I follow hundreds of queer book blogs to scout out the best sapphic book news and reviews! Many of them get posted on Tumblr and Twitter as I discover them, but my favourites get saved for these link compilations. Here are some of the posts I’ve found interesting in the last few weeks.

This Pride month, take a look back at 50+ years of LGBTQ lit with picks from every decade from 1970 to now!

Here’s a “short, selective, and incomplete” history of queer publishing, from the last 80s to now.

At Bustle, 21 LGBTQ+ authors (including Kristen Arnett, Casey McQuiston, and Sarah Gailey) talk about the books they wish they’d had as teenagers. On a similar note, The New York Times has an article about the reparative power of reading positive queer YA as an adult. (Sadly, it’s behind a paywall.)

The author of the photography book Queer Love In Color talks representation, love, & Pride month.

Your rage read of the day: Hungary has banned teaching about “homosexuality” in schools.

What would your dream queer anthology look like? Laura Sackton at Book Riot discusses the stories she’d select in her own.

Read this essay: How Audre Lorde’s Genre-Blurring Zami Spoke My Truth Into Existence.

Casey discusses 8 books about queer people dealing with cancer over at Autostraddle.

Here are 8 queer books in translation to read now.

Reads Rainbow has been doing some intersectional queer book lists, including East Asian LGBTQ lit, West Asian LGBTQ lit, Southeast Asian LGBTQ list, and South Asian LGBTQ lit. Relatedly, here are some Indian novels to read this Pride!

Do we need queerphobia for a queer identity? (Nah.) But Tor.com discusses whether there is a place for imagining a queer future in literature that still has prejudice. I do think there’s room for both utopian queer SFF/queernorm worlds as well as SFF stories with characters who fight prejudice, but I don’t think we should base our identities on others’ hatred of us.

OurShelves is a diverse, LGBTQ-inclusive children’s book subscription box.

This post has the covers linked to their Amazon pages. If you click through and buy something, I might get a small referral fee. For even more links, check out the Lesbrary’s Twitter! We’re also on Facebook, Goodreads, Youtube and Tumblr.

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a queer women book every month! $10 and up patrons get guaranteed books throughout the year!

I follow hundreds of queer book blogs to scout out the best sapphic book news and reviews! Many of them get posted on Tumblr and Twitter as I discover them, but my favourites get saved for these link compilations. Here are some of the posts I’ve found interesting in the last few weeks.

The Lambda Literary Awards were announced!

It’s Pride Book Fest on YouTube! Check out 90+ queer creators talk queer books!

June 19th is the start of the Queer Blackathon! It’s a 48 hour readathon that centers queer Black books! There are some prompts, but you’re also encouraged to join in reading any queer Black books you’re interested in.

This Pride month, support queer bookstores, like these ones in the U.K.

For some heartwarming news, this community group funded 10 “Rainbow Little Free Libraries” with 500 LBGTQ children’s books!

Here’s a history of LGBTQ lit publishing, from 1980-1995.

Read some Black, African, and Caribbean LGBTQ lit!

Sapphic YA has exploded in recent years–to the point that it can be hard to find adult sapphic lit! If you’re more accustomed to YA F/F romance than the adult version, this guide to Adult sapphic romance for beginners will be useful for you.

If mysteries and thrillers are more your speed, these queer crime novels are worth reading all year round.

Buzzfeed has recommendations for 47 Science Fiction And Fantasy Novels Starring LGBTQ+ Characters, and here are more queer fantasy novels for Pride month.

And these sapphic SFF books are “spectacularly queer!”

This title speaks for itself: What To Read When You Want a Fat and Queer Summer.

This one is unfortunately behind a paywall, but it’s worth the read if you have a NYT subscription: a bisexual librarian thinks about how her and her marriage to a man would be classified under the Dewey decimal system.

Stjepan Šejić, the author of Sunstone (a BDSM F/F comic) is offering the first 6 volumes as free PDFs while he works on volume 7.

Here’s a definitive reading list on theory of queerness and work.

These are some 2021 queer YA books by authors of color you should add to your TBR!

For fans of the fake dating trope, try these queer YA fake dating romances!

If you like queer YA thrillers, take this quiz to decide which one to read next!

Here is how Pride has been depicted in kids books over the past three decades–plus a database of 700+ LGBTQ-inclusive kids’ books! Speaking of, here are the NYPL’s recommendations of picture books and board books for Pride.

Since we’re talking about queer kids’ books, here’s 11 facts about Harriet the Spy, including why it resonates with queer readers

This post has the covers linked to their Amazon pages. If you click through and buy something, I might get a small referral fee. For even more links, check out the Lesbrary’s Twitter! We’re also on Facebook, Goodreads, Youtube and Tumblr.

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a queer women book every month! $10 and up patrons get guaranteed books throughout the year!

I usually do these link round ups every 2 weeks, but I fell behind for… oh, about 6 months. Here is part 3 of my catch-up on the queer women lit content worth reading on the rest of internet that came out in the last 6 months. This is all the genre-specific sapphic lit links worth clicking! Part 1 is 2021 new releases and posts about specific authors and books. Part 2 is lists, essays, and more general posts. And if you want even more bi and lesbian lit links, check out the Lesbrary Tumblr and Twitter!

First are some sapphic fantasy recommendations! Adrienne Tooley, author of Sweet & Bitter Magic, wrote about Five Sapphic Fantasies That Helped Me Find My Freedom. Rainbow Reads offered up some Lesbian Adult Fantasy recs. They also have tons of queer high fantasy recommendations. Finally, it’s never a bad time for a queer witchy read: These 24 Queer Witch Books Will Cast a Spell on You.

I missed rounding up the LGBTQ Halloween reads posts in October, but these queer horror recs are good all year. Book Riot offered some spooky queer book recommendations and Sapphic Book Club has sapphic ghosts, witches, necromancer, and other spooky book recs. This one is probably preaching to the choir, but: Carmilla Is Better Than Dracula, And Here’s Why

Looking for more LGBTQ graphic novels? Reads Rainbow has you covered. Look out for these 5 Queer Graphic Novels and Memoirs You Won’t Want to Miss in 2021. And CBR has 10 LGBTQ+ Marvel Superheroes You Didn’t Know About.

If you like yuri manga, you have to be following Okazu. They put out two informational videos worth watching about yuri: Own Voices – Are There Queer Creators Creating Yuri? and Why Is There More Boy’s Love than Yuri? Plus, check out their picks for the Top Yuri Manga of 2020. Not sure where to start? Try this beginner’s guide to modern LGBTQ+ manga.

I have a soft spot for old school lesbian cookbooks (that’s why I own The Butch Cook Book). Here’s How Lesbian Luminaries Put Together a Groundbreaking Cookbook. Continuing with nonfiction recommendations, Autostraddle has Books on Queer Sex That Answer Questions You Never Got To Ask. I loved this Book Riot post, which has lots of great complex, messy, realistic representations of being queer: 20 Must-Read Queer Essay Collections.

If you’re a reader of YA, catch up with some of the foundational titles with 9 Classics of Queer YA Literature. Here are 6 YA Books That I Needed as an Anxious Queer Teen. Check out YA Contemporary That Isn’t About Coming Out. Then try this tongue in cheek post from Book Riot: YA LGBTQ+ Book Recommendations Based on Your Attachment Style.

Here are the groups helping get LGBTQ-inclusive books into the schools that need them! Because Kids Need Queer Books. I wrote this post about 14 LGBTQ Board Books to Diversify Your Baby’s Bookshelves! For slightly older kids, there’s Children’s Books About LGBTQ+ Heroes & Events That Changed The World. And a step above that is 17 Great LGBTQ+ Middle Grade Novels You Need In Your Life and Reads Rainbow’s Book Recs for Middle Grade.

This post has the covers linked to their Amazon pages. If you click through and buy something, I might get a small referral fee. For even more links, check out the Lesbrary’s Twitter! We’re also on Facebook, Goodreads, Youtube and Tumblr.

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a queer women book every month! $10 and up patrons get guaranteed books throughout the year!

I fell behind on collecting sapphic book links, so here is part of my catch-up on the queer women lit content worth reading on the rest of internet that came out in the last 6 months. This post is lists, essays, and more general posts. Part 1 is 2021 new releases and posts about specific authors and books. Stay tuned for part 3! And if you want even more bi and lesbian lit links, check out the Lesbrary Tumblr and Twitter!

If you want queer lit in the mail, check out The Best LGBTQ+ Book Subscription Boxes. (Or support the Lesbrary Patreon for exclusive email list giveaways and regular books in the mail for the $10+ levels!)

Author Niamh Murphy has compiled 11 Awesome BookTubers Who Review Lesbian and WLW Fiction, including me! For more queer lit videos, check out 11 Glorious Spoken Word Poems By Queer Poets.

Book Riot continues to knock it out of the park when it comes to queer book content, if I do say so myself. I would like this post even if it didn’t say nice things about me in the first paragraph: 20 Must-Read Contemporary Sapphic Novels.

Arsenal Pulp Press is my favourite publisher because of all their queer, Indigenous, social justice, and other diverse books! Here are 14 Queer and BIPOC Books From Arsenal Pulp Press to Read Right Now.

If you want to diversify your queer book list, 20 Must-Read Queer Books in Translation from Around the World is a must read. This post is amazing and gives me real reader envy!

Casey Stepaniuk does so much for promoting queer lit, both on her blog and Autostraddle. I know you want found family books, so start with 8 Books Featuring Big Queer Families, Found and Otherwise and follow it up with 8 Fat Positive Queer Books Featuring Queer Fat Characters in All Their Glory.

Speaking of sapphic readers’ kryptonite tropes, here are recommendations for queer Enemies to Lovers books and a Guide to Lesbian Workplace Romances. Or turn things up a notch with Books With Lesbian Sex: 38 Great Reads with Lesbian Sex.

For fairytale lovers, these are must-reads: 10 Beautiful Audiobook Fairytale Retellings For Women Who Love Women and 10 Amazing Classics and Fairytale Queer Retellings You Need to Read.

This post made me and basically every other Book Riot employee cry: Lil Nas X, Unapologetic Queerness, and the Books I Wish Upon My Past Self.

Autostraddle posted an in-depth reexamination of the Fingersmith reimagining: “The Handmaiden” Dares You to Look.

Let’s celebrate queer book history! The World’s Oldest LGBTQ Bookstore Is Still a Toronto Icon.

I love lesbian pulp! I wrote Show Your Pride With These Lesbian Pulp Decorations and Accessories! and you can also take a quiz on Autostraddle: Quiz: Which Lesbian Pulp Book Cover Are You? If you’re not familiar with it, they also have a primer: No Adam for Eve: The Quiet History of Lesbian Pulp Fiction.

One of the months I’m catching up on is February, which means there were Black History Month posts that are still worth checking out now! LGBTQ Reads and YA Pride both have a list of resources and recommendations they update every year. On Book Riot, I gathered up all the 2021 LGBTQ Books by Black Authors I could find. Here are 25 Black and Sapphic Comic Book Characters You Should Know. The Black Lesbian Literary Collective amplify Black lesbian and queer authors all year round and posted We Won’t Be Tokenized.

If you’re looking for bisexual books, here are January-June 2021 Books With Bi Protagonists. Somebody was obnoxious on twitter about bisexual people in M/F relationships not being queer, which resulted in these posts: M/F Romances Featuring Bi+ Women Whose Queer Identities and Communities are Front and Center, Queer M/F Recs , and Bi MCs and M/F Romance.

Dahlia Adler put together a recommendations list for Bi Visibility Day Casey wrote 8 Books Featuring Bi+ People in Longterm Relationships for Bi+ Week at Autostraddle. Also check out these books with BIPOC Bi MCs.

LGBTQ Reads also has a post for Lesbian Day of Visibility! And here are Reads Rainbow’s Lesbian Lit recs. Top it off with these “defiant and essential” lesbian books.

This post has the covers linked to their Amazon pages. If you click through and buy something, I might get a small referral fee. For even more links, check out the Lesbrary’s Twitter! We’re also on Facebook, Goodreads, Youtube and Tumblr.

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a queer women book every month! $10 and up patrons get guaranteed books throughout the year!

If you’ve been following the Lesbrary for a while, you probably are familiar with the bi-weekly link round ups. They’re when I share all the queer sapphic stuff happening on the rest of the internet worth checking out. If you’re new here, though, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about, because I fell a little bit behind… Like 6 months behind. And because I am stubborn, I refused to just let it go. I kept saving up links for an eventual round up. I’ve finally gone through them all, though, and I’m ready to share them with you–in 3 parts! This one is 2021 new releases and posts about specific authors and books. If you want even more bi and lesbian lit links, check out the Lesbrary Tumblr and Twitter!

First off, we have all the LGBTQ+ books you should have on your radar for 2021–even though we’re well into the year now. Still, many of these have yet to be released, and the ones that have certainly haven’t gone bad since then! Check out Cosmo’s 30 New LGBTQ+ Books to Add to Your Reading List in 2021, Advocate’s 22 LGBTQ+ Books You Absolutely Need to Read This Year, and Oprah’s 42 LGBTQ Books That Will Change the Literary Landscape This Spring. For some upcoming releases, try Logo’s 17 Exciting Queer Books to Savor This Summer.

KA Doore’s 2021 Queer Adult Science Fiction & Fantasy Books list just came out, which is always a highlight for me. They find and document so many books I’ve never heard of before, plus all the bullet points that make you excited about reading a book, like “gay heist book!!! Slowburn sapphic romance!!!”

And now, all the queer 2021 YA book lists: Buzzfeed’s 30 LGBTQ+ Young Adult Books We Think You Should Read This Spring, LGBTQ Reads’s 2021 LGBTQ YA Starring People of Color, and Publisher’s Weekly’s Children’s and YA LGBTQ Books: Spring 2021–including a Afro-Latinx non-binary middle grade Choose Your Own Adventure book!!

Remember 2020? Wish I couldn’t! Still, there were some great queer books published that year that didn’t get the attention they deserved, so check out Autostraddle’s 67 of the Best Queer Books of 2020.

Did you know Simone De Beauvoir wrote a same-sex love story that wasn’t published until now?

New biographies of a few authors came out, so read about Loise Fitzhugh–the lesbian author of Harriet the Spy--on Washington Post, NY Post, New Republic, and Jezebel. Did you know she wrote a lesbian YA as her follow-up book, but the publisher wouldn’t take it and it’s been lost to time?

Also read about Patricia Highsmith, who was a terrible person but a fascinating author. Emily M. Danforth says Highsmith’s The Price of Salt has the best sex she ever read.

Read about Audre Lorde in The New Republic’s Audre Lorde Broke the Silence.

There are no authors quite like Carmen María Machado, but if you liked her books, you’ll probably enjoy these authors, too.

Adrienne Rich is a part of lesbian literary history, so read about her in The Many Lives of Adrienne Rich and The Long Awakening of Adrienne Rich, but remember that Adrienne Rich was also involved with the transphobic book The Transsexual Empire.

Do you like Sappho? Do you want to decorate your home and clothing with images of Sappho? Of course you do: Suffering Sappho! Sappho of Lesbos Decor and Accessories to Collect. (I wrote this!)

Speaking of complicated sapphic literary history: Untangling the Legacy of “The Color Purple”.

Alison Bechdel discusses the perfection of the love letters of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West.

Tamsyn Muir had so much written about her that she gets her own section. Read this one with her about cyberpunk lesbian gunslingers. And this one about the butch lesbian sci-fi aesthetic. And this one where the author of Gideon the Ninth explains herself.

Here’s Gideon the Ninth, broken down trope by trope. Harrow the Ninth is about profound grief and terrible puns. Gideon and Harrow show the value of problematic relationships in fiction.

Can’t wait for the next book in the Locked Tomb series? Read These 10 Books Like GIDEON THE NINTH and buy these GIDEON THE NINTH Goodies for Locked Tomb Fans (I wrote this one!)

This post has the covers linked to their Amazon pages. If you click through and buy something, I might get a small referral fee. For even more links, check out the Lesbrary’s Twitter! We’re also on Facebook, Goodreads, Youtube and Tumblr.

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a queer women book every month! $10 and up patrons get guaranteed books throughout the year!

I follow hundreds of queer book blogs to scout out the best sapphic book news and reviews! Many of them get posted on Tumblr and Twitter as I discover them, but my favourites get saved for these link compilations. Here are some of the posts I’ve found interesting in the last few weeks.

If you want to do some good in the world by getting LGBTQ picture books into pre-K to grade classrooms, support Pride and Less Prejudice! They use donations to send free age-appropriate book bundles to teachers who request them.

And for more ways to spend your money supporting queer books, LGBTQ Reads has a list of queer books available at various indie bookstores, complete with buy links! It couldn’t be easier to pick up some new to you authors while giving indie bookstores the support they need right now.

Looking to blow up your TBR pile/preorder list? Check out Sasha and Amber Read’s 2021 – The Year of Sapphic Excellency. There’s also Hsinju’s Lit Log’s 2021 Sapphic Releases from LGBTQ+ Indies for even more. If you can’t preorder all the titles you’re interested in, I recommend putting them in your Google Calendar and sending a reminder the day before. Then you can put it on hold at the library! That’s how I keep my library holds always maxed out.

Of course, if you want to be aware of queer books coming even further out, there’s LGBTQ Reads’s August Book Deal Announcements post, which includes books that may not be out for years.

If you’d rather check out new releases that are coming out soon, try Autostraddle’s 65 Queer and Feminist Books Coming Your Way in Fall 2020.

Now that you’ve spent all your money ordering and preordering books, you can get instant gratification with Book Riot’s 12 of the Best Queer Webcomics You Can Read For Free. I used to be a big webcomics fan, so this is reminding me that I should jump back in!

https://www.tiktok.com/@ellelillylew/video/6842134105900043526

Now I have to share the post that had me clicking the fastest: 15 TikTok Accounts That’ll Help You Dive Into LGBTQ+ Literature. I blame Pop Sugar for me now contemplating getting TikTok. No one told me there were queer book TikTokers!

YA Pride interviewed teenagers about how queer books have affected their lives at Teens Talk About LGBTQIAP+ YA. If you, like me, are over 25, you will feel old reading these. But either way, they are heartwarming, and include how some of these teens explored and discovered their identity through books.

Lambda Literary posted Queer Diaries Are Celebrations of a Secret History, which looks at the history of Lou Sullivan’s, Anne Lister’s, and Mary MacLane’s diaries–as well as a suggested queer diary reading list.

Reads Rainbow has a rapid-fire recommendation post of Sapphic YA Fantasy Recs, with the reasons you should read each pick.

The always-wonderful Casey wrote 8 Queer YA Novels With Coming of Age Hope to Relive Alice Wu’s “The Half of It”–and if you haven’t watched The Half of It on Netflix yet, run and do that first! I loved it. These books include: “falling in love through letter writing, figuring out your queer identity, keeping secrets, new friendships, small towns, and slowly getting to new your new girl crush.” Who can resist?

YA Pride’s The Path to Publication: Writing the Queer Black Girls of Cinderella Is Dead has Kalynn Bayron describe the obstacles to publishing Cinderella is Dead, including being told in writers’ groups that it wasn’t mainstream enough, while agents insisted the fairy tale retelling was overdone: “It’s not standard practice to reply to an agent at all, much less with the question, ‘How many of those reimaginings center BIPOC? And how many of them are also queer?'”

Fiona Zedde posted on Woman and Words Black LesBiQueer Books, Y’all!, highlighting some recent releases by Black queer women, including lots of romance and erotica recs!

Oprah Magazine has a list of 5 Best Audre Lorde Books to Read Right Now, because there’s never been a better time to read them. Speaking of Audre Lorde, Autostraddle’s Year of Our (Audre) Lorde continues with August’s New Spelling of My Name, which contemplates Zami and how it relates to Jehan’s own relationship with New York City.

The Atlantic’sThe Groundbreaking Female Artist Who Shaped Manga History, about Kuniko Tsurita, whose “Occupants” depicted a lesbian relationship, and who included gender noncomformity and queer coding in her work.

If you are a lesbian literature nerd like me, you will love this story that was posted on twitter: Resurfaced medieval tale has the most incredible queer plot twist. Explicitly queer medieval lit! With no real judgement of them!

Speaking of queer lit crit, did you know that one of the most popular board books of all time has a queer backstory? If you didn’t, you need to read Lambda Literary’s ‘Goodnight Moon’ and the Queer Love Story of the Great Green Room.

This post has the covers linked to their Amazon pages. If you click through and buy something, I might get a small referral fee. For even more links, check out the Lesbrary’s Twitter! We’re also on Facebook, Goodreads, Youtube and Tumblr.

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a queer women book every month! $5 and up patrons get guaranteed books throughout the year on top of the giveaways!

I follow hundreds of queer book blogs to scout out the best sapphic book news and reviews! Many of them get posted on Tumblr and Twitter as I discover them, but my favourites get saved for these link compilations. Here are some of the posts I’ve found interesting in the last few weeks.

Over at Medium, Elizabeth Andre shared 79 Black Lesbian (and Bi, Queer, Trans, and Non-binary) Fiction Authors You Should Know, so there’s no excuse to not be reading Black queer books! If you’re a non-Black person, we should be reading both books that educate us about anti-Blackness as well as stories about Black joy. This list includes a lot of Romance authors, so that’s a great place to start!

Along the same lines, also check out Book Riot’s 20 Must-Read Black Authors of LGBTQ Books. I always look through these LGBTQ lists to make sure they’re not mostly m/m books, so rest assured there are lots of sapphic books to add to your TBR here.

If you’re looking for something a little more political, Electric Literature posted A Syllabus for the Uprising, which recommends books to get read for the queer Black revolution.

I’ve been mentioning this every round up, but that’s because you should be aware of Autostraddle’s Year of Our (Audre) Lorde, where Jehan reads Audre Lorde poems and connects them to what’s happening in the world right now. Last month was July Is a Black Unicorn.

Speaking of Black sapphic reads, Sometimes Leelynn Reads created The Cinderella is Dead Book Tag, so if you read and loved Cinderella is Dead and have a book blog/bookstagram account/booktuber channel, give this tag a try, and let me know what your answers are!

The Lesbrary New Releases posts promote sapphic books of all kinds, but sometimes you’re looking for a particular identity. For the bi+ bibliophiles, check out reads rainbow’s Book Releases: July-December 2020 Books With Bi Protagonists.

And for pan page-turners, there’s also Book Riot’s 5 Books With Pansexual Main Characters.

Of course, I’m not forgetting the literary lesbians. Here’s Audible’s Best Lesbian Listens by Queer Authors.

Audiobooks are a great way to squeeze in reading during commutes or chores or just when the world is on fire and you can’t concentrate on the page. For more recs, try Book Riot’s 15 LGBTQ YA Audiobooks to Listen to in the Second Half of 2020.

Casey Stepaniuk is also providing awesome queer book recommendations, and her latest is at Autostraddle: 8 Great Queer Scandinavian Books, from Tender Novels to Supernatural Horror.

If you’re already eagerly anticipating fall, Book Riot’s 12 Queer Witch Books to Bring the Magic to Your TBR would make for excellent books to stock up on before those breezy Autumn nights.

Over at Electric Literature, Jessica Xing wrote about equating her queerness with monstrousness as a young closeted person, and how pulp helped with that, in Lesbian Pulp Novels Made Me Feel Normal.

OZY wrote about Nobuko Yoshiya, the first writer of Yuri, who is an amazing historical figure more people need to know about: The Daring Feminist Writer Who Inspired Manga.

And for another historical exploration, check out ‘Paris-Lesbos’: the Vibrant Lesbian Community Where Women in the 1920s Thrived to learn about the literary lesbian salons of Paris in the 1920s, and how queer authors flourished at that particular point in history.

This post has the covers linked to their Amazon pages. If you click through and buy something, I might get a small referral fee. For even more links, check out the Lesbrary’s Twitter! We’re also on Facebook, Goodreads, Youtube and Tumblr.

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a queer women book every month! $5 and up patrons get guaranteed books throughout the year on top of the giveaways!

I follow hundreds of queer book blogs to scout out the best sapphic book news and reviews! Many of them get posted on Tumblr and Twitter as I discover them, but my favourites get saved for these link compilations. Here are some of the posts I’ve found interesting in the last few weeks.

• Anxious Nachos posted My Top Queer Releases of 2020 So Far. They also posted a wrap up of all their 30 Days of Pride posts!
• And for more new releases to add to your TBR, Oprah Magazine posted their picks for All the LGBTQ Books That Are Changing the Literary Landscape in 2020
• If you’re looking for bisexual or pansexual books, you might want to check out The Quiet Pond’s recommendations. (Of course, you can also browse the Lesbrary’s bisexual tag!)

• On Lambda Literary, Julie R. Enszer posted Dead Lesbian Poets: A Meditation in Six Parts, which is a thoughtful history of lesbian poetry from an esteemed lesbian poet.
• Xtra Magazine posted How Femme Memoirs Challenge Queer Stereotypes about Rural Living, which includes recommendations as well as a reminder to challenge “metronormativity” (seeing being in a city as the norm) in queer spaces.
• Book Riot’s Pride is a Rebellion, and Rebellions are Built on Hope recommends 10 hopeful queer SFF titles.
• LGBTQ Reads offers the newest installment of the Under the Gaydar series, which gives recommendations where the cover and blurb don’t give away the queer content (perfect for closeted readers): Under the Gaydar: F/F YA Fantasy.
• Niamh Murphy’s 11 Gorgeous Adaptations for Lesbians and Queer Girls who Love Fairy Tales!

• Autostraddle continues their Year of Our (Audre) Lorde with June’s Uses of Anger, exploring Lorde’s essay and how it relates to Black people living in the US today.
• Here’s a fun one: Book Riot posted a quiz that asks Who Said it: Fiona Apple or Virginia Woolf? 
• Pop Matters looked at the history of Olivia by Dorothy Strachey, and why it’s a classic of lesbian literature.
• Corinne Manning, author of We Had No Rules, posted Crafting The Narrative Of Abuse on Autostraddle, which discusses how editing one of these short stories changed her understanding of abuse in her life.

This post has the covers linked to their Amazon pages. If you click through and buy something, I might get a small referral fee. For even more links, check out the Lesbrary’s Twitter! We’re also on Facebook, Goodreads, Youtube and Tumblr.

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a queer women book every month! $5 and up patrons get guaranteed books throughout the year on top of the giveaways!

This has been a Pride like no other. Our usual celebrations were cancelled for COVID-19, and police brutality protests take us right back to where Pride began. LGBTQ people have Black trans people to thank for the LGBTQ rights movement, for Pride, and for so much that we take for granted, which is why it’s even more important for us to stand by them now. Police continue to target Black people of all genders, Black trans people continue to face so much violence, and the fight for rights is far from over. Black Lives Matter protests continue (even if they’re not getting as much news coverage), and there are many ways to support the movement. Check out the Black Lives Matter carrd for continually updated petitions to sign, places to donate, and ways to educate yourself. For white and white-passing people, I highly recommend reading Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad. It guides you through digging into your own internal racism and the work to be done, and it’s really opened my eyes to how far I have to go, and how much anti-racism education is a lifelong process.

The world of LGBTQ books and publishing has began to reckon with its own racism, with Black Lives Matter protests bringing more attention to the inequalities that Black authors have been raising the alarm about for years. Check out the Lesbrary’s recent article Let’s Talk About Racism in Lesbian Publishing for a brief overview of the most recent iteration of the conversation.

• Continuing this conversation, Black f/f author Renée Bess wrote Excuse Me While I Burn a Few Bridges, asking publishers and readers both to examine their own racism, and also names a ton of Black authors of lesbian and f/f fiction
• Sistahs on the Shelf is a fantastic resource for Black lesbian and f/f books. They’ve been on hiatus for a while, but I’m so happy to see that Sistahs on the Shelf is back!!
• In the article Reading Black Joy: F/F Romances by Black Authors, I mentioned how Katrina Jackson’s twitter thread about queer Black romances was where I got many of the titles. At LGBTQ Reads, Katrina Jackson wrote about that thread and why she started it: Finding Queer Black Love in Literature
• Leah Johnson, author of You Should See Me in a Crown, wrote the stunning essay How Queer YA Novels Taught Me to Write My Own Happy Ending about growing up Black and queer and finding possibility in queer YA
• For other resources to find more Black queer books, NBC News posted Best Black Queer Books, According to Black LGBTQ Leaders, including recommendations from the president of the Human Rights Campaign, the executive director of Equality North Carolina, a filmmaker, and the programs officer for communities of color at GLAAD
• And for finding more queer authors of colour generally, check out Electric Literature’s Poetry Collections About Being a Queer Person of Color

• Of course, Pride has also come with a tidal wave of queer book recommendation posts, and Book Riot always excels here. Check out 10 LGBTQIA+ Fantasy and Sci-Fi Adventures to Take You Far From Here and 8 LGBTQ+ Fairytales From 2020
• Anxious Nachos has been doing 30 Days of Pride, covering a ton of genres: Queer Romcoms, Historical Fiction, and The Rise of the Queer Novella
• In the comics side of, Comic Book Resources posted The Best Manga Reads for Pride, From Utena to Wandering Son
• And finally, in slightly more niche genres, check out Electric Literature’s 8 Stories by LGBTQ Women Writers From Around the World recommending lesbian literary geographies

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• Pride has also brought some posts about queer history, which I love to see. Stylist’s These Fascinating LGBTQ+ Stories are a Celebration of Joy We All Need to Hear is about The Log Books, a podcast that tells stories from the handwritten log book entries of volunteers at Switchboard, a British LGBTQ+ helpline in the 70s and 80s
• Of course, maybe you want to pick up some queer history books! Check out Book Riot’s 12 Informative Queer Women’s History Reads
• And if your brain is feeling too overloaded for a history book, maybe Book Riot’s 11 Photography Books To Enjoy for Pride will be more your speed

• Speaking of Pride and history, The Boar discussed Why are LGBTQ+ Children’s Books Still Being Censored?
• Lisa Jenn Bigelow, author of Hazel’s Theory of Evolution, discussed the importance of LGBTQ representation for young kids: “While adults wait for the ‘right time’ to introduce issues of gender identity and sexual orientation in an affirming and fact-based manner, the mob never stops chanting its messages of hatred and fear.”
• And if you want to see how people are doing this work, check out the Mental Floss post This Organization Is Bringing LGBTQ+ Representation to Rural Schools One Box of Books at a Time
• Looking for queer kids’ books to read to your kids and niblings or just to read yourself?Try Book Riot’s 10 of the Best LGBTQ+ Middle Grade Books That Celebrate Pride as well as Popsugar’s 50+ Books For Tweens and Teens With LGBTQ+ Characters and Experiences
• Not enough? More are coming out all the time! Dahlia Adler and LGBTQ Reads posted LGBTQA MG 2020 Preview (July-December), 31 Brand New LGBTQ YA Books To Devour This Summer, and LGBTQAP YA 2020 Sequel Preview: July-December
• And finally, celebrating queer community, check out Book Riot’s 5 Great Queer YA Books About Friendship for Pride

• And of course, it wouldn’t be Pride on the bookternet without some good old-fashioned giant lists of LGBTQ book recommendations. Check out Reads Rainbow’s Book Recs: Twitter’s Best LGBTQ Books
• If you’re very organized and caught up on new queer releases, keep in the loop for upcoming titles with LGBTQ Reads’s June 2020 Book Deal Announcements

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I follow hundreds of queer book blogs to scout out the best sapphic book news and reviews! Many of them get posted on tumblr and twitter as I discover them, but my favourites get saved for these link compilations. Here are some of the posts I’ve found interesting in the last few weeks.

• I’m proud to see how many queer lit pages are using their platforms to advocate for Black Lives Matter–Pride was a riot against police violence, and it is imperative for LGBTQ people to stand together with Black Americans (and Black people around the world) fighting for their rights. Andi Marquette talked about this at Women and Words: Yeah…About that Whole Pride Thing…
• One way you can support is with your wallet, and LGBTQ Reads posted Shop Queer Books from Black-Owned Bookstores to make it easy to support Black-owned bookstores while you’re building your Pride TBR.
• Autostraddle has been celebrating the Year of Our (Audre) Lorde all 2020. Check out the latest addition: May’s Burst of Light.

• It wouldn’t be a link round up without some new books to add to your TBR. Check out Dahlia Adler’s 30 LGBTQ YA Books You’ll Absolutely Want To Pick Up This Spring and Autostraddle’s 60 Queer and Feminist Books Coming Your Way in Summer 2020

Lesbrary link round ups are made possible by Patreon!
Support the Lesbrary for $5 a month and get queer books throughout the year!

• You can be forgiven for wanting to read something light at this point in a pandemic. Autostraddle’s 13 Books Packed With Queer Joy to Block Out the World can help.
• Not enough? Try Book Riot’s 31 of the Best Queer Books with Happy Endings.
• And of course, you can pretend you’re on the beach with Book Riot’s 14 Summer Queer Books for Your June TBR.

• Probably the biggest LGBTQ lit recent news is the announcement of the winners of the 32nd Annual Lambda Literary Awards!
• If you’re looking for pansexual rep in your Pride reads, LGBTQ Reads posted a recommendations post: Happy Pan Day of Visibility!
• And if you’d rather pick up some specifically lesbian reads, check out The Nerd Daily’s LGBTQ+ Alphabet Recommendations: L for Lesbian Fiction
• Entertainment Weekly posted an interview with four queer authors: Nicole Dennis-Benn, Akwaeke Emezi, Naoise Dolan, and Garth Greenwell. They have a fascinating conversation about the state of queer publishing: There’s Never Been a More Exciting Time for Queer Literature. These Authors Show Us Why.
• And finally, CBR posted about a 1970s underground lesbian comic: The Messy Authentic Brilliance of Come Out Comix.

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Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a queer women book every month! $5 and up patrons get guaranteed books throughout the year on top of the giveaways!