Happy LGBT History Month! We are, of course, celebrating as we celebrate everything over here – with books! Specifically, with both fiction and nonfiction that pay tribute to LGBT history. For even more recs, check out last year’s post.
Young Adult
Where You’ll Find Us by Jen St. Jude
Calla Quick has no future. At least, that’s how it feels. Her parents disowned her via text message, and now she can’t afford to go to an all-women’s college with her girlfriend Ramona like they planned. But Calla wonders if maybe that’s for the best-because even though Calla told Ramona her parents disowned her because they found out she’s gay, the truth is, Calla has been questioning whether she’s a girl at all.
Calla wishes she had more time to figure everything out, and one night, her wish is seemingly granted. When Calla and Ramona stumble upon a mysterious farmhouse the woods, they meet five teens who claim they’ve lived there for decades. The land, which they call Amaranth, acts as a safe haven for queer kids throughout history-a place free of hate, free of violence, free of time itself. Here, Calla can be Cal, and they feel instantly accepted. They don’t have to worry about the future because at Amaranth, it will never come-until one night when the clock strikes twelve. Now under a literal ticking clock, the housemates must find a way to stop time again or face going back to their harsh realities, but as Cal learns everyone’s story, they begin to wonder what queer people lose when their history is lost to time.
Buried Feelings by Kit Rosewater
Cam was the one who discovered the hunt…
He brought it to Ivy like an offering, took her hand as they combed through San Francisco, searching for treasure and conspiring against the heteronormative agenda. But that was back then. Now juniors, they’re both out and proud—Cam as a trans man and Ivy as gay—but their friendship isn’t as assured. Problem is, Ivy can’t reveal Cam’s past betrayal without airing closely guarded secrets of her own.
…But Ivy will be the one to finish it.
As Ivy comes across the missing link in the treasure hunt from their childhood, she’s certain she can put the clues together and finally come out on top in the cat-and-mouse game Cam’s been playing with her ever since their friendship ended. Once Cam gets wind of Ivy’s renewed interest in the hunt, the ex-best friends go head-to-head in their search for gold. But as they get digging, they uncover more things buried between them than they bargained for.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | PRH
Exquisite Things by Abdi Nazemian
Shahriar believes he was born in the wrong time. All he’s ever wanted is to love and be loved, but 1895 London doesn’t offer him the freedom to be his true self, and Oscar Wilde’s trial for gross indecency has only reaffirmed that. But one night—and one writer—will grant Shahriar what he’s always wished for: the opportunity to live in a time and place where he can love freely. Rechristened as Shams and then as Bram, he finds what feels like eternal happiness. But can anything truly be eternal?
Oliver doesn’t feel that 1920s Boston gives him a lot of options to be his full self. He knows he could only ever love another boy, but that would break his beloved mother’s heart. Oliver finds freedom and acceptance in the secret queer community at Harvard that his cousin introduces him to. When he meets a mysterious boy with eyes as warm as a flame, his life is irrevocably changed, forever.
Charity & Sylvia by Tillie Walden
An openly Lesbian couple survives and thrives in 19th century Vermont–a true story, as told by Tillie Walden
The month is February in the year 1807. The place is Weybridge, Vermont: small, cold, lonely, and beautiful. Sylvia Drake is exhausted. As an unwed woman with few prospects, she is residing with and caring for her sister’s rambunctious family. Today the house is abuzz awaiting a guest—Charity Bryant. A friend of the family, she is most known for her elegant letters, with their swoopy and evocative penmanship and carefully chosen prose. But Charity’s visit is a guise, she is coming to Vermont to start over after heartbreak and rumours—so many rumours—that have grown too loud back in Massachusetts.
Being openly gay in 19th century New England is not an easy row to hoe. But Charity can only be herself, and she immediately catches—and holds—the eye of none other than Sylvia Drake. From this point on, for 44 years, the two would be inseparable, building a life together despite all odds and living as a lesbian couple in small town Vermont.
The true, exceptional story of these remarkable women is brought to life with humor and passion by the unparalleled and award-winning Tillie Walden (Spinning, On A Sunbeam). We see America grow alongside these women over a period that brings about the railroad, many novels, 14 Presidents, riots, rebellion, plagues, and poetry. Based on extensive archives of their writing, Charity and Sylvia is a groundbreaking biography that is also the story of 19th century America.
Adult Fiction
There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood by Rasheed Newson
Xavier C. Barlow, one of Hollywood’s young Black stars taking the industry by storm in the late 1950s, is Skyline Studios’s ambitious attempt to rival Sidney Poitier’s burgeoning success. His arrival into the industry is calculated, his charm is magnetic, and his seductive screen presence appeals to both audiences and celebrities across generations.
But years later, after Xavier dies at the height of his fame, Aaron Touissant—Skyline’s designated backlot fixer who helps the studio’s stars stay as deep in the closet as humanly possible—is finally ready to expose the powerful culprits responsible for his untimely death.
Nonfiction
My Bad: A Personal History of the Queer Nineties and Beyond by Hugh Ryan
The 1990s were a decade of transformation. Globalization reshaped geopolitics, and the rise of the World Wide Web revolutionized technology forever. As society shifted from the analog to the digital at the turn of the century, LGBTQ life changed profoundly. Increased visibility arrived, but at a heavy cost.
In his most personal book yet, historian Hugh Ryan guides us through a pivotal decade for queer people and its aftershocks—from new breakthroughs in activism, to the early days of AOL chat rooms, and the eventual backlash to progress. Through the prism of his own experiences, Ryan maps how queer life transitioned from private to public in the late ’90s and early aughts, reshaping the challenges and possibilities LGBTQ people navigated in the new millennium. On a Greyhound bus headed to Burning Man and the glittery dance floors of clubs in Manhattan and Berlin, a timeless and all-too-common story emerges: how a young queer person chooses silence to protect himself—only to spend another beautiful, complicated decade undoing his shame.
Funny, stylish, and deliciously nostalgic, My Bad reckons with the gains and setbacks of a decade that reshaped queer life forever.
Finding Renée Richards: The Groundbreaking Story of Tennis’s Trans Pioneer by Julie Kliegman
The candid, definitive biography of professional tennis’s first openly transgender player, Renée Richards, featuring never-before-seen archival photos and untold stories nearly lost to history, until now.
Fifty years ago, tennis player Renée Richards made international headlines in her fight to compete in the women’s draw of the 1977 US Open—marking the first time a trans athlete sued to participate in professional sports in the gender category with which they identify. Renée eventually won her case. Though she lost in the first round of the singles tournament, she and her tennis partner made it to the finals in doubles, losing to Martina Navratilova and her partner.
Finding Renée Richards chronicles Richards’s extraordinary life, moving from her tumultuous upbringing in Queens, New York, to her career as a successful eye surgeon; her years as a star tennis player to her role as a transgender pioneer. Now in her nineties, Renée remains a complex figure: A person who changed the sports world forever yet questions the place of trans athletes in that world today. GLAAD award-nominated sports journalist Julie Kliegman deftly probes these contradictions, drawing on intimate interviews and offering critical reflections on what is at stake for athletes, fans, and the queer community today, at a time when trans participation in sports is more hotly contested—and condemned—than ever before.
Finding Renée Richards includes a 20-page photo insert featuring never-before-seen archival images.
The Lesbian Bar Chronicles by Rachel Karp
A grassroots tour of the nation’s lesbian bars that illuminates their past, present, and hopeful future, from the co-creator of the hit podcast Cruising
Lesbian bars are so much more than a place to get a drink. For over a century, they’ve acted as community posts, political organizing grounds, and sanctuaries. Yet whereas in the 1980s there were an estimated 200 lesbian bars across the US, the current count sits at a few dozen.
In The Lesbian Bar Chronicles, author and co-creator of the hit podcast Cruising Rachel Karp embarks across the country with her wife and best friend to chronicle the stories of the remaining US lesbian bars. Recent narratives have claimed lesbian bars are dying, but Karp’s group finds many of the places they visit to be thriving, their communities sustaining themselves over decades of change and challenges.
Weaving together over 100 hours of immersive interviews with bar owners, staff, and regulars, Karp highlights places like
-Chicago spot Nobody’s Darling, where readers meet “the mayor” Shirley J, who in the 1970s was instrumental in the birth of house music
–Frankie’s in Oklahoma City, where readers attend a “family night” to learn how a lesbian bar can birth a chosen family
–Redz, a Chicana lesbian bar in East LA involved in the precedent setting court case that followed years of arrests for patrons wearing men’s clothing
A heartfelt reclamation of queer history and queer lives, Karp’s narrative examines how these beacons for community and inclusion can teach us to live openly, cultivate connection, and continue to take up space.
Without Prejudice: My Life as a Gay Judge by Harvey Brownstone
This searing and unforgettable memoir chronicles the turbulent trajectory of Canada’s first openly gay judge. Harvey Brownstone recounts the astonishing obstacles he confronted and surmounted with fearless resolve, including parental rejection, poverty, depression, homophobia, institutional inertia, and professional sabotage.
Harvey Brownstone’s story is a tumultuous, sometimes hilarious, and uplifting journey from bullied child to outcast after coming out to his parents, to trailblazing lawyer, to distinguished judge.
Brownstone colorfully details his momentous and inventive judicial career marked by his numerous innovations of the justice system, particularly revolutionizing Ontario’s child support enforcement program.
In retirement, he is no longer shackled by the restraints traditionally imposed on the judiciary, and thus Brownstone provides a frank, unfiltered, and refreshing glimpse into the inner workings of the justice system, boldly delineating the strengths and weaknesses of criminal and family courts, both of which he claims are sorely in need of comprehensive reform. His remarkable story, reinventing himself from high-profile judge to highly acclaimed talk show host, is a testament to the resilience and triumph of the human spirit.
From Infinite World: The Sound of the Hammond Organ and the Tragedy of AIDS in the Black Church by Ashon Thomas Crawley (December 1, 2026)
An innovative work that explores the relationship between the Black Church, the Hammond organ, and the musicians that bring it to life.
The Hammond organ has long distinguished the Black Church. Masters of the instrument, often Blackqueer men, invented and advanced gospel music, pioneered new modes of worship, and helped define black life in the twentieth century. But when the AIDS crisis struck, churches vociferously rejected all forms of queerness, even as musicians grew ill, rumors spread, and people died. Drawing on years of experience as a preacher, choir director, and organist, award-winning visual artist and scholar Ashon Thomas Crawley combines personal history and cultural analysis to tell an urgent story about how AIDS fundamentally changed gospel music and the sound of the church.
From Infinite World immerses readers in the history of this pivotal instrument. Crawley profiles its inventor, a white supremacist named Laurens Hammond, and describes the vicious lawsuits fought over the organ’s unique sound. He also introduces little-known but foundational figures in the church and black life, such as Reverend Clarence Cobbs of Chicago and his First Church of Deliverance, where Black Gospel flourished alongside Blackqueer life in fascinating and complex ways. And he explores his own experience as a Blackqueer church musician learning the power of the Hammond organ even as a generation of elders perished in silence.
A major work of scholarship and a deeply vulnerable performance of creative nonfiction, Crawley’s lyrical work offers a captivating new portrait of the Black church as a site of refuge and rejection for Blackqueer genius.
