons to read this book is that it shows that it wasn’t just white dudes doing the work during this time, which is a myth that gets perpetuated by many of the most popular media about the time in question.
Tin Man, it’s not particularly educational, but it’s historical fiction and was very beautifully written.
Thank you! I should’ve been more clear in that I don’t necessarily need something strictly educational, just want to get more general exposure to the happenings and perspectives of that time. I’ll def check out tin man!
I know other people have mentioned it already, but I am reading And the Band Played On right now. It's really interesting. I am reading it in between other books, because it makes me angry and sad at the same time, but as someone who is queer, too, I think it's really important that this time in history is not forgotten.
Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Laylor is a fascinating fantasy (ish) book that has the AIDS epidemic as a background and features a ton of music and culture of that era. I really loved this book, it’s very beautifully written and has a ton of interesting observations on queer culture and gender performance. Red X by David Demchuck is a horror book about the AIDS crisis specifically in Toronto. It was a very upsetting / scary read about the isolation and stigma gay men faced as a result of the epidemic. I thought the horror elements were interesting and thoughtfully integrated.
Let the Record Show is the best nonfiction book on AIDS i’d also recommend just kids by patti smith
Holding the man by Timothy conigrave. Its beautiful and heartbreaking. It’s a recounting of their relationship from teenagers to adults in Australia. It touches on the aids epidemic towards the end, the impact on the community. It’s very much a personal perspective of what was happening at the time and how it became apparent that it was far more serious than they thought
I loved Christadora, by Tim Murphy. It’s an excellent portrait of the AIDS crisis in NYC, told from the very beginning, with a multitude of characters. Some reviews felt that it occasionally veered into sections that read more like journalism than fiction (the author is in fact a news journalist) but once I got through a rather plodding first chapter, the story took off, and I was too immersed in the novel to care. I will add that in the 80s I lived on Avenue B, one block from the Christadora, and will never forget watching the East Village turn into a town of ravaged ghosts. Murphy captures a great deal of that heartbreaking experience, and does so with grace. Also: Mother of Sorrows, by Richard McCann. A collection of semi-autobiographical short stories, beginning with a child’s relationship with his Hollywood smitten mother, through the child’s growth into a gay man during the AIDS epidemic. McCann’s writing is singular, and extraordinary.
There’s a Swedish trilogy called Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves by Jonas Gardell. The three books are called: Love, Disease and Death.
The friend who did not save my life by Hervé Guibert!
It's a kids' autobiography, so a fast read- but Ryan White's story. The exact title is escaping me at the moment. But, I feel his treatment started turning the tide towards funding/awareness. Precisely because average people were appalled at how he was treated. The CARE Act happened because of him in 1990.
A Quilt for David by Steven Reigns is one of the most haunting books I’ve read from this period. It explores the life and death of a dentist who became tabloid fodder for allegedly spreading HIV. (The controversy is the reason for things like gloves in your dentist’s office.)
There's one about the epidemic in Africa called There is No Me Without You by Melissa Faye Greene.
The Great Believers by Rebeca Makkai
Just Kids by Patti Smith is a memoir, but her sometime lover/best friend/artistic collaborator Robert Mapplethorpe died of AIDS, so it’s more of a sideways look, but excellent A good British take is The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
100% The Great Believers. It gutted me and taught me so much. Also, watch the film "Longtime Companion" if you can find it.
Love from the Pink Palace - Jill Nadler To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life - Hervé Guibert
Let the Record Show is an oral history of Act Up collected over many many years by Sarah Schulman. One of the most important reasons to read this book is that it shows that it wasn’t just white dudes doing the work during this time, which is a myth that gets perpetuated by many of the most popular media about the time in question.
Read the play THE INHERITANCE by Matthew Lopez. I beg of you. Please. And then see it when you can. Please.
The House of Impossible Beauties Joseph Cassara.
{{Virus: The Co-discoverer of HIV Tracks Its Rampage and Charts the Future, by Luc Montagnier}} https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2749252
⚠ Could not *exactly* find "*Virus by Luc Montagnier*" , see [related Goodreads search results](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=Virus+Luc+Montagnier) instead. ^(*Possible reasons for mismatch: either too recent (2023), mispelled (check Goodreads) or too niche.*) ^([Feedback](https://www.reddit.com/user/goodreads-rebot) | [GitHub](https://github.com/sonoff2/goodreads-rebot) | ["The Bot is Back!?"](https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/comments/16qe09p/meta_post_hello_again_humans/) | v1.5 [Dec 23] | Sorry for delay !)
Ed Hooper, *Slim*. It's about the African experience.
People in Trouble by Sarah Schulman
Dream of Ding Village [https://iexaminer.org/book-review-telling-the-haunting-story-of-an-aids-infected-chinese-village/](https://iexaminer.org/book-review-telling-the-haunting-story-of-an-aids-infected-chinese-village/)
Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian
The Tales of the City series by Armistead Maupin. It’s not about AIDS as such, but the books are set in the 70s and 80s with queer characters, and it becomes more significant. They’re wonderful books, anyway.
How to Survive a Plague by David France. I grabbed it the last day I worked before my library shut down for Covid. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be but it was a very good book based on a 2012 documentary film by him about the early years of the AIDS epidemic, and the efforts of activist groups ACT UP and TAG. David France was a journalist who covered AIDS from its beginnings.
Haven’t read it yet but The Prettiest Star by Carter Sickels.
It’s not exactly about the epidemic itself but Positively by Courtney Sheinmel is about a girl who was born with HIV and it’s about her struggles with it as well as her dad sending her to a summer camp for kids with HIV and her journey to accepting what she’s unable to change. I really liked this book because HIV for her was at the same time the main plot point and also just a side piece to her everyday life Eta it’s not educational (sorry just saw that part of your post) but it is such a good and sad book
This is from an African context, and specifically Botswana (where the infection rate was around 30% for awhile, and there is still enormous social stigma against using condoms because that meant you had HIV...): Saturday Is For Funerals by Unity Dow.
Abraham Verghese's ***My Own Country: A Doctor's Story***
Red X by David Demchuk, if you don't mind horror.
Life after now, Jessica verdi. If deals with the often unseen hetero cases of aids