These are some recommended titles selected to celebrate Pride Month and LGBTQIA+ lives.
Click on any book cover to go to the catalog to find books, ebooks & audiobooks, and to place holds.
NONFICTION
The Third Person by Emma Grove
This riveting graphic memoir from newcomer Emma Grove is drawn in thick, emotive lines, with the refined style of a comics vet, Grove has created a singular, gripping depiction of the intersection of identities and trauma. The Third Person is a testament to the importance of having the space to heal and live authentically.
I Was Better Last Night by Harvey Fierstein
This autobiography from the cultural icon, gay rights activist and four-time Tony Award–winning actor and playwright looks back on his legendary career, from community theater in Brooklyn to the excesses of Hollywood.
Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong
In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of his mother’s death, embodying the paradox of sitting within grief while being determined to survive beyond it. Bold and prescient, and a testament to tenderness in the face of violence, this is a return and a forging forth all at once.
Baggage: Tales from a Fully Packed Life by Alan Cumming
The acclaimed actor chronicles his work in Hollywood, his two marriages, and his journey through personal calamities, bad decisions, encounters with legends, and moments of joy to become the flawed but happy middle-aged man he is today.
Broken Horses by Brandi Carlile
Evocative and piercingly honest, Broken Horses is at once an examination of faith through the eyes of a person rejected by the church’s basic tenets and a meditation on the moments and lyrics that have shaped the life of a creative mind, a brilliant artist, and a genuine empath on a mission to give back.
Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing: Essays by Lauren Hough
The author, who has had many identities – an airman in the U.S. Air Force, a cable guy, a bouncer at a gay club – recounts her childhood growing up in the infamous cult The Children of God, in this searing and extremely personal collection of essays.
We Are Everywhere: Protest, Power, and Pride in the History of Queer Liberation by Matthew Riemer and Leighton Brown
Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, this essential and empowering introduction to the history of queer liberation traces queer activism from its roots in late-19th-century Europe to the gender warriors leading the charge today.
In the Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado
This is an engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming.
FICTION
Yerba Buena by Nina LaCour
At once exquisite and expansive, astonishing in its humanity and heart, Yerba Buena is a love story for our time and a propulsive journey through the lives of two women trying to find somewhere, or someone, to call home.
Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park
A funny, transporting, surprising, and poignant novel that was one of the highest-selling debuts of recent years in Korea, Love in the Big City tells the story of a young gay man searching for happiness in the lonely city of Seoul.
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart
In Glasgow, Mungo and James, who should be enemies due to their religious beliefs, fall in love, dreaming of finding somewhere they belong, while Mungo works hard to hide his true self from all those around him to protect them both from the danger their relationship brings.
To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara
Spanning three centuries and three different versions of the American experiment, an unforgettable cast of characters are united by their reckonings with the qualities that make us human—fear, love, shame, need and loneliness.