Punk, Ghosts, and “Coady and the Creepies”
They’re here, at least one of them’s queer, and surprise: she’s not the one who dies! “Coady and the Creepies” rocks queer and disability representation, punk history and more.
Bears in the Streets: Lesbian Writer Lisa Dickey Explores Russia Beyond Putin
With the current, constant news about Trump and Russia, this book — about three journeys across Russia, the politics of the closet, and the personal/political — could not be more timely.
“Queer & Trans Artists of Color Vol. 2” Is Required Resistance Reading
“Queer and Trans Artists of Color: Volume Two,” with interviews by King and edited by Elena Rose, is a collection of 16 interviews with queer and trans artists of color that inspire, empower and give an intimate glance into the creative process of some of the most interesting artists in the world.
No World For Us: Broken Girls and Embodied Trauma in Porpentine’s “Psycho Nymph Exile”
Psycho Nymph Exile is a cartography of brokenness, an answer to the question that no one wants to ask: What happens after exile? What happens to the girls who become trash?
Read A F*cking Book: “In Full Velvet,” by Jenny Johnson
Immerse yourself in these poems and prepare to come out raw and clean.
Roxane Gay’s “Difficult Women”: The Necessary Ugliness in Getting There
Gay is far more honest than most about the weird ways we actually solve for love. The necessary ugliness in getting there.
“American Hookup” Trades Moral Panic for Real Talk About Sex in College
This book is a must for college students, sex nerds, and activists alike — especially if your Trump resistance involves sex education, sexual assault prevention, or reproductive rights.
Rebel Girls: “The Crunk Feminist Collection” is the New Year’s Read Feminists Need
This is the year the resistance takes shape. And for feminists looking for a roadmap, The Crunk Feminist Collection is the newly-printed guidebook that sets the path.
When Death Makes You Kind: Beyond Survival In Gwen Benaway’s “Passage”
“In the words of Notting Hill, “I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.” Or more realistically, I’m just a girl, standing in front of KFC, praying that it’s open.”
Anna-Marie McLemore’s “When the Moon Was Ours” Is a Testament to QPOC Life and Love
“When the Moon Was Ours not only touches on qpoc life and gender roles and social constructs, but it beautifully and brutally explores what it means to be a queer teen of color in a world constantly rejecting and defining who you should be.”
Joshua Jennifer Espinoza’s “There Should Be Flowers” Is A Piercing Look At The Physicality Of Trans Women’s Lives
There Should Be Flowers is a healing map, a compass that shows us back to the world after having left it for too long – that allows us to live inside the pain and love ourselves anyway.
“Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation” Is The Book For Right Now
Is there enough room to practice compassion at the same time that we notice we’re being manipulated and dehumanized? How much of our own humanity is taken away from us when we don’t allow ourselves the emotional space to practice love in any circumstance?
Read A F*cking Book: M-E Girard’s Novel “Girl Mans Up” Powerfully Explores Minefields of Gender
“Girard’s writing is special in the way it speaks the language of our lived experience of moving through and within gender — inching, painfully slow, changeable, delightful, sexy, and made manifest in a thousand tiny ways, often between people and between words, unspoken.”
Drawn to Comics: Lynda Barry’s “The Greatest of Marlys” Knocks You Back Into Adolescence
Just like life itself, and especially childhood, “The Greatest of Marlys” is a complete roller coaster of emotions and experiences that takes you all over the place in unexpected ways.
Read A F*cking Book: “Go Deep” by Leigh Matthews
The latest installment in the All Out Vancouver series brings back all our favorite characters — and some heavy themes.
Read a F*cking Book: “The Regulars” is a Feminist Fairy Tale, Kinda
Three twenty-something friends living in New York City accidentally acquire a mysterious liquid substance called Pretty, that, when imbibed, turns the drinker into a physically augmented version of themselves. Shenanigans ensue.
Notes From A Queer Engineer Recommends “Lab Girl”
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren is one of the most exquisite pieces of science writing I’ve ever read. As a researcher and professor of geobiology for the past 20 years, Jahren has earned accolades for her work. Here, she shares her passion.
The True Price of Salt: On the Book that Became “Carol”
“There are many American readers for whom The Price of Salt would still be a revolutionary, shocking, immoral novel, the kinds of readers who have never, to their knowledge, met a lesbian or bisexual or pansexual woman before and who imagine us all as monstrous caricatures.”
5 Things I Learned from “The Gutsy Girl”
“The Gutsy Girl” is part memoir, part instruction manual, part unbelievable true adventure tale. It’s also a New York Times bestseller, which gives a hint about how ready we all are for a no-holds-barred hurrah for bravery now that we’ve integrated the term “impostor syndrome” into our mental catalogue of what’s holding us back.
Read a F*cking Book: “Oscar of Between” Embraces Transitional Spaces
Warland, and Oscar of Between, is refreshingly unconcerned with being there already. Instead, she deep-dives into the potency of occupying transitional spaces, the beauty of being in-between.