Let’s plan our reading for LGBTQ+ Pride Month! Over 70+ queer books 🥰🏳️‍🌈

Hello loves! It’s pride month coming up in June in the UK, and I thought that now would be a good time for us all to swap some LGBTQIA+ recommendations! Drop a comment down below with your favourite recs 👇🥰

Classics – recommendations
The Member of the Wedding – Carson McCullers
A Single Man – Christopher Isherwood
I Will Not Serve – Eveline Mahyere
Orlando – Virginia Woolf
Maurice – EM Forster
Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
Carol – Patricia Highsmith
Hidden Path by Elena Fortún

Historical
Swimming in the Dark – Tomasz Jedrowski
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters
The New Life – Tom Crewe
The Pull of the Stars – Emma Donoghue
Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
The World and All That It Holds – Aleksandar Hemo
Man-Eating Typewriter – Richard Milward
Fellow Travelers – Thomas Mallon

Literary
Love and Other Thought Experiments – Sophie Ward
Nadezhda in the Dark – Yelena Moskovich
Young Mungo – Douglas Stuart
Shuggie Bain – Douglas Stuart
Pity – Andrew McMillan
Boulder – Eva Baltasar
Our Wives Under the Sea – Julia Armfield
Sunburn – Chloe Michelle Howarth
Memorial – Bryan Washington
English Animals – Laura Kaye
Mr Loverman – Bernadine Evaristo
Detransition, Baby – Torrey Peters
Interesting Facts About Space – Emily Austin Everyone in this room will Someday be Dead – Emily Austin
Private Rites – Julia Armfield
After Sappho – Selby Wynn Schwartz
Mrs S – K Patrick
Jonny Appleseed – Joshua Whitehead

A silly fun time
Infamous – Lex Croucher
Heartstopper – Alice Oseman
Cosmoknights – Hannah Templer
Herc – Phoenicia Rogerson
Radio Silence – Alice Oseman
Good Omens – Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

Non-fiction
The Pink Line: The World’s Queer Frontiers – Mark Gevisser
Female Husbands: A Trans History – Jen Manion
The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes – Zoe Playdon
Love Letters: Virginia Woolf & Vita Sackville West
In the Dream House – Carmen Maria Machado
Knocking Myself Up: A Memoir of my (In)Fertility – Michelle Tea
Queer: A Graphic History – Meg-John Barker and Jules Scheele
Girls Can Kiss Now – Jill Gutowitz
Bi: The Hiden Culture, History and Science of Bisexuality – Julia Shaw
A Bookshop of One’s Own: How a group of women set out to change the world – Jane Cholmeley
My Autobiography of Carson McCullers: A Memoir – Jenn Shapland
La Batarde – Violette Leduc
The Waterfront Journals by David Wojnarowicz

Other…
Queer: A Collection of LGBTQ+ writing from Ancient Times to Today – ed. Frank Wynne
Bi+ Lines: An Anthology of Contemporary Bi+ Poets (ed. Helen Bowell

Community recs (asked my queer pals)
Chain Gang All Stars – Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
All That’s Left in the World – Erik J Brown
Metal from Heaven – August Clarke
Neon Roses – Rachel Dawson
Bellies – Nicola Dinan
Learned by Heart – Emma Donohue
Cuckoo – Gretchen Felker-Martin
The Z Word – Lindsay King-Miller
One Last Stop – Casey McQuiston
The Balance of Fates – Racquel Raelynn
The Everlands Cycle – J C Rycroft
Priory of the Orange Tree & A Day of Fallen Night – Samantha Shannon A Trans Man Walks Into a Gay Bar – Harry Nichols
Bad Gays: A Homosexual History – Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller

#pride #pridemonth #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtqbooks #queerbooks #booktube #bookrecommendations

hello my loves my name is Hannah and welcome to my channel we are today getting ready for the start of June being pride month at least in the UK June is pride month and I thought it would be good to do a kind of hybrid video of some recommendations of some books that I have read um with really great quer representation and also a little bit of a TBR so there’s kind of three themes that are going to run through this video video um so recommendations books that I have read um TBR which is not strictly if if you’ve been on my channel before you know that I don’t do very well with like a strict TBR I very rarely set myself an official TBR Challenge and so these are all books that are like on my radar if I say that on my TBR it means I want to get to them at some point not I promise you that I am going to read this book in June because I can promise you now I’m not going to read all these books in June um but I thought I’d tell you about them in case you were looking for some recommendations and if any of them are of interest and then at the end we’re going to chat about some books that um just some Pals of mine have recommended um and also as I’ve done this I’ve gone through this process of kind of compiling some of these books um I’ve noticed some gaps so at the end I’m going to ask for some recommendations from you too so this is a this is a mutual relationship right you can’t be all take I need your recommendations too I’m going to go through um genre by genre and I’m going to if you’re new here if you’ve landed on this video um and you’ve never seen any rare content before um I read predominantly literary fiction contemporary fiction Classics predominantly so what you’re not going to get here is tons of contemporary romance tons of fantasy um science fiction that sort of stuff I I like some of those genres I just don’t read tons of them so that is a disclaimer now to say that we’re going to skew heavily towards certain genres okay final other health warning I have close to 70 books that I will be mentioning in this this video and I don’t want to be here for hours and hours and I’m sure you don’t want to be here for hours and hours so forgive me in advance if I rattle through some of these titles and if I’m not giving you tons of information about them or like full reviews for the books that I’ve read because we don’t have time I am going for quantity over quality today forgive me normally I allow myself to really chat on as you can probably tell from this introduction and now let’s talk about the books the first sort of genre we’re going to look at is Classics um uh and actually the first three of these titles are books that I read or talk about in more depth in other videos on my channel so I will link them down below I will also have the titles of every book that I mention in the order that I mention it in the description box down below so like you you don’t need to grab a pen okay I mean you can if you want but I’ll I’ll put them in the description box don’t worry so the first one is the member of The Wedding by Carson McCullers this is the second book I’ve read by Carson McCullers uh she was writing in America in mostly the 40s and 50s so kind of mid 20th century and she writes sort of rural rural settings family dramas Coming of Age really really well so recommend that I read that in my most recent reading blog that was on my channel I my channel last week uh the next one is a single man by Christopher isherwood this is a really beautiful uh noela almost it’s it’s quite short and it is one day in one man’s life in the aftermath of his partner his male partner dying so he it’s a book that is very introspective it’s very much about grief Christopher isherwood is a beautiful writer and um yeah I really recommend that and I also really recommend the film adaptation with Colin F then this is probably my favorite classic queer book and it’s one that if you’ve been on my channel for a little while you know that I’m like on a bit of a mission to make more people read this book and it is I will not serve by Evelyn mayair I don’t even think it’s in print anymore beg your libraries to try and find a copy of it it’s a beautiful Coming of Age book um translated from from the French mid 20th century uh following a young woman who falls in love with her teacher who is a nun loved it loved it and I reread that book last year or the year before but I vlogged the whole experience so if you want to know more about that I will link that video down below and finally of the books that I have read and recommend it’s an absolutely classic but Orlando by Virginia wolf um which I do I need to tell you about Orlando I probably don’t need to tell you about Orlando right it’s Virginia wolf it’s Orlando and then some books that are like vaguely on my TBR um from some classic classic from some classic authors uh is Maurice by em Foster that is that is up there that is one of I think the only book that he wrote that was sort of openly queer I think um giovan’s room by James Baldwin I definitely will be reading that in June because I’m about to go and pick up my copy from the library so we will definitely be reading giovan’s room by James Baldwin um Carol by Patricia heith um which I think a lot of people know from the film adaptation with Kate Blanchet and Rooney Mara um I don’t have a copy of that I don’t think I’ll be getting to that one soon but that I mean I’ve been really enjoying reading some Patricia heith over the last um year or so so I’m I’m looking forward to getting to that one very soon and then one that is relatively new on my radar is the hidden path by Elena fortun and this is a bit like the Evelyn marier this is a bit of a forgotten classic it was unpublished in her lifetime I think the author died in the 50s and this book I think was only published for the first time in 2016 I think it is a strongly autobiographical literary fiction book I think and I think it’s bisexual which is the reason that it popped up on my radar because I was going through everand desperate to find bisexual things because that’s my flavor of the rainbow so that’s it that’s it for for Classics obviously I think it goes without saying this will not be an exhaustive list of books uh in these genres it’s just ones that I’ve read that I’ve liked and ones that are on my radar I am not not at all suggesting that there are not more queer Classics but by all means feel free to go and drop your recommendations for any of these genres in the comments down below um and in fact any genre that I sort of skip or or Miss over if you read a lot of that help anyone out below who’s looking for some of those recommendations let’s let’s crowdsource this guys come on so the next r that I’m going to talk about is historical fiction which I don’t read like tons and tons of but I I almost always enjoy it when I do so it’s one that I I want to read more of and I particularly enjoy quer historical fiction because you know for various reasons so I’ve got a few that I’ve read and enjoyed there’s a couple that are more kind of like recent historical like 20th century so the first one is swimming the dark by Thomas jski this is um I’m doing a whole separate Euros reading challenge it’s a long story more information coming in upcoming videos um but I needed to read a book from Poland and this is this is the Polish book that I picked um and this follows two young boys who fall in love um in the postwar uh period in Poland and follows their story I really enjoyed it it is a debut and I think you can tell that it was a debut but I still I still liked it I would recommend it if you’re looking for a kind of like quit historical um fiction I read my very first Sarah Waters last winter I know I know I can’t believe I haven’t read a before so I read Tipping the Velvet um and actually that is also linked in a reading blog which I will link down below um and I loved it I loved her writing style it was this big sweeping sort of Victorian um romance I really really really enjoyed it and I’ve been looking to get to more Sarah Waters um in the future and then the last one that I’m going to talk about is great circle by Maggie shipstead this is a book that took me so completely by surprise because I don’t don’t know why but I just didn’t think I was going to like this book this is a sort of split narrative historical fiction book that is has one line where we’re following a woman who was trying to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the globe and then in the present day an actress who is getting ready to play her in a film and I don’t know I just I didn’t think it was going to be for me but oh my I loved this book I loved this book so much much I will reread this book and I don’t do a lot of rereading so uh so that’s that’s it for recommendations that I there are more I know let’s just assume that at the end of all of these sections I’m saying I know there’s more I know there’s more uh but I do have a bunch that are on my TBR um in some guys or another again some that I’m very much planning on reading ently and some that I’ll get to when I get to the first is the New Life by Tom crew this has been everywhere this book it’s being up for awards it’s it’s one Awards it’s um following a male couple um in the 20th century I think while um homosexuality was illegal in the UK um so I’m looking forward to getting to that one soon the pull of the Stars by Emma Donahue um Emma Donahue I have only read room by and I know that room is a bit of an outlier in her sort of body of work um and that she mostly does historical fiction so I’m really looking forward to that one um that is sort of I think it’s is it safic and something to do with nurses or midwives in the 20th century maybe and then I said I wanted to read more Sarah water is I have on my shelf where is she fingersmith it’s just there um which I I is one that I am planning on getting to soon um if you have seen the film The handmaiden which is an excellent film this is the the book that it’s based on although this I think is set in London whereas the handmaiden moves it to um Japan then a Bosnian book that I have been meaning to get to for ages is I bought a copy of this in hardback and I think it’s about to come out in paperback which is so annoying um the world and all that it holds by Alexander hemond this is a Bosnian book which um follows two men I think at the outbreak of the war so I think it’s it’s set in Saro I think at like in the immediate aftermath of France ferdinand’s assassination I think I think and then I have uh this book here uh which is manting typewriter by Richard Milwood this is a more sort of recent historical fiction I think this is I think this is set in the80s maybe it’s a bit earlier than that um but this I’m really interested in getting to it has had such mixed views I think it is a very divisive book but I’m really interested because it is at least part written in polari which if you’re not familiar is in the UK um a sort of slang language that’s like a mixture of lots of different things like roing slang but also um has a lot of Roma influences and it was used a lot by queer people um in the 20th century I think to um speak to each other without sort of like outing themselves in public you get what I mean so yeah I’m really looking forward to to reading that and then the last one is fellow Travelers by Thomas Malin and this one I don’t know much about at all except that it’s set in the 50s and I think it’s is it something to do with the CIA but the reason this is on my radar is because there’s a there is a series adaptation coming out soon it may already be out I think it’s coming out soon with Matt bomber and um Jonathan Bailey in it so I want to read the book because then I want to watch the series that’s that’s all there is to that next up genre wise we have literary fiction which is by far the genre that I read the most of um and so we’ve got the most recommendations here what I have vaguely done because I’m very aware that that literary is a real spectrum and so I’ve started with kind of the ones that I think are potentially not even the most challenging but that are very much literary in the sense that they’re doing something very Innovative with the way that the story is being told and written through to I guess slightly more commercial literary fiction but like obviously where I still think the writing is very good you let’s just go first one is a book that I really enjoyed but that I don’t think I understood and that is Love and Other thought experiments by Sophie Ward this is really um a a series of interconnected short stories that follows a a family two women and their son um but each story or chapter is playing with a particular thought experiment or kind of philosophical idea so it’s incredibly esoteric and intellectual and there was some stories that I loved and some imagery that has really stayed with me and some where I just didn’t quite feel smart enough but if you’re up for a kind of intellectual challenge give it a go I really I really liked it um but yeah like I said don’t like ask me to have an in-depth conversation with you about it because I will not be able to I mean don’t ask me to do that about any book after I’ve read it because I will have forgotten my handle is Hannah lost the plot for a reason the next one is nadesha in the dark by Yelena mosovich this is a Ukrainian novel written in verse um I talked about this in my April reading wrapup um and it is a very sort of intimate portrait of um two women who are in a relationship and they’re just sitting next to each other on a bed but running through the speaker’s mind so one of the women’s Minds is sort of their whole history and you get a lot of um conversations about mental health about identity about um cultural identity um particularly because um these are because the the speaker is from the Ukrainian diaspora um so grew up in Ukraine but no longer lives there and yeah it was it was it was great I didn’t like love love it but I think it was really interesting so but now two books that I really did love love shagy Bane and young by Douglas Stewart these are beautifully written literary portraits of like young queer Working Class People um so shy Bane was his um debut and that was brilliant and followed a young boy called shuggy um growing up and then young is a totally separate story um but is almost like an older version of of shagy Bane who’s a teenager and I really loved both of them but young was my was my favorite um they are they do have quite a lot of threat in them and they’re like not all they’re very sad um so like maybe don’t go to these if you’re looking for joyful uplifting queer books but actually having said that I don’t know how many of these would be described as joyful and uplifting so joyful and uplifting queer books in the comments down below please folks um but yeah I I loved loved both of them then in a kind of similar vein in terms of exploring sort of workingclass um identity and quis is a book that I read this year by Andrew McMillan which is pity this is his debut novel and I really enjoyed it it’s a kind of multigenerational story very much about um local identities but a huge amount of quess being explored through that as well um lots of like repeated imagery of like surveillance and layers it was beautiful and then a book that I read very recently um and I think I talked about this in the same video as I spoke about the member of The Wedding by Carson McCullers this is Boulder by AA basar it’s the first book by AA balasar read but I will definitely be getting to more this is about um a young woman who lives this incredibly independent life she is a a cook on like a freighter ship like a not like a cruise ship basically like a what’s the word I want I’m very tired today folks and I’m um I’m filming this on the day that it’s going up on my channel so forgive me if I’m a little flustered um but yeah she she works on a ship the word for which I cannot describe um and she she lives this very like untethered existence and then she falls in love with a woman who wants to tether her basically and and it’s about a relationship where two people love each other very much but have very different ideas of how they want to live and it’s very very short and very very beautifully written um I loved it speaking of beautifully written and I love loved it our wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield I mean this but I mean I feel stupid putting it on it won the POI prize so like if you’re looking for queer books I think you will have come across this book before um but this is like particularly in like my particular queer group of friends this is like one of the most universally beloved books because I think it’s got lots of different elements going on I loved it for its literary beautiful writing and explorations of like characters and relationships but there’s also body elements of it it’s got a slight kind of sci-fi dystopian thing happening in it it is about um two women um who are married one of whom works on a submarine and her submarine disappears for a really long time and they assume that she’s dead and then she comes back one day and she does not come back right and it’s it’s beautiful speaking of beautiful um the next book is Sunburn by Chloe Michelle ho I feel like this is one of the books that I talk about all the time and I really really loved it this is set in island in the ’90s it is a Coming of Age sort of first queer Love Story it made me ball my eyes out the I describe this book and I do this with a pinch of salt because I have only seen the TV adaptation of nor noral people I have not read normal people by Sally Rooney but this is giving safic safic normal people oh my God the next book is memorial by Brian Washington I didn’t love love this book but I thought it was really interesting in the way that um follows um two men who are in a relationship and the mother of one is coming to stay with them but they haven’t had a conversation about that and I think his mother is she is one of them Japanese and one is African-American I think so there’s really interesting like cultural things as well as like family relationships and Dynamics and yeah I I I really enjoyed it it didn’t stay with me as much as some of the other books have but um I really enjoy Brian Washington’s writing I even liked mostly his short Story collection and I don’t do short stories so um the next one is English Animals by Laura K this is about a young woman who goes to work at this um big house in the country and she thinks she’s going to be like an opair but when she gets there there’s no children and it’s about the relationship that she has with this married couple um and it’s got a lot of Taxidermy in it uh then another family drama that I absolutely loved and read quite recently is Mr lover Man by Bernardine avisto this follows a man in his 70s who has been in a relationship in a secret relationship with his best friend mors for like since they were teenagers um but he is also married to a woman and has children and has basically um been living a double life his entire life and the book starts at with the sort of question of whether or not he is finally willing to sort of come out and and publicly be queer and oh I loved it I thought it was all of the characters were so complex it reminded me um a lot of like how Z Smith writes families it was uh and then D transition baby by Tori Peters um I ate this book up when I read it last summer it’s I think it’s like a really good summer read not because it’s set during the summer but like for it it was just so like you could have read it in a Warner it’s um following a sort of awkward love triangle um featuring as you might be able to tell from the title a detransitioned man so um a man who used to identify as trans woman and is now reverted back and identifies as a cisgendered man and it’s it’s like gnarly and difficult and yeah I really I really enjoyed it and then finally two recommendations by the same author if you are looking for really sort of engaging funny literary fiction but that still kind of packs a punch and asks a lot of questions I really like Emily Austin for this I I loved everyone in this room will someday be dead more which is the first of her books that I read but I also read her most recent release which is interesting facts about space um they both deal a lot with sort of um very specifically with queer identities and um trauma shame closeting but in a very kind of funny way I really like Emily Austin so that’s it for the recommendations sing Hannah how the hell did I not mention any Ali Smith um how to be both by Ali Smith how to be both say hey to my uh for my lunch and then some that are on my TBR I’ve kept this quite short because like I like half my TBR is literary fiction and probably at least half of that is queer so I could talk about so many books but I’m just going to mention Julie armfield’s new book that is coming out in a couple of weeks in the middle of pride month uh that’s private rights and this I think is a sort of climate dystopian quer book I think the premise is that it hasn’t stopped raining in like a really long time so like basically like whatever we’ve done to the planet now it just rains permanently um and you know she wrote about water beautifully and our wives Under the Sea so I’m looking forward to I’m looking forward to that one um I have after safo by Selby win Schwarz on my list um I don’t know if this would count as historical or literary but my understanding is that it’s sort of Reflections on different queer writers throughout history but it’s a novel did I get that right it was shortlisted or long listed for the women’s prize a couple of years ago um and I picked it up and it’s been sat on my shelf so I need to get to it at some point um then one that I will be getting to soon is Mrs S by K Patrick um this is set in a um boarding school that is based on the boarding school that my best friend went to um and my best friend farmer who you may recognize if you’ve watched um any of my like book to screen adaptation videos she features in those um she actually was on the lacrosse team with this author so I am I am reading this mostly um because she says it’s a very accurate portrayal of the school so uh I’m looking forward to that um and then the last one has been on my list for ages and that is Johnny apple seed by Joshua Whitehead this is a author by an um indigenous American Author um and it’s um the main character is two spirit and I have never read a book with that representation in before I don’t think or at least not where it was a central part of it um so yeah I’m looking forward to getting to that one and then I don’t don’t I didn’t know what to call this section because it’s basically like other fiction that isn’t any of the genres I’ve spoken about and to me I call it having a silly fun time and I don’t mean that at all in a disparaging way I just it’s a silly little Funtime book um and I have a few recommendations for those and a couple on my TBR the so essentially kind of like Cozier Vibes lower Stakes warm little gay hug is the vibe um so firstly um Lex Croucher uh I’ve read Infamous by Lex Croucher but they’ve got like quite a few titles now and um it’s my turn to school brag but I went to the same school as Lex Croucher I was about four or five years above them though but I remember them I remember them um and uh yeah so there kind of Infamous is a sort of Regency Era like jostin Vibe but they’re very funny and um they do like historical sort of different historical settings um I have like I said I haven’t read others by them but they’ve got one that’s like um like an auuan Legend Vibe they’ve got one that is like their latest one I don’t don’t actually know if it’s out yet is not for the faint of heart and that’s like Robin Hood bit gay I mean but gayer because I mean we all know why those merry men were marry then then a couple of sort of comics and graphic novels I I feel stupid recommending Heart Stopper if you haven’t heard of Heart Stopper um literally I mean if you’re watching this video and you haven’t heard of Heart Stopper just stop watching me and go watch that adorable show immediately um and yeah uh the heart stoer Comics are brilliant and a very heartwarming lovely lovely time and then cosmon knites by Hannah temper which I’ve still only read volume one of I’m not a big graphic novel um or comic reader but we read this for a queer book club that I was in um and it’s it’s uh yeah like a gaze in space Vibe um and it’s it was a it was a it was a fun silly time I don’t know what else to tell you um and then a couple that um I’m planning on reading soon is um another Alice oan uh radio silence so I have read a few Alice oans other than heart stuer I don’t love them as much as heart stuer but they are like the only ya that I will read like if Alice osan’s written it I I will read it but but I only read that work I don’t know why that they’re the exception to the rule but I’m pretty allergic to ya in almost all other circumstances um except for Alice oan so I have ra I’ve borrowed radio Silence of a friend of mine and oh I missed a book um I haven’t actually finished this yet and I’ve got about an hour left of the audio book but I have been eating up H by Phoenicia Rogerson um which is a Greek myth retelling of um Hercules in which Hercules is a very silly bisexual man um and it is not like the greatest thing I’ve ever read it’s certainly not one of the best myth retellings but I am having such a fun time with it um it’s got like a the audio book has like a full cast um it splits into like multiple different povs you get all these different aspects of Hercules’s life so not just the sort of 12 Labors bit um um but it is it has been it has been delightful so I I recommend that and then the final one on my silly fun time is good Omens which I know I I I suspect if it’s anything like the series is more like implied gay but in my head Cannon and in everyone’s head Cannon aeril and Crawley are so gay that I’m counting it as a gay book and I think I think Neil and Terry would would agree I think they would agree um so that is it for now for fiction we’re going to jump and talk about some non-fiction real quick and then we’ll come back to some recommendations from my pals and finally some requests although I mean you’ve probably already noted some of the absences here so you know the the requests probably not going to come as a surprise to you um so first up and again I’ve I’ve kind of ranked these from like most nonfiction in terms of like this is an informative sort of not academic but you know very much non-fiction through to like some more sort of accessible non-fiction if non-fiction is not really your genre so we have the pink line the world’s queer Frontiers by Mark giser this is looking um taking a kind of global look at queer identities now a bit historically but looking at how queer identities are used as political or become political fodder um and the various ways that that presents differently in different countries um and a lot about like different rights so there’s a lot about like trans rights which I mean here in the UK and in other countries is the latest football that is being kicked around um and yeah it’s it’s it was really really interesting I listened to the audio and I wish I’d read it in either a digital or a physical copy because I think I would have retained it a little bit better but I do recommend it if you’re if you’re kind of interested in like quick politics um then a couple of trans history books so I read female husbands um by Jen Manion and this is looking at um sort of sort of well we don’t know if they were trans men or if they were sort of um CIS women who were choosing to present male because it was the only way that they could marry the women that they loved but either way um marriages between two um people who were assigned female at Birth but where one is presenting as male and it goes through a a few different um examples of that from history and it was really interesting in the way it talks about transing gender because obviously it’s really hard to find the appropriate language to talk about these people because we don’t they’re obviously historical figures and we don’t know how they would have identified themselves like whether they would have identified as transmen or whether they would have identified as lesbians like it but it was it was really interesting um like not it didn’t like blow me away but again if it’s something that you’re interested in it was an interesting read and ditto the hidden case of you and Forbes or fores I think it’s pronounced um by Zo played in this is looking more at one specific case of um a trans man and how that case has ricocheted through British legal history it was real interesting real interesting um then we have more sort of memoir style things we have obviously and I I talked I talk about this in other books where I’m Rec in other videos where I’m recommended quer books but love letters The Love Letters between Virginia wolf and Vita Sackville West so not really a memoir but you know published letters um I really really loved this I I think I’ve reread it a couple of times or at least like dipped in and out of it I mean two really beautiful writers writing really beautiful gay things to each other then in the dream housee by kmen Maria Machado this is sort of um an incredibly like literary and poetic Memoir but it is it is dealing with um domestic abuse in a queer relationship so like big content warning for that um but it was absolutely beautifully written and then the last Memoir um I really enjoyed knocking myself up by Michelle T um which is all about as you might be able to tell from the title um her trying to get pregnant um but it also talks a lot about um her career identities and her um various Partners identities and stuff but it’s it’s a much more informal style um than some of the others then we have um if you just want a really accessible useful queer history I I recommend queer a graphic history by Dr Meg John Barker and Jules shial um this didn’t go into as much depth as I would have liked but it is also a graphic history so like very much a my problem um uh but it is a really good useful kind of overview um and done in a really kind of accessible format so I recommend that and then an essay collection um if you want sort of like funny essays that examine um social issues but also like a lot of Pop Culture I loved girls can kiss Now by Jill girl it was like real funny really clever really witty recommend so so they’re my recommendations for non-fiction and then I have a couple of books that are on my my vague TBR one that I really would like to read this month because it has been on my shelf for ages is by by Julia Shaw which is a history um the hidden history culture and science of bisexuality I think I think we all just need to know the title of that book to know what that book’s about um and then this was actually recommended by my friend Helen um but I’ve added it to my TBR so I’m not putting it in the recommendations section I’m putting it in in my TBR this is a Bookshop of One’s Own how a group of women set out to change the world by Jane chomley and let me just read you the captivating true story of an underdog business a feminist Bookshop F founded in thatches Britain from a woman at the heart of the women’s Liberation movement what was it like to start a feminist Bookshop in an industry dominated by men How could a lesbian thrive in Thatcher’s time with the government legislating to restrict her rights how do you run a business when your real aim is to change the world and um Helen said it was great and it’s available on ever around so I was like yes I will I will listen to that then after I spoke about how much I enjoyed the KAS mullor book in my last video a couple of people said in the comments that I should read my autobiography of Carson McCulla by Jen and shapland so this I think is a hybrid Memoir and biography so it is in part about Jen trying to write a biography of Carson mccullas but then I think also elements of their own life too but it’s come very highly recommended so I’m looking forward to getting to that and then another sort of blend of autobiography and and fiction is uh labat by um by Violet luk which is uh described as an obsessive and revealing self-portrait of a remarkable woman um and that it relates her long search for her own identity through a series of agonizing and passionate love affairs and maybe this also came up on my bisexual search I think it did but yeah so that’s a kind of like Memoir um as well and then um I’m also interested in reading the Waterfront journals by Daniel wvic which is so he if you’re not familiar with him and I don’t know tons about him but he was a visual and performance artist who was a really Fierce campaigner um during the uh AIDS crisis in the 80s and he died really tragically young and these are some of his um really short form kind of like sket sketch Pros that he was writing he was going around like interviewing different queer people I think and sort of like writing these little kind of like mini you know kind of like humans of New York in my head that’s what this is I don’t know if it’s actually what this is but in my head that’s what this is um so that’s the non-fiction and then a couple of other little bits um I really recommend if you want to get like an anthology um to just like have a little scan through I really recommend um head of Zeus published queer um which is a collection of writings from ancient times through to yesterday I think it’s title something like that um and it’s got loads of different loads of different writers um from right across uh the rainbow and across the world as well um and they’re just kind of short little excerts so some of it’s poetry some of it is extracts from novels some of it extracts of non-fiction um and yeah it’s like a good little kind of like covers a lot of bases might introduce you to some authors that you particularly like and then I am planning on reading by lines which is a poetry anthology from um oh my goodness I can’t remember which Publishing House sorry um I made the decision not to pull all of the physical books off of my shelf to do this video because I thought that might make me cry um so I don’t don’t have it to hand it’s upstairs with the rest of my poetry Collections and but I’m looking forward to getting um getting to that one I’ve been enjoying reading more poetry this year and um now feels like a good time for that particular collection so um yeah all of the poems in there are from um poets who identify as by plus so there’s my recommendations SL TBR very quickly I’m going to give you some titles um from my pals so they’re a bookish bunch um but they read not everyone has the same sort of um but not everyone has the same reading taste as me so I can’t speak to these books but I thought I would chuck them in um anyway some of them I have heard of and are on my on my radar um but I basically asked a load of people like what was the last quer book you read that you really liked and like what are you excited to read soon so here we are I’m going to be reading these ones sorry uh Chang gang All Stars by naname AJ Brena which I had heard of this is a dystopian um book where I think prisoners are made to fight like Gladiators in order to win their freedom sounds like hunger gamesy but not ya I think um then all that’s left in the world by Eric J Brown and the sequel the only light left burning which is which is a post-apocalyptic ya romance I’ve seen the cover of this and I really want to read it but I I’m allergic to ya I don’t know why I told myself last year I wasn’t allowed to read any more ya romance because it’s not for me and no one benefits no one benefits um but if you like way romance there you go um metal from Heaven by August Clark which is described as this has got me so interesting a bloody lesbian Revenge tale and political fantasy for fans of Gideon the 9th which I haven’t read and The Princess Bride I mean that sounds excellent I want to read that book uh neon Roses by Rachel dwson I have also added to my TBR after everyone like four people in the group chat were like oh my God that was amazing this is um so if you know the film Pride about the lesbians and gays support the miners where like the LGBT group went to um well the LG group at the time if we’re being historically accurate um went to South Wales to support the minor strike this is about that um so I really want to read that um bellies by Nicola denan which is one that I’ve seen like all over bookstagram um and is like a literary romance Coming of Age um I think that’s also going on my TBR if I’m honest but I also feel like in my head I’m comparing it too much to Sunburn and like I feel like that book’s got a very special place in my heart so like it might not benefit from the comparison um and then learned by Heart by emad donu so another emad donu um which is about two girls who fall in love at a boarding school in 18th century York so we’ve got that one uh cucko by Gretchen Falcon Martin which is a horror and I couldn’t in my very lazy Google find out if this is adult horror or ya horror but it’s about a group of queer kids who are trying to survive in a conversion Camp from Hell The Zed word by Lindy King Miller which I can’t remember who was it J Jenny Jenny was it you who who recommended this um all they said was zombie apocalypse at Pride so there’s that um I mean I’m surprised Casey mcquiston hasn’t come up more to be honest but one last stop by Casey mcquiston uh the balance of Fates by ra uh by raakel railin which is a queer Romany with vampires uh the everland cycle by JC rcraft which um mega specifically said book two I think the Timeless Legion um and that is a I think safic and trans fantasy is that right and then finally prior of the orange tree and a day of fall the Night by Samantha Shannon now I feel like this summer is the summer that I read the prior of the orange tree I feel like this is the summer for that I will probably regret saying that but that’s what I feel like is happening um and then two very quick non-fiction recommendations from the gang a trans man walks into a gay bar by Harry Nickles um which I think is like a quite like hopeful life affirming sort of memoir um and bad gay a homosexual history by Hugh lemy and Ben Miller I think I’ve listened to a couple of episodes there’s a podcast of this so it’s basically looking at um different figures in queer history who are a little complicated um and evil uh so yeah um I I might dip into the podcast a bit more in June and then work out from that if I want to read the book so that brings me to my requests I would love some lit and I’m talking mostly literary and Classics here gang okay because they’re my favorite genres I’m desperate for some non-binary and trans representation I would love some Arrow or Ace representation because I can’t and by and by seexual rep really rep actually I feel like I get so angry and annoyed that I don’t like really like contemporary romance as a genre because I feel like a lot of the easily accessible as in like can get them in libraries and like on various like subscription apps or whatever of queer rep is in those genres and it’s they’re just not geners that I particularly like so I’m really want really great trans literary fiction have you read a great literary fiction book that’s trans because I I want to read that book I really want to read that book so yeah so there’s that in terms of specifically looking for non-binary gender queer trans umbrella literary fiction and bisexual fiction and Aras fiction um and also intersectional identities I am very very conscious of how white this list is so again recommendations by people of color who are queer who have written books that are preferable literary fiction histor I will allow historical fiction also um and Classics I beg you please please and um I think that I think actually think that’s all my requests I think that’s all my requests I think I have enough books to be getting on for now um wow 54 minutes okay I’ve been talking long enough I hope you’ve managed to pick up some titles there let me know in a comment down below if there’s any that you’ve read that that you particularly enjoy please let me know your recommendations and also if you’ve added any of these books to your own TBR for pride month then that would be delightful and obviously I should have said this up top but obviously queer books are for all of the all of the months of the year that goes without saying so I will be reading these books in June J but also forever so um yeah please also do that year round but um let me know what’s on your TBR for for June or for future months and um if you’ve enjoyed this video please do give it a little thumbs up that really helps with the old algorithm and I will see you soon for something else my may my may wrapup I think bye gang happy reading [Music]