Let’s Support New and Old Queer Bookstores in 2025
Here are some of the most interesting recent queer and bookish links from across the internet, including the resurgence of the gay bookstore, reading trans joy, more of the best queer books of 2024, and more.
Let’s Support New and Old Queer Bookstores in 2025
Electric Literature has a list of queer-owned bookstores across the United States to love and support, with brief bios of each. These descriptions are a good reminder that queer, feminist, and social justice-oriented bookstores do so much more than sell books: they’re safe places, community organizing hubs, and sources of essential resources. They run queer book clubs, host literacy non-profits, boost marginalized authors, and so much more.
Meanwhile, The New York Times wrote about The Resurgence of the Gay Bookstore, highlighting queer bookstores that opened recently, including Hive Mind Books in Brooklyn, Charlie’s Queer Books in Seattle, and Common Ground Books in Tallahassee.
Most of these stores ship across the country (if not across the world), so this year, let’s try to concentrate our book-buying dollars on bookstores doing the work to promote queer literature.
Wrapping Up the Best Queer Books of 2024
On Our Queerest Shelves, we spent most of December discussing the best queer books of 2024: The Best Queer Books of 2024, According to All the Lists, My Favorite Queer Books of 2024, Your Favorite Queer Books of 2024, and more. But there are still a few Best Queer Books of 2024 lists to get to before we put that year fully in the rearview mirror.
Autostraddle put out their list of The Best Queer Books of 2024, focusing on queer books that didn’t get as much attention, like The Lotus Empire by Tasha Suri, which Casey says is “full of heart-pounding action as well as hard-won character growth”, not to mention “gut-wrenching sapphic longing.” Also, Love the World or Get Killed Trying by Alvina Chamberland, an autofiction “poetic cry of trans loneliness”; the decolonial travel memoir How To Live Free In A Dangerous World by Shayla Lawson; Firebugs by Nino Bulling, a “slice-of-life graphic novel of queer millennial ennui”; and so many more, separated by genre. Autostraddle has a separate list for The Best Queer Poetry Releases of 2024.
At my sapphic book blog, the Lesbrary, the reviewers and I discussed the Best Sapphic Books of 2024 and Our Favorite Sapphic Books We Read in 2024 (That Weren’t Published in 2024).
If You Need a Little Trans Joy Today, Pick Up These Books
I don’t need to tell you that we’re living through a dangerous time for trans people around the world, especially with Trump getting back into power soon. There is so much to do to fight for trans rights and safety, but especially for trans people, there also needs to be space for trans joy. Autostraddle has put together a list of 10 Books That Celebrate Trans Joy, including essay collections, memoirs, realistic fiction, and fantasy books. I absolutely loved Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki, which is on this list, but I will warn that it includes a lot of transmisogyny, including assault, so it’s not a light read—but it is ultimately hopeful and life-affirming.
…and More Queer Book Links
I can never stop at just three stories, so here’s a potpourri of queer book recommendation lists and news stories.
- Autostraddle wrote a celebration of Nikki Giovanni’s life
- The New York Times asked, How Did Lesbian Pulp Fiction Thrive in the 1950s and ’60s?
- Expand your reading list with these 11 Great Queer Novels About Sisters and 7 Queer Books with Messy Endings
- Check out this graph of the growth of yuri manga over time
- The New York Times reviewed The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan—I read this recently and really enjoyed it!
- My Lesbian Novel by Renee Gladman got reviews from the Guardian as well as the Los Angeles Review of Books
Do you have a local queer bookstore? Let’s chat in the comments!
If you’re reading this newsletter online and want queer book recommendations in your inbox, sign up for Our Queerest Shelves here.
The comments section is moderated according to our community guidelines. Please check them out so we can maintain a safe and supportive community of readers!
Leave a comment
Join All Access to add comments.