Noticed an abundance of rainbows everywhere? June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month! Reading is one of our favorite things to do here at Writer’s Relief (when we’re not busy helping our clients get more acceptances!), so we’ve put together an extensive list of LGBTQ+ books you should definitely read.
You’ll find fiction, poetry, memoirs, nonfiction—and classics like Virginia Woolf’s Orlando as well as the recently released NYT bestseller Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett.
Happy Pride, and happy reading!
The 99 Best LGBTQ+ Books To Read
FICTION:
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff
Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
The Price of Salt (now Carol) by Patricia Highsmith
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
One True Way by Shannon Hitchcock
The Best Bad Things by Katrina Carrasco
Bingo Love by Tee Franklin (a graphic novel!)
When Katie Met Cassidy by Camille Perri
Sadie by Courtney Summers
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Pulp by Robin Talley
Passing by Nella Larsen
Maurice by E.M. Forster
Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan
Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Pursuit of Miss Heartbreak Hotel by Moe Bonneau
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
Luna by Julie Anne Peters
The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
City of Night by John Rechy
Chelsea Girls by Eileen Myles
The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth
Invisible Life by E. Lynn Harris
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan
Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta
Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
MEMOIR/PERSONAL ESSAY:
Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir by Paul Monette
The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister by Anne Lister
Boy Erased by Garrard Conley
Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality by Sarah McBride
The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy
Logical Family: A Memoir by Armistead Maupin
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel (another graphic novel!)
The Argonauts by Meggie Nelson
Naturally Tan by Tan France (50)
Would You Rather? A Memoir of Growing Up and Coming Out by Katie Heaney
I Might Regret This by Abbi Jacobson
Out East: Memoir of a Montauk Summer by John Glynn
Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man by Thomas Page McBee
Teaching the Cat to Sit: A Memoir by Michelle Theall
Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Charles M. Blow
Stuck in the Middle With You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan
The Gilded Razor by Sam Lansky
When We Rise: My Life in the Movement by Cleve Jones
Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden
Lust & Wonder by Augusten Burroughs
I’m Just a Person by Tig Notaro
Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen by Jazz Jennings
She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan
How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones (comes out in October 2019)
A Wild and Precious Life by Edie Windsor (comes out October 2019)
POETRY:
Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith
Stung With Love: Poems and Fragments of Sappho
Drive Here and Devastate Me by Megan Falley
Not Here by Hieu Minh Nguyen
bury it by Sam Sax
You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened by Arisa White
Night Sky With Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen
Please by Jericho Brown
When My Brother Was an Aztec by Natalie Diaz
[Insert] Boy by Danez Smith
Rock/Salt/Stone by Rosamond S. King (78)
GENERAL NONFICTION:
Transgender History by Susan Stryker
Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold by Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline D. Davis
Hidden From History: Reclaiming the Gay & Lesbian Past by Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus, and George Chauncey
Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers Who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality by Debbie Cenziper and Jim Obergefell
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America by Lillian Faderman
Queer There and Everywhere: 23 People Who Changed the World by Sarah Prager
Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker
Stand By Me: The Forgotten History of Gay Liberation by Jim Downs
The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies by Vito Russo
The Right Side of History: 100 Years of LGBTQ Activism by Adrian Brooks
The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government by David K. Johnson
Transgender Warriors: Making History by Leslie Feinberg
The Life and Death of Latisha King: A Critical Phenomenology of Transphobia by Gayle Salamon
A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski
Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America by Dudley Clendinen
Unspeakable: The Rise of the Gay and Lesbian Press in America by Rodger Streitmatter
Gay Voices of the Harlem Renaissance by A.B. Christa Schwarz
Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century by Graham Robb
The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America by Charles Kaiser
Sapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women by Leila J. Rupp
A History of Bisexuality by Steven Angelides
Question: How many of these LGBTQ books have you read?
Madelyn Garner’s poetry book, Hum of Our Blood, is an exquisite, excruciating work dealing with her son’s death from AIDS. Perhaps you can add it to your list.