Your ultimate LGBTQIA+ Reading List for Pride month
It's pride month (yay) and whilst that marks a wonderful time for celebration, it's important that we also continue to shine a light on LGBT issues and experiences, both past and present. One of the most important parts of this is educating ourselves in order to better support the queer community and what easier way is there to educate than reading...
10 books to read this pride month and beyond
1) We Are Everywhere
A rich and sweeping photographic history of the Queer Liberation Movement, from the creators and curators of the massively popular Instagram account @lgbt_history, released in time for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.
2) The Stonewall Reader
June 28, 2019 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, which is considered the most significant event in the gay liberation movement, and the catalyst for the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the United States. Drawing from the New York Public Library’s archives, The Stonewall Readeris a collection of first accounts, diaries, periodic literature, and articles from LGBTQ magazines and newspapers that documented both the years leading up to and the years following the riots.
3) Leaving Isn't The Hardest Thing
At once razor-sharp, profoundly brave, and often very, very funny, the essays in Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing interrogate our notions of ecstasy, queerness, and what it means to live freely. Each piece is a reckoning: of survival, identity, and how to reclaim one’s past when carving out a future.
4) Tomorrow Will Be Different
Informative, heartbreaking, and profoundly empowering, Tomorrow Will Be Different is Sarah McBride’s story of love and loss and a powerful entry point into the LGBTQ community’s battle for equal rights and what it means to be openly transgender. McBride weaves the important political and cultural milestones into a personal journey that will open hearts and change minds.
5) With Teeth
A surprising and moving story of two mothers, one difficult son, and the limitations of marriage, parenthood, and love. Blending warmth and wit with a candid take on queer family dynamics, With Teeth is a thought-provoking portrait of the delicate fabric of family—and the many ways it can be torn apart.
6) Rainbow Milk
An essential and revelatory coming-of-age narrative from a thrilling new voice, Rainbow Milk follows nineteen-year-old Jesse McCarthy as he grapples with his racial and sexual identities against the backdrop of his Jehovah’s Witness upbringing.
How do you find yourself when the world tells you that you don’t exist? A triumphant memoir of forgiveness and family, both chosen and not, We Have Always Been Here is a rallying cry for anyone who has ever felt out of place and a testament to the power of fearlessly inhabiting one’s truest self.
8) Sister Outsider
The essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde. In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change.
9) Giovanni's Room
James Baldwin’s groundbreaking novel about love and the fear of love, set among the bohemian bars and nightclubs of 1950s Paris. With sharp probing insight, Giovanni’s Room tells an impassioned, deeply moving story that lays bare the unspoken complexities of the human heart.
10) First Time For Everything
A “hilarious, tender, raw, and heart-stoppingly moving” (Amanda Eyre Ward) debut about a down-on-his-luck gay man working out how he fits into the world, making up for lost time, and opening himself up to life’s possibilities.
Celebrating pride month
If you enjoyed reading up on our book list, why not check out our blog '5 LGBTQIA+ activists of the past you should know about' - paying tribute to some of the wonderful activists who made such an impact on the advancement of gay rights and contributed to all the important progress that has been achieved so far ❤️