FRIENDS OF DOROTHY: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Icons, excellent gift book for your favorite gay guy

FRIENDS OF DOROTHY: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Icons
ANTHONY UZAROWSKI (illus. Alejandro Mogollo Díez)
Imagine! Publishing
$24.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: This giftable collection of Instagram-worthy illustrated biographies takes you on a tour through LGBTQIA+ history from the 20th century through today—featuring Judy Garland, RuPaul, and Lady Gaga.

What makes a gay icon? Free, uninhibited expression; an open mind; creativity; and bravery. Friends of Dorothy celebrates a wide range of people with the strength, vulnerability, charisma, and style that set them apart and gave them status with the queer community.

Queer icons include supporters of LGBTQIA+ rights such as Marsha P. Johnson, and others like Divine and RuPaul who shattered social barriers to become important cultural ambassadors of queerness, changing the world in the process. Other icons are timeless entertainers with unique appeal, from Judy Garland and Bette Midler to Grace Jones and Lady Gaga.

This collection welcomes readers into a flamboyant world populated by larger-than-life figures who inspired LGBTQIA+ people—over the decades—creating controversy, challenging conventions, and sometimes putting their own lives on the line in order for new generations to live in a more equal and accepting world.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Watch Anthony Uzarowski's interview with Robert Bellisario!
My idea of a good, entertaining browser's book for gifting this #Booksgiving.

It is important to note that thes mini-biographies are of queer icons, not necessarily queer people. No one, the author is careful to state, imputes a private sexual behavior to the not-out folk in here...though I guess you would have to be a diehard homophobe to ignore the unspoken realities of some of the faces herein. Still, there is no necessity of being out, still less out and proud, to be a bona fide gay icon.

The author, whose interview linked above you should totally devote an hour of your life to watching, is a major pop culture maven. His credentials are spread all over gay media. He knows, in other words, his stuff. He has selected a good balance of music, film, and activists of both sexes and other genders. The forty lovely illustrations are both good art and witty commentary...Freddy Mercury has one fun portrait in here!...so the package is aimed directly at gifting, whether to yourself or others.

It isn't groundbreaking new information, or incisive commentary, it is pretty much just what it says...celebratory profiles with portraits, meant to be engaged with in bursts or otherwise over time. A browser's book, as I said before; thus pretty much perfect for the gift giving season.