Burks, R: All the Young Men

"If I have one message with this book it's that we all have to care for one another. Today, not just in 1984. Life is about caring for each other, and I learned more about life from the dying than I ever learned from the living. It's in an elephant ride, it's in those wildflowers dancing on their way to the shared grave of two men in love, and it's in caring for that young man who just needed information without judgement. We have to do the right thing."

In 1980s Arkansas, Ruth Corker Burks - a young, blonde, brassy, would-be Junior League member and single mom - finds herself swept up in the AIDS crisis.

Ruth could never have known that a split-second decision to look behind a door during a visit to a friend in hospital would change her life forever. Suddenly, she went from an ordinary young mother to an accidental activist, burying the ashes of generations of gay men in cookie jars (with the help of her 4-year-old daughter) in cold graves at midnight; defying local pastors and nurses to help infected gay men she met at secret bars; and ultimately advising President Bill Clinton on the national HIV-AIDS crisis.

Ruth kept her story a secret for years, fearful of her ex-husband using her work as a means to gain custody of their daughter, but following his death, Ruth is finally free to tell her story and have her voice - and the voices of those who were stigmatised, rejected and abandoned - heard.