- Categories:LGBTQ+ [1]
Pride Among Booksellers [2]
- By Zoe Perzo [3]
In many ways, this June has been my first real Pride. Like many newer members of the community, the 2020 quarantine left me with too much time to think and I accidentally bucked compulsory heterosexuality. Since then I’ve stayed COVID-conscious, masking and avoiding large events. Coupled with my small hometown, these past few years have been devoid of Pride events.
Until Children’s Institute.
It was an honor and a delight to spend my first real Pride surrounded by booksellers, publishers, authors, and coworkers who share my passions and values.
In the wake of all the anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, I am constantly reminded that the first Pride was a riot. It has always been an act of resistance, a refusal to live as anything other than ourselves. And to me, the ability to find ourselves represented in books is a vital piece of that. It gives readers a glimpse of all the different ways there are to exist. And maybe they’ll find themselves along the way.
To celebrate this Pride month, myself and other ABA team members have compiled a list of LGBTQIA2S+ titles that have been meaningful to us, helped us feel seen, or helped us discover ourselves.
Fiction
Giovanni's Room [4] by James Baldwin
Meet Cute [5] by Jocelyn Davies et al.
Girl, Woman, Other: A Novel [6] by Bernardine Evaristo
Willa & Hesper [7] by Amy Feltman
Invisible Life [8] by E. Lynn Harris
Redwood and Ponytail [9] by K. A. Holt
One's Company [10] by Ashley Hutson
Stray City [11] by Chelsey Johnson
Faggots [12] by Larry Kramer
Tales of the City [13] by Armistead Maupin
The Song of Achilles [14] by Madeline Miller
The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich [15] by Deya Muniz
Notes of a Crocodile [16] by Qiu Miaojin, translated by Bonnie Huie
Juliet Takes a Breath [17] by Gabby Rivera
Small Town Pride [18] by Phil Stamper
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous [19] by Ocean Vuong
Hell Followed with Us [20] by Andrew Joseph White
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit [21] by Jeanette Winterson
Leave Myself Behind [22] by Bart Yates
Nonfiction
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic [23] by Alison Bechdel
Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture [24] by Sherronda J. Brown
The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village [25] by Samuel R. Delany
Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir [26] by Akwaeke Emezi
Girlhood [27] by Melissa Febos
Freedom in This Village: Twenty-Five Years of Black Gay Men's Writing, 1979 to the Present [28] by E. Lynn Harris
Gay Like Me: A Father Writes to His Son [29] by Richie Jackson
In the Dream House: A Memoir [30] by Carmen Maria Machado
Amateur: A Reckoning with Gender, Identity, and Masculinity [31] by Thomas Page McBee
Diving Into the Wreck: Poems 1971–1972 [32] by Adrienne Rich
And Then I Danced: Traveling the Road to LGBT Equality [33] by Mark Segal
Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration [34] by David Wojnarowicz
The Chronology of Water: A Memoir [35] by Lidia Yuknavitch