The Ultimate LGBTQIA+ Pride Book List

Fairest is a memoir about a precocious boy with albinism, a “sun child” from a rural Philippine village, who would grow up to become a woman in America. Throughout her journey, Talusan shares poignant and powerful episodes of desirability and love that will remind readers of works such as Call Me By Your Name and Giovanni’s Room. Her evocative reflections will shift our own perceptions of love, identity, gender, and the fairness of life.

Through an institutionalized Twelve-Step Program, Garrad Conley was supposed to emerge heterosexual. Instead, even when faced with a harrowing and brutal journey, Garrard found the strength and understanding to break out in search of his true self and forgiveness.

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 Reader is 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.

In Stonewall, renowned historian and activist Martin Duberman tells the full story of this pivotal moment in history. With riveting narrative skill, he re-creates those revolutionary, sweltering nights in vivid detail through the lives of six people who were drawn into the struggle for LGBTQ rights. Their stories combine to form an unforgettable portrait of the repression that led up to the riots, which culminates when they triumphantly participate in the first gay rights march of 1970, the roots of today’s pride marches.

In her most revealing and powerful memoir yet, activist, speaker, and bestselling author, Glennon Doyle explores the joy and peace we discover when we stop striving to meet others’ expectations and start trusting the voice deep within us.

A heart-wrenching, eye-opening, and giggle-inducing memoir about what it’s like to grow up not sure if you’re (a) a boy, (b) a girl, (c) something in between, or (d) all of the above.

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.

In bawdy, moving prose, Rita Mae Brown tells the story of Molly Bolt, the adoptive daughter of a poor Southern couple who boldly forges her own path in America. With her startling beauty and crackling wit, Molly finds that women are drawn to her wherever she goes—and she refuses to apologize for loving them back.

A novel of startling intimacy, violence, and mercy among friends in a Midwestern university town, from an electric new voice. Real Life is a novel of profound and lacerating power, a story that asks if it’s ever really possible to overcome our private wounds, and at what cost.

From the creator of Elle’s “Eric Reads the News,” a heartfelt and hilarious memoir-in-essays about growing up seeing the world differently, finding unexpected hope, and experiencing every awkward, extraordinary stumble along the way.

In this deeply moving and empowering true story, young readers will trace the life of the Gay Pride Flag, from its beginnings in 1978 with social activist Harvey Milk and designer Gilbert Baker to its spanning of the globe and its role in today’s world. Award-winning author Rob Sanders’s stirring text, and acclaimed illustrator Steven Salerno’s evocative images, combine to tell this remarkable – and undertold – story. A story of love, hope, equality, and pride.

A fun, sweet, sexy, romantic comedy about two women who fall in love.

What begins as a chance encounter in a New York nightclub leads drag performer Arnold Beckoff on a hilarious yet touching pursuit of love, happiness, and a life he can be proud of. From a failed affair with a reluctant lover to a committed relationship with the promise of a stable family, Arnold’s struggle for acceptance meets its greatest resistance when he faces off against the person whose approval is most important to him: his mother.

Andrea Gibson explores themes of love, gender, politics, sexuality, family, and forgiveness with stunning imagery and a fierce willingness to delve into the exploration of what it means to heal and to be different in this strange age.

Winner of the 2016 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction, gripping and provocative, The Life and Death of Sophie Stark is a haunting story of fame, love, and legacy told through the propulsive rise of an iconoclastic artist.

Levy chronicles the adventure and heartbreak of being, in her own words, “a woman who is free to do whatever she chooses.” Her story of resilience becomes an unforgettable portrait of the shifting forces in our culture, of what has changed—and of what is eternal.

The pioneering novel of physical disability, transatlantic travel, and black international politics. A vital document of black modernism and one of the earliest overtly queer fictions in the African American tradition.

A “highly imaginative and utterly exhilarating” (Thrillist) debut that is “the best of what science fiction can be: a thought-provoking, heartrending story about the choices that define our lives.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

From the singular voices behind Tom and Lorenzo comes the ultimate guide to all-things RuPaul’s Drag Race and its influence on modern LGBTQ culture. Legendary Children centers itself around the idea that not only is RuPaul’s Drag Race the queerest show in the history of television, but that RuPaul and company devised a show that serves as an actual museum of queer cultural and social history, drawing on queer traditions and the work of legendary figures going back nearly a century.

When a group of social activists arrive in a small town, the lives and beliefs of residents and outsiders alike are upended, in this wry, embracing novel.

Drag superstars Trixie Mattel and Katya have long captivated fans with their stunning looks, onscreen chemistry, and signature wit. In Trixie and Katya’s Guide to Modern Womanhood, the pair channel that energy into an old-school etiquette guide for ladies. In essays, conversations, and how-to sections peppered with hilarious, gorgeous photos, Trixie and Katya will advise readers on beauty and fashion and tackle other vital components of a happy home, such as money, self-love, and friendship; sharing advice and personal stories in high-concept fashion.

On one level, Gender Outlaw details Bornstein’s transformation from heterosexual male to lesbian woman, from a one-time IBM salesperson to a playwright and performance artist. But this particular coming-of-age story is also a provocative investigation into our notions of male and female, from a self-described nonbinary transfeminine diesel femme dyke who never stops questioning our cultural assumptions.

A showrunner and her assistant give the world something to talk about when they accidentally fuel a ridiculous rumor in this debut romance.

Winner of the 2015 Man Booker Prize, Marlon James combines masterful storytelling with his unrivaled skill at characterization and his meticulous eye for detail to forge a novel of dazzling ambition and scope.

Written in incandescent, dazzling prose, The Sunlight Pilgrims is a visionary story of courage and resilience in the midst of nature’s most violent hour. Features Estella, a twelve-year old transgender girl attempting to survive the dystopian landscape with her mother.

Be proud, be loud, be flavorful. From the beloved, fiercely inclusive BuzzFeed cooking brand comes 75 innovative recipes and inspiring stories from prominent LGBTQ+ cooks and foodies.

This guide to sex, love and life for girls who like girls is useful whether you’re a lady-dating veteran or still trying to come out to yourself.

The entire surviving collection of poems by intellectual lesbian poet, Sappho.

A searing novel centering around a gay-to-straight conversion camp in Mississippi and a man’s reckoning with the trauma he faced there as a teen.

In the male-dominated field of animation, Mel Vaught and Sharon Kisses are a dynamic female duo, with the friction of their differences driving them.

A renowned legal scholar tells the definitive story of Hollingsworth v. Perry, the trial that will stand as the most potent argument for marriage equality.

Juliet Milagros Palante is a self-proclaimed closeted Puerto Rican baby dyke from the Bronx. Only, she’s not so closeted anymore. Not after coming out to her family the night before flying to Portland, Oregon, to intern with her favorite feminist writer. In a summer bursting with queer brown dance parties, a sexy fling with a motorcycling librarian, and intense explorations of race and identity, Juliet learns what it means to come out–to the world, to her family, to herself.

A tale of genius in which Thomas Mann explores a gay artist’s relation to life.

The inspiring true story of a transgender girl, her identical twin brother, and an ordinary American family’s extraordinary journey to understand, nurture, and celebrate the uniqueness in us all.

In a tale both sweepingly epic and intensely personal, Kalanthe and Olsa fight to maintain their newfound independence and to find their way back to each other.

Writing with the same candor and insight evident in his comedy, he reflects on a childhood marked by the loss of his mother, boarding school, and alternative sexuality.

Dave Holmes has spent his life on the periphery, nose pressed hopefully against the glass, wanting just one thing: to get inside. At his all-boys high school and Catholic college, he was the closeted gay kid surrounded by crush-worthy straight guys.

A groundbreaking work of reportage by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jo Becker, Forcing the Spring is the definitive account of five remarkable years in American civil rights history, when the United States experienced a tectonic shift on the issue of marriage equality.

An emotionally charged coming-of-age novel, Tell the Wolves I’m Home is a tender story of love lost and found, and of two lonely people who become the unlikeliest of friends.

The complex story of an illicit lesbian relationship in post-First World War London by Man Booker-nominated Sarah Waters.

The Grief Keeper is a tender tale that explores the heartbreak and consequences of when both love and human beings are branded illegal.

After the death of her best friend, the loss of her life’s savings, and the collapse of her happy marriage to her wife, Meredith Maran is determined to rebuild not only her savings but also herself.

This heartfelt, deeply personal memoir explores how a celebrated filmmaker and activist and his conservative Mormon mother built bridges across today’s great divides—and how our stories hold the power to heal.

Boylan’s humorous, wise voice helped make She’s Not There the first bestselling work by a transgender American–and transformed Boylan into a national spokeswoman for LGBTQ people, their families, and the people that love them.  This updated and revised edition also includes a new epilogue from Jenny’s wife Grace; it also contains the original afterward by her friend, novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo.

Sara Taylor brings the American landscape to vivid life in an unforgettable road novel that strikes at the heart of a mother-child bond and the exploration of gender identity.

A haunting and unforgettable novel about love, loss, race, and desire in World War II–era America. Awaiting Frankie Washburn at home for one last visit before he goes to the war, are his family and Billy, the childhood friend who over the years has become something much more intimate.

From Samantha Irby–beloved author of New York Times bestseller We Are Never Meeting in Real Life--a rip-roaring, edgy and unabashedly raunchy new collection of hilarious essays.

Boy Meets Boy is a happy, meaningful romantic comedy about finding love, losing love, and doing what it takes to get love back into this crazy-wonderful world.

A comical and poignant memoir of a gay man living life as he pleased in the 1930s.

A celebration of friendship and love between a group of women who have known each another since they were girls.

When the revered children’s book author Mort Lear dies accidentally at his Connecticut home, he leaves his property and all its contents to his trusted assistant, Tomasina Daulair, who is moved by his generosity but dismayed by the complicated and defiant directives in his will. witness not just to his daily routines but to the emotional fallout of his strange boyhood and his volatile relationship with a lover who died of AIDS.

In defiance of the brutal military government that took power in Uruguay in the 1970s, and under which homosexuality is a dangerous transgression, five women miraculously find one another—and, together, an isolated cape that they claim as their own. Over the next thirty-five years, they travel back and forth from this secret sanctuary, sometimes together, sometimes in pairs, with lovers in tow or alone. Throughout it all, they will be tested repeatedly—by their families, lovers, society, and one another—as they fight to live authentic lives. A groundbreaking, genre-defining work, Cantoras is a breathtaking portrait of queer love, community, forgotten history, and the strength of the human spirit.

A resounding testament to the power of family and a reassurance that there is no wrong way to be who you are.

A profoundly moving novel about four college friends working in New York City’s art and theatre scenes over several decades. Their relationships change and develop deeply over the years, but remain centered around the talented young lawyer, Jude, whose childhood horrors have haunted him into adulthood.