Books for Pride Month

By Colleen Rowe | May 3 2023 | Gender and Sexuality Studies

For LGBTQIA+ Pride Month in June, we are celebrating the community with a collection that displays its contributions to society. The books within this collection are written by a range of individuals whose unique experiences show that the community is expansive and diverse, and their work ranges from fiction to memoir to history. Their individual voices and stories are powerful and show a range of experiences that weave in and out of different settings, times in history, and cultural backgrounds.

The Pride in Your Words website is a collection of titles from queer voices. The #PrideinYourWords zine includes an intro letter from the Penguin Random House LGBTQ+ Network, excerpts from five new books, author interviews, a feature on Drag Story Hour, and more. 

Bolla
Bolla
A Novel
Pajtim Statovci
978-0-593-08244-7
April 1995. Arsim is a twenty-four-year-old, recently married student at the University of Pristina, in Kosovo, keeping his head down to gain a university degree in a time and place deeply hostile to Albanians. In a café he meets a young man named Miloš, a Serb. Before the day is out, everything has changed for both of them, and within a week two milestones erupt in Arsim’s married life: his wife announces her first pregnancy and he begins a life in secret.
$17.00 US
Jul 05, 2022
Paperback
240 Pages
Vintage
Fairest
Fairest
A Memoir
Meredith Talusan
978-0-525-56132-3
"Talusan sails past the conventions of trans and immigrant memoirs." —The New York Times Book Review
$18.00 US
Jun 08, 2021
Paperback
320 Pages
Penguin Books
Hijab Butch Blues
Hijab Butch Blues
A Memoir
Lamya H
978-0-593-44876-2
A queer hijabi Muslim immigrant survives her coming-of-age by drawing strength and hope from stories in the Quran in this daring, provocative, and radically hopeful memoir.
$27.00 US
Feb 07, 2023
Hardcover
304 Pages
The Dial Press
And the Category Is…
And the Category Is…
Inside New York’s Vogue, House, and Ballroom Community
Ricky Tucker
978-0-8070-0732-7
A 2023 Lambda Literary Award Finalist in NonfictionAn Electric Literature “Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Book of 2022” SelectionA love letter to the legendary Black and Latinx LGBTQ underground subculture, uncovering its abundant legacy and influence in popular culture.
$16.95 US
Sep 13, 2022
Paperback
248 Pages
Beacon Press
Diary of a Misfit
Diary of a Misfit
A Memoir and a Mystery
Casey Parks
978-0-525-65853-5
Part memoir, part investigative reporting, Diary of a Misfit is a sweeping journalistic saga about sexuality and gender, family trauma, and the redemptive force of love.
$29.00 US
Aug 30, 2022
Hardcover
368 Pages
Knopf
Countries of Origin
Countries of Origin
A Novel
Javier Fuentes
978-0-593-31758-7
In this stunning debut, Javier Fuentes chronicles a tumultuous, passionate love affair between two young men from vastly different worlds during one, extraordinary summer in Spain, in what is ultimately a meditation on identity, class, belonging and desire
$27.00 US
Jun 06, 2023
Hardcover
304 Pages
Pantheon
Sissy
Sissy
A Coming-of-Gender Story
Jacob Tobia
978-0-7352-1884-0
"Transformative ... If Tobia aspires to the ranks of comic memoirists like David Sedaris and Mindy Kaling, Sissy succeeds." —The New York Times Book Review
$18.00 US
Mar 03, 2020
Paperback
352 Pages
G.P. Putnam's Sons
Ten Steps to Nanette
Ten Steps to Nanette
A Memoir Situation
Hannah Gadsby
978-1-9848-1980-2
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Multi-award-winning Hannah Gadsby broke comedy with their show Nanette when they declared that they were quitting stand-up. Now they take us through the defining moments in their life that led to the creation of Nanette and their powerful decision to tell the truth—no matter the cost.
$18.00 US
Mar 28, 2023
Paperback
400 Pages
Ballantine Books
Bad Gays
Bad Gays
A Homosexual History
Ben Miller, Huw Lemmey
978-1-83976-327-4
An unconventional history of homosexuality for readers of The Deviant's War by Eric Cervini
$29.95 US
May 31, 2022
Hardcover
368 Pages
Verso
Boys Weekend
Boys Weekend
Mattie Lubchansky
978-0-593-31671-9
Boys Weekend is a hilarious trans-“final girl” horror graphic novel about a bachelor party gone very, very wrong.
$28.00 US
Jun 06, 2023
Hardcover
232 Pages
Pantheon
In Memoriam
In Memoriam
A novel
Alice Winn
978-0-593-53456-4
Here is a haunting, virtuosic debut novel about two young men who fall in love during World War I.
$28.00 US
Mar 07, 2023
Hardcover
400 Pages
Knopf
Legendary Children
Legendary Children
The First Decade of RuPaul's Drag Race and the Last Century of Queer Life
Tom Fitzgerald, Lorenzo Marquez
978-0-14-313462-6
A definitive deep-dive into queer history and culture with hit reality show RuPaul's Drag Race as a touchstone, by the creators of the pop culture blog Tom and LorenzoNPR's Best Books of the Year 2020 pickA New York Times New & Noteworthy bookOne of Logo/NewNowNext's "11 Queer Books We Can't Wait to Read This Spring"
$18.00 US
Mar 03, 2020
Paperback
288 Pages
Penguin Books
High-Risk Homosexual
High-Risk Homosexual
A Memoir
Edgar Gomez
978-1-59376-705-1
Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir/BiographyAn Honor Book for the 2023 Stonewall Book Award—Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Book AwardThis witty memoir traces a touching and often hilarious spiralic path to embracing a gay, Latinx identity against a culture of machismo—from a cockfighting ring in Nicaragua to cities across the U.S.—and the bath houses, night clubs, and drag queens who help redefine pride
$17.95 US
Jan 11, 2022
Paperback
304 Pages
Soft Skull
Detransition, Baby
Detransition, Baby
A Novel
Torrey Peters
978-0-593-13338-5
A whipsmart debut about three women--transgender and cisgender--whose lives collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires around gender, motherhood, and sex.
$18.00 US
Oct 05, 2021
Paperback
368 Pages
One World
I'm Not Broken
I'm Not Broken
A Memoir
Jesse Leon
978-0-593-46651-3
In this unflinching and inspiring memoir, Jesse Leon tells an extraordinary story of resilience and survival, shining a light on a childhood spent devastated by sex trafficking, street life, and substance abuse.
$17.00 US
Aug 23, 2022
Paperback
336 Pages
Vintage
All Down Darkness Wide
All Down Darkness Wide
A Memoir
Seán Hewitt
978-0-593-30008-4
“A beautiful, complex, and textured meditation on love, on growing up gay, on becoming a poet . . . I was engrossed . . . I woke in the morning fully enclosed by it, as though I had been dreaming it.” —Colm Tóibín, author of The Magician By turns devastating and soaring, an ambitious memoir debut from one of Irish literature’s rising stars, Seán Hewitt
$26.00 US
Jul 12, 2022
Hardcover
240 Pages
Penguin Press
The Economic Case for LGBT Equality
The Economic Case for LGBT Equality
Why Fair and Equal Treatment Benefits Us All
M. V. Lee Badgett
978-0-8070-0292-6
An economist demonstrates how LGBT equality and inclusion within organizations increases their bottom line and allows for countries' economies to flourish
$18.00 US
May 18, 2021
Paperback
248 Pages
Beacon Press
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
A Biomythography
Audre Lorde
978-0-89594-122-0
“ZAMI is a fast-moving chronicle. From the author’s vivid childhood memories in Harlem to her coming of age in the late 1950s, the nature of Audre Lorde’s work is cyclical. It especially relates the linkage of women who have shaped her . . . Lorde brings into play her craft of lush description and characterization. It keeps unfolding page after page.”
$17.99 US
Jan 01, 1982
Paperback
272 Pages
Crossing Press
App Kid
App Kid
How a Child of Immigrants Grabbed a Piece of the American Dream
Michael Sayman
978-0-525-56623-6
App Kid is an inspiring and deeply personal coming of age memoir from one of Silicon Valley’s youngest entrepreneurs—a second-generation Latino immigrant who taught himself how to code as a thirteen-year-old and went on to claim his share of the American dream.
$17.00 US
Aug 30, 2022
Paperback
304 Pages
Vintage
You Exist Too Much
You Exist Too Much
A Novel
Zaina Arafat
978-1-64622-059-5
A "provocative and seductive debut" of desire and doubleness that follows the life of a young Palestinian American woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities as she tries to lead an authentic life (O, The Oprah Magazine)
$16.95 US
Jun 08, 2021
Paperback
272 Pages
Catapult
To Paradise
To Paradise
A Novel
Hanya Yanagihara
978-0-593-31565-1
Here is a bold, brilliant novel spanning three centuries and three different versions of the American experiment, about lovers, family, loss and the elusive promise of utopia.
$18.00 US
Mar 21, 2023
Paperback
784 Pages
Anchor
Rainbow Rainbow
Rainbow Rainbow
Stories
Lydia Conklin
978-1-64622-101-1
Longlisted for The Story Prize & the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story CollectionA fearless collection of stories that celebrate the humor, darkness, and depth of emotion of the queer and trans experience that's not typically represented: liminal or uncertain identities, queer conception, and queer joy
$26.00 US
May 31, 2022
Hardcover
256 Pages
Catapult
Up With the Sun
Up With the Sun
A novel
Thomas Mallon
978-1-5247-4819-7
Through the curious life of Dick Kallman—a real-life celebrity striver, poisonously charming actor, and eventual murder victim—the unforgiving worlds of postwar showbiz and down-low gay sexuality are thrown into stark relief.
$28.00 US
Feb 07, 2023
Hardcover
352 Pages
Knopf
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