Common Language Bookstore

Welcome to Common Language Bookstore

Common Language Bookstore Website

We are one of only a dozen LGBT-identified and 18 Feminist-identified bookstores in the U.S. and Canada. There used to be hundreds. If you do live in or near one of those rare bookstores, by all means, support them.

If you are not in one of those few lucky towns, you can still support an independent Feminist/LGBT Bookstore through this website.

Through this site, you can order nearly any book direct from us! This is the best way for you to buy new books online while supporting a local queer business! Thank you for supporting Common Language!

News Flash: Memoir by Armistead Maupin

OMG. I just found out that there is an Armistead Maupin memoir coming out. True, it isn't until October...but I am SO excited. Pre-order your copy (below). Here is a blurb from the publisher about Logical Family: A Memoir by Armistead Maupin:

In this long-awaited memoir, the beloved author of the bestselling Tales of the City series chronicles his odyssey from the old South to freewheeling San Francisco, and his evolution from curious youth to ground-breaking writer and gay rights pioneer.

Born in the mid-twentieth century and raised in the heart of conservative North Carolina, Armistead Maupin lost his virginity to another man "on the very spot where the first shots of the Civil War were fired." Realizing that the South was too small for him, this son of a traditional lawyer packed his earthly belongings into his Opel GT (including a beloved portrait of a Confederate ancestor), and took to the road in search of adventure. It was a journey that would lead him from a homoerotic Navy initiation ceremony in the jungles of Vietnam to that strangest of strange lands: San Francisco in the early 1970s.

Reflecting on the profound impact those closest to him have had on his life, Maupin shares his candid search for his "logical family," the people he could call his own. "Sooner or later, we have to venture beyond our biological family to find our logical one, the one that actually makes sense for us," he writes. "We have to, if we are to live without squandering our lives." From his loving relationship with his palm-reading Grannie who insisted Maupin was the reincarnation of her artistic bachelor cousin, Curtis, to an awkward conversation about girls with President Richard Nixon in the Oval Office, Maupin tells of the extraordinary individuals and situations that shaped him into one of the most influential writers of the last century.

Maupin recalls his losses and life-changing experiences with humor and unflinching honesty, and brings to life flesh-and-blood characters as endearing and unforgettable as the vivid, fraught men and women who populate his enchanting novels. What emerges is an illuminating portrait of the man who depicted the liberation and evolution of America's queer community over the last four decades with honesty and compassion--and inspired millions to claim their own lives.

Logical Family includes black-and-white photographs.