Sometimes a novel feels so true to your lived experience it feels pulled from your own life. That was our sensation reading "That Was Something," a new novel by Dan Callahan (Squares & Rebels).

Subtitled "a story of Childhood," James Baldwin's only children's book "Little Man Little Man" (Duke U. Press, 1976), with illustrations by Yoran Cazac, is now available for the first time in more than 40 years.

Out music scholar Paul Kildea, author of a brilliant biography of Benjamin Britten, has looked deeply into Chopin's Op. 28 Preludes in "Chopin's Piano: A Journey Through Romanticism" (W.W. Norton).

Nicola Griffith's "So Lucky" is a profound work of autobiographical fiction about overcoming life's boundaries, resisting victimization, and discovering long-dormant strengths.

Considering Todd Fisher's fascinating "My Girls: A Lifetime with Carrie and Debbie" (William Morrow, $27.99).

Jordy Rosenberg's "Confessions of the Fox" comes as a sharp reminder of the undervalued business of reading for pleasure.

Author Don Shewey is a therapist whose work with gay men concerns issues of sex and intimacy. He has a lot of wisdom and experience to share in his new book "The Paradox of Porn - Notes on Gay Male Sexual Culture" (Joybody Books).

As the limited field of porn star memoirs goes, a new book ranks high. It's "Body to Job" (Rare Bird Books, paper, $17.95; Kindle, $9) by Christopher Zeischegg, the former and mostly heterosexual porn star whose nom de porn is/was Danny Wylde.

Lesbian novels have rarely caught the public imagination, but this deserves to change with the publication of "Stray City," a tender, insightful debut novel set in 1990s Portland.

The greatest success story that "RuPaul's Drag Race" ever launched has now written a book of advice, "Blame It on Bianca Del Rio" (Dey Street).

J. Randy Taraborrelli provides new insights in his fascinating "Jackie, Janet & Lee: The Secret Life of Janet Auchincloss and Her Daughters, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Lee Radziwill" (St. Martin's Press, $29.99).

"History of Violence" is a harrowing work of fictionalized fact that depicts its 25-year-old author's rape and assault during a botched hookup.

There are less loaded ways to ask the question "Has the Gay Movement Failed?" than making it the title of your new book from the University of California Press, as the eminent gay historian Martin Duberman just has.

"Obsexion," by local writer Matt Converse, is based on the author's seven years as a dancer at the iconic San Francisco club.