One of our earliest posts that we had on the blog was a Reading List for Black History Month and it is still one of our most popular posts, gaining praise for giving a starting point for people wanting to diversify their reading. This year’s Pride Month seemed like a great opportunity to do the same for books featuring, or exclusively dealing with, LGBTQ+ themes.
A lot of my academic career has been focused on the topic of gender and sexuality, which is one of the main reasons I was able to discover so many amazing books within the genre. But due to the nature of our society, queer authors and/or books with queer themes frequently have to battle for any attention against more normative or socially acceptable stories.
One of the biggest issues this leads to is perpetuating a cycle of ignorance regarding these topics. And sometimes, not out of deliberate stubbornness but because finding information on LGBT history and theory or representations of queer individuals is incredibly difficult if you do not know where to start.
There is an incredibly vast history of queer authors, writing both fiction and non-fiction extensively. So for anyone looking to expand their bookshelves and perspective on the topic, here are my recommendations:
*By no means is this an exhaustive reading list. Rather, only a small list of books I have read, want to read, or think are important to read, and would suggest to others.*
Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman
This book got a lot of hype in 2017 when the movie adaptation was released. However, the book itself was published almost ten years prior. Featuring teenager Elio and young scholar Oliver, the story follows a blossoming romance between the pair, made more complicated by the seven year age difference between them. A long time favourite of both Z and mine, we’ve got a full comparison between the book and the movie on the blog if you are interested. Find it here.
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Another favourite of mine, this 1928 novel follows Orlando, a young male nobleman who inexplicably experiences a seemingly magical change of sex at the age of 30. If that confuses you, you’ll be even more surprised by how the Lady Orlando seems to live for another 300 years without visible aging at all! What starts of seeming like a heteronormative romance develops into a much queerer tale (pun intended!)
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
The winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize, Hollinghurst’s novel takes a look at homosexuality in the age of rampant fear of AIDS and how privilege and hypocrisy combine to affect people during the 1980s in Southern England. The story follows Nick Guest as he attempts to navigate the sudden increased risk to his homosexual lifestyle, and how his pseudo-family react to it.
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
Another early gay novel, Baldwin writes the story of an American man living in Paris, navigated his frustration with the male relationships in his life. Particularly with a dashing Italian bartender, Giovanni, whom he meets in a Parisian gay bar.
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
This is a novel that I have not actually read, but has been on my TBR for years now! A brick of a book, and a 2002 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Middlesex details the coming-of-age of Callie Stephanides and the effect of a mutated gene on three generations of the Greek Stephanides family. The novel deals intimately with themes of social unintelligibility (a term coined by Judith Butler to describe the state of not adhering to social gender expectations and performance) and intersex experiences.
Carol by Patricia Highsmith
Another novel that gained fame after its movie adaptation was released in 2015, Carol (originally titled The Price of Salt), was originally published in 1952. The novel details the taboo relationship between an older middle-class woman Carol, and department store clerk, Therese. Both unhappy with their lives, the two women find escape in each other during Carol’s bitter divorce amidst the risk of losing custody of her daughter.
Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
As far theoretical explorations of gender go, Butler’s seminal book is often considered the academic authority. There is no way to read about sexuality and gender constructions without running onto Butler’s theoretical work. Dense and quite often complex, Gender Trouble is nevertheless an incredibly insightful look into gender stereotypes and contemporary attitudes to masculinity and femininity.
~S~
Featured Image by Jonathan Howard Kemp on Unsplash
