Reader's Place: June, 2025
Happy Pride Month! We’ve chosen some of the latest LGBTQIA+ fiction, non-fiction, and graphic novel books; happy reading!
Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson, by Tourmaline (Library Catalog)
Black transgender luminary Tourmaline brings to life the first definitive biography of the revolutionary activist Marsha P. Johnson, one of the most important and remarkable figures in LGBTQIA+ history, revealing her story, her impact, and her legacy.
“Thank god the revolution has begun, honey.” Rumor has it that after Marsha P. Johnson threw the first brick in the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, she picked up a shard of broken mirror to fix her makeup. Marsha, a legendary Black transgender activist, embodied both the beauty and the struggle of the early gay rights movement. Her work sparked the progress we see today, yet there has never been a definitive record of her life. Until now.
Written with sparkling prose, Tourmaline’s richly researched biography “Marsha” finally brings this iconic figure to life, in full color. We vividly meet Marsha as both an activist and artist: She performed with RuPaul and with the internationally renowned drag troupe The Hot Peaches. She was a muse to countless artists from Andy Warhol to the band Earth, Wind & Fire. And she continues to inspire people today… to live as their most liberated, unruly, vibrant, and whole selves.
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, by V.E. Schwab (Library Catalog)
From V. E. Schwab, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue”: a new genre-defying novel about immortality and hunger.
1532. Santo Domingo de la Calzada. A young girl grows up wild and wily—her beauty is only outmatched by her dreams of escape. But María knows she can only ever be a prize, or a pawn, in the games played by men. When an alluring stranger offers an alternate path, María makes a desperate choice. She vows to have no regrets.
1827. London. A young woman lives an idyllic but cloistered life on her family’s estate, until a moment of forbidden intimacy sees her shipped off to London. Charlotte’s tender heart and seemingly impossible wishes are swept away by an invitation from a beautiful widow—but the price of freedom is higher than she could have imagined.
2019. Boston. College was supposed to be her chance to be someone new. That’s why Alice moved halfway across the world, leaving her old life behind. But after an out-of-character one-night stand leaves her questioning her past, her present, and her future, Alice throws herself into the hunt for answers . . . and revenge.
The Emperor of Gladness, by Ocean Vuong (Library Catalog)
In this Oprah’s Book Club Pick, Ocean Vuong returns with a bighearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive.
One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.
Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, “The Emperor of Gladness” shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Vuong’s writing – formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness – are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.
Ordinary Love, by Marie Rutkoski (Library Catalog)
A page-turning, irresistible novel of class, ambition, and bisexuality, this is the breathtaking story of a woman risking everything for a second chance at her first love.
Emily has, by all appearances, a beautiful townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, two healthy children, and a husband who showers her with attention. But the truth is more Emily’s marriage is in trouble, her relationship with her parents is fraught, and she is still nursing a heartbreak from long ago. When Emily runs into her high school best friend, Gen, at a cocktail party, that heartbreak comes roaring back. But Gen Hall is no longer the lanky, hungry kid with holes in her shoes who Emily loved in her youth. Instead, Gen is now a prominent Olympic athlete with sponsorship deals and a string of high-profile ex-girlfriends. Emily and Gen circle one another cautiously, both drawn together by a magnetic attraction and scarred by their shared history. Once upon a time, Gen knew everything about Emily. And yet, she still abandoned her. Can Emily trust Gen again? Can they forgive each other for mistakes they made in their youth? Can Emily risk her children, her privacy, and the fragile peace she has found with her family just to be with a woman she loved long ago?
A sweeping queer romance, “Ordinary Love” is the beautiful, wrenching, completely seductive story of two people trying to forge a path through fear, bound by a love they discovered when they were too young to understand its power.
Disco Witches of Fire Island, by Blair Fell (Library Catalog, Hoopla)
Hit the dance floor with a coven of queer witches on 1980s Fire Island in this gay fantasy romance about finding magic, love, and family in the face of tragedy.
A heartwarming LGBTQ+ novel for fans of steamy romance. It’s 1989, and Joe Agabian and his best friend Ronnie set out to spend their first summer working in the hedonistic gay paradise of Fire Island Pines. Joe is desperate to let loose and finally move beyond the heartbreak of having lost his boyfriend to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
The two friends are quickly taken in by a pair of quirky, older house cleaners. But something seems off, and Joe starts to suspect the two older men of being up to something otherworldly. In truth, Howie and Lenny are members of a secret disco witch coven tasked with protecting the island—and young men like Joe—from the relentless tragedies ravaging their community. The only problem is, having lost too many of their fellow witches to the epidemic, the coven’s protective powers have been seriously damaged.
Unaware of all the mystical shenanigans going on, Joe starts to fall for the super-cute bisexual ferryman who just happens to have webbed feet and an unusual ability to hold his breath underwater. But Joe’s longing to find love is tripped up by his own troublesome past as well as the lure of a mysterious hunk he keeps seeing around the island—a man Howie and Lenny warn may be a harbinger of impending doom.
The Disco Witches need to find help—fast—if they’re to save Joe and the island from the Great Darkness. But how? Fans of spicy queer romances with a dash of fantasy will fall in love with this stunning novel of community, love, sex, magic, and hope in desperate times.
Accidentally on Purpose: A Memoir, by Kristen Kish (Library Catalog)
“Accidentally on Purpose” dives into Kristen Kish’s childhood as a Korean adoptee in the Midwest, finding purpose in kitchens, and becoming the season 10 winner of—and now host—of Top Chef all the while navigating life in the spotlight, coming out in her adult years, and all the life lessons in between.
Kristen Kish never set out to live a public life—not when she was a carefree softball-tossing kid, not in high school working at a pretzel stand, not even, briefly, as a working model. And definitely not when she finally landed her true calling as a chef. But in those early days, becoming a chef meant tethering oneself to a restaurant, not a television set. But it happened naturally (or as naturally as possible, given all the technology and TV magic involved), even if it was totally unanticipated.
In “Accidentally on Purpose,” what defines Kristen’s story aren’t the missteps or even the pleasant surprises that crop up. It’s how to respond when they do, and the decisions made at those intersections. Because while accidents may be unexpected, they don’t have to be at odds with purpose. And as Kristen approaches life’s milestones, big and small, with intention—the ones she expected, and those she didn’t—she realizes she can write her own definitions and chart her own course.
Great Black Hope, by Rob Franklin (Library Catalog)
A gripping, elegant debut novel about a young Black man caught between worlds of race and class, glamour and tragedy, a friend’s mysterious death and his own arrest, from an electrifying new voice.
An arrest for cocaine possession in the Hamptons on the last day of a sweltering New York summer leaves Smith, a young queer Black Stanford graduate, in a state of turmoil. Pulled into the court system and mandated treatment, he finds himself in an absurd but dangerous situation: his class protects him, but his race does not.
It’s just weeks after the death of his beloved roommate Elle, a glamorous member of the Black elite, and he’s still reeling from the tabloid spectacle—as well as the lingering questions of how well he really knew his closest friend and what exactly happened to her that night. He flees to his hometown of Atlanta, but the weight of expectations from his family of doctors, lawyers, and college presidents only pushes him further into his downward spiral. When his close friend Carolyn goes off the rails, Smith decides to return to New York to find out what happened to her and Elle. But it’s not long before he begins to lose himself to his old life, drawn back into the city’s underworld where his search for answers may end up costing him his freedom and his future.
Smith goes on a dizzying journey through the New York City nightlife circuit, anonymous recovery rooms, Atlanta’s Black society set, police investigations and courtroom dramas, and a circle of friends coming of age in a new era. “Great Black Hope” is a propulsive, glittering story about what it means to exist between worlds, to be upwardly mobile yet spiraling downward, and how to find a way back to hope.
The Very Heart of It: New York Diaries, 1983-1994, by Thomas Mallon (Library Catalog)
From the renowned novelist and critic (the recent hit TV show “Fellow Travelers” is based on his novel of the same name) comes an exquisite collection of journal entries from the 1980s and ’90s, tracking a young, gay author’s literary coming-of-age in New York during the AIDS crisis.
In 1983, Thomas Mallon was still unknown. A literature professor at Vassar College, he spent his days traveling from Manhattan to campus, reviewing books to make ends meet and searching the city for his own purpose and fulfillment. The AIDS epidemic was beginning to surge in New York City, the ever-bustling epicenter of literary culture and gay life, alive with parties, art, and sex.
Though he didn’t know it, everything would soon change for Mallon. Riding the success of his debut, “A Book of One’s Own,” he became a fixture within the city’s literary scene, crossing paths with cultural giants and becoming an editor at GQ. He captured it all in his daily journals. But in some ways it was the worst possible time for a gay coming-of-age in the city. One of his lovers succumbed to AIDS, and the illness of others was both a heartbreaking reality and a constant reminder of his own exposure.
Tracing his own life day by day, Mallon evokes all that those years encompassed: the hookups, intensifying politics, personal tragedies, as well as his own blossoming success and eventual romantic happiness. “The Very Heart of It” is a brilliant and bewitching look into the daily life of one of our most important literary figures, and a keepsake from a bygone era.
A Great Gay Book: Stories of Growth, Belonging & Other Queer Possibilities, edited by Ryan Fitzgibbon (Library Catalog, Hoopla)
“A Great Gay Book” is a gorgeously designed collection of essays, short fiction, poetry, interviews, profiles, art, and photography from the archives of the groundbreaking queer magazine Hello Mr. , as well as new material from today’s biggest LGBTQ+ creatives.
Notable artists and writers featured in the book include Jeremy Atherton Lin, Lady Bunny, Alexander Chee, Garth Greenwell, Saeed Jones, Chani Nicholas, Tommy Pico, Ocean Vuong, Bryan Washington, John Waters, Kehinde Wiley, J Wortham, Hanya Yanagihara, and many more. “A Great Gay Book” is a triumphant celebration of the diversity of queer experience, showcased across several mediums in a beautifully designed package.
Spent: A Comic Novel, by Alison Bechdel (Library Catalog)
Alison Bechdel’s hilariously skewering and gloriously cast new comic novel confection, a cartoonist named Alison Bechdel, running a pygmy goat sanctuary in Vermont, is existentially irked by a climate-challenged world and a citizenry on the brink of civil war. Can she pull humanity out of its death spiral by writing a scathingly self-critical memoir about her own greed and privilege?
Meanwhile, Alison’s first graphic memoir about growing up with her father, a taxidermist who specialized in replicas of Victorian animal displays, has been adapted into a highly successful TV series. It’s a phenomenon that makes Alison, formerly on the cultural margins, the envy of her friend group (recognizable as characters, now middle-aged and living communally in Vermont, from Bechdel’s beloved comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For”).
As the TV show Death and Taxidermy racks up Emmy after Emmy—and when Alison’s Pauline Bunyanesque partner Holly posts an instructional wood-chopping video that goes viral—Alison’s own envy spirals. Why couldn’t she be the writer for a critically lauded and wildly popular reality TV show…like Queer Eye...showing people how to free themselves from consumer capitalism and live a more ethical life?
Spent’s rollicking and masterful denouement—making the case for seizing what’s true about life in the world at this moment, before it’s too late—once again proves that “nobody does it better” (New York Times Book Review) than the real Alison Bechdel.
The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin, by Daniel Brook (Library Catalog, Hoopla)
An illuminating portrait of a lost thinker, German-Jewish sexologist and activist Magnus Hirschfeld.
More than a century ago, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld first argued that gender and sexuality were fluid. Dubbed “the Einstein of Sex,” Hirschfeld grew famous (and infamous) for his liberating theory of sexual relativity. Today, he’s been largely forgotten.
Journalist Daniel Brook reinvigorates Hirschfeld’s legacy, recovering one of the great visionaries of the twentieth century. As an advocate for trans acceptance and the decriminalization of homosexuality, Hirschfeld served as intellectual impresario to Weimar Berlin’s libertine cabaret culture. Driven from his homeland by fascists, he embarked on a global survey of human sexuality and witnessed the diversity of gay life, as well as the impacts of imperialism and racism firsthand. Hirschfeld spent his final years in exile, working to debunk Nazi race science and warn the world of the genocidal dangers of racism. Rich in passion and intellect, “The Einstein of Sex” at last brings together this unsung icon’s work on sexuality, gender, and race and recovers the globe-trotting visionary who first saw beyond the binaries.
The Lilac People, by Milo Todd (Library Catalog, Hoopla)
For readers of “All the Light We Cannot See” and “In Memoriam,” a moving and deeply humane story about a trans man who must relinquish the freedoms of prewar Berlin to survive first the Nazis then the Allies while protecting the ones he loves:
In 1932 Berlin, Bertie, a trans man, and his friends spend carefree nights at the Eldorado Club, the epicenter of Berlin’s thriving queer community. An employee of the renowned Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld at the Institute of Sexual Science, Bertie works to improve queer rights in Germany and beyond, but everything changes when Hitler rises to power. The institute is raided, the Eldorado is shuttered, and queer people are rounded up. Bertie barely escapes with his girlfriend, Sofie, to a nearby farm. There they take on the identities of an elderly couple and live for more than a decade in isolation.
In the final days of the war, with their freedom in sight, Bertie and Sofie find a young trans man collapsed on their property, still dressed in Holocaust prison clothes. They vow to protect him—not from the Nazis, but from the Allied forces who are arresting queer prisoners while liberating the rest of the country. Ironically, as the Allies’ vise grip closes on Bertie and his family, their only salvation becomes fleeing to the United States.
Brimming with hope, resilience, and the enduring power of community, “The Lilac People” tells an extraordinary story inspired by real events and recovers an occluded moment of trans history.
In Memoriam: Edmund White was an American novelist, memoirist, playwright, biographer, and essayist. A pioneering figure in LGBTQ and especially gay literature after the Stonewall riots, he wrote with rare candor about gay identity, relationships, and sex. Before passing earlier this month, White won many awards and accolades for his activism and for his many novels, plays, essays, and memoirs. You can find a variety of Edmund White’s work via our Library Catalog and/or Hoopla. (Photo: David Shankbone - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=123431365.)
Compiled by Louis Muñoz Jr. (All annotations adapted from publisher’s blurbs.)