Creating a Framework for HIV Survival

By Jeff Berry and Matt Sharp

Released on June 5 to coincide with HIV Long-Term Survivors Awareness Day, this free downloadable report arrives courtesy of The Reunion Project. It calls for the creation of a national coalition of long-term survivors to help advance research, programs, community building and advocacy. This is needed, the authors write, to help survivors “as we continue to battle the long-term effects of medications, isolation, post-traumatic stress disorder, stigma, aging and comorbidities, [among other issues].”

The Great Believers

By Rebecca Makkai

Two intertwining stories shift from 1980s Chicago, where AIDS is devastating a close group of gay friends, and 2015 Paris, where the now-grown sister of one of those gay men is searching for her estranged daughter. Needless to say, the early epidemic reverberates in unexpected ways. In his New York Times review, Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours, calls Makkai’s third novel “a page-turner about illness and morality.”

HIV Pioneers: Lives Lost, Careers Changed, and Survival

Edited by Wendee M. Wechsberg

This nonfiction collection includes profiles of and personal narratives by HIV researchers, doctors, activists and long-term survivors from the early days of the AIDS epidemic. The writings here showcase often overlooked voices and a fascinating range of topics: a 25-year-long patient-doctor relationship, people who use drugs, a bishop in the Black church, eureka moments in HIV science, and prevention efforts among South African women.