The start of a new year means the start of a new list of books to read. As a little treat for your new year, here are some of our favorite books from 2023 to start your 2024 TBR with!
Jamie Colwell, Awards Intern
1. Couplets: A Love Story by Maggie Millner
A journey told through verse about a woman exploring her sexuality in an ordinary but captivating life in Brooklyn, NY; spicy and raw, a series of couplets that you can’t put down.
2. Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski
This spectacular debut set in early 1980s Poland reads like a classic gay story of love and yearning.
3. The Tradition by Jericho Brown
If you’re going to delve into a contemporary poetry collection, this is a must-read masterclass in poetry writing that even invents its own form: the Duplex.
Chloe Feffer, Retreat Manager
1. When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Ashgar
Ashgar rocked my world with this novel. It’s prose, it’s poetry, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever read, and utterly heartbreaking.
2. The Parable Series by Octavia Butler
I was in a reading slump this year—and you know who always gets me out of a reading slump?? Of course, it’s Ms. Butler herself. This series is terrifying in that Butler seems like an oracle—her vision of a dystopian society has a scary number of parallels to our own lil’ dystopia of 2023 🙃.
3. remembering (y)our light by River 瑩瑩 Dandelion
This illustrated poetry chapbook from one of our 2023 Poetry Fellows nourishes on so many levels. One of my favorites in this book is The Dream Garden Ghazal Remix—which Dandelion read at our Writers Retreat and is available on our Youtube to watch! It’s funny, illuminating, and oh-so-affirming.
Iyana Gallen, Executive Office Manager
1. Don’t Stop Me by Eden Emory
WLW, BDSM, ex-boyfriend’s MOTHER?! How could I resist? This dark romance delivers a gripping underworld plot, 5-star spice, and palpable tension. I shamelessly read this book in one sitting and immediately returned for more!
CW: drugs, abuse, age gap, and crime. There are no heroes in this story.
2. Those Who Wait by Haley Cass
I will continue to talk about this book until my dying day. Set in NYC, it follows the story of a young politician who is comfortably closeted to the public until she meets a questioning, eager-to-learn grad student. My favorite 5-star read of the year!
Suzi F. Garcia, Review Manager
When I think of queer writing the word “yearning” comes to mind automatically, so I was concerned that this collection wouldn’t live up. But these poems enscapsulate nuances of self-discovery. They ache with emotional resonance that is honestly lovely to experience.
Reginald Harris, Learn with Lambda Contractor
Filled with vivid depictions of nature and the fears and ecstasies of touch, these wonderfully erotic poems of anger, youthful queer desire, the body and ‘the unexpected//agency of pleasure’ took me completely by surprise and totally knocked me out. Finalist for both the Lammy and Publishing Triangle awards, YEARN had me asking, “Where has this amazing poet been all my life—and how long do I have to wait for her next book to come out?”
2. There’s a Disco Ball Between Us: A Theory of Black Gay Life by Jafari S. Allen
I may be cheating a little here since Dr. Allen and I have been traveling in similar circles since, as he names it, the ‘Long 1980’s.’ But this breathtakingly innovative book pulls together a remarkable collection of Black feminist and queer theorists into a generous, important, and personal meditation on the past and futures of Black queerness. And don’t let the fact that the book’s academic drag discourage or put you off: the running House and Disco soundtrack alone will keep you vogueing thought the pages.
Panned by the notoriously snarky Kirkus Review when it first appeared as a “pretentious lefty fairy tale,” reading the reissue of this 1998 novel of lives of three people in McCarthy-era New York City was disturbing and eerie. The Future America envisioned by the wealthy and manipulative right-wing gossip columnist Austin Van Cleeve is proving to be all too prescient in this era of Trump, The Moms for Liberty, and the censorship of books, and suppression of ‘unacceptable’ speech and thought.
Ian Kirkland, Review Intern
1. Something That May Shock and Discredit You by Daniel M. Lavery
An audacious and clever work that explodes all expectations of the transition memoir. Beyond the confines of genre, Lavery explores the chaos, mundanity, and messiness of his own life through a series of essays as intimate as they are witty.
2. The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley
Seasoned novelist, scrupulous researcher, and queer scholar in her own right, Natasha Pulley is one of England’s leading practitioners of the queer historical novel. She is a master of crafting characters both bumbling and brilliant, balancing every story with equal measures of heart and thrill. The Half Life of Valery K is no exception, in fact, it had my heart racing faster than any of her other books! If your interests lie anywhere from Soviet nuclear testing to gay yearning, you’re sure to fly through The Half Life just like I did.
3. Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin
What a title, am I right!! Well, Emily Austin doesn’t just deliver in epigrams, cause this entire novel is a hoot! In desperate need of some relief from her distressing and isolated life, Austin’s protagonist, a lesbian atheist by the name of Gilda, responds to a flyer for free therapy in her area. However, when she nears the address, it turns out to be held at her local Catholic church. What’s worse? Father Jeff assumes she’s come for a job interview. What ensues is a mix of farce, thriller, and tragedy as Gilda stretches her lies and her sanity to their limits.
Morgan J. Sammut, Review Intern
1. House Gone Quiet: Stories by Kelsey Norris
Norris’ writing is GORGEOUS and this is a stunning debut collection. Each story is about the moment before—the waiting, anticipation, and what happens in that time. This book became one of my top favorite three short story collections before I even finished the first story.
2. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
I’m a huge speculative sci-fi fan and Chambers does such a wonderful job creating a lovable cast of characters. She’s able to fully flesh out each of the character as well as their various alien species, exploring various cultures, histories, and more.
3. A Fractured Infinity by Nathan Tavares
This book was MADE for me! Quantum physics is one of my secret loves (in another universe I am a physicist) and I am ALWAYS a sucker for doomed (?) queer romances!
Mai Tran, Program Coordinator
1. Datura Magazine edited & produced by mar & sunmi
There are currently two issues of Datura Magazine, an adult comics anthology inspired by josei manga. I picked up Issue 1 at a queer zine fest because the book itself is a work of art, beautifully riso-printed with a little holographic sticker of their namesake, a poisonous flower, inside. The stories range from fantastical to everyday, and every single one is perfect.
2. trans girl suicide museum by hannah baer
I love trans theory, or what hannah baer describes in her book, just thinking and talking about being trans constantly. Written in vignettes and memes, her reflections were churning in my head for a long time.
A fun graphic novel about four women living together and being messy, with some light demon horror sprinkled in. Perfect for readers who love a gossipy group chat, or for folks who support their friends’ rights and wrongs.
Emma Truong, Retreat Intern
1. A Green Equinox by Elizabeth Mavor
A trangressive study of sapphic love and longing, A Green Equinox by Elizabeth Mavor paints a fragment of the life of an antiquarian that is stubbornly stoic yet insistently heartwarming as she falls in love with her mistress’ wife, then mother.
2. Gods of Want: Stories by K-Ming Chang
This one is for the feral queer girls who yearn to come of age the way critters tear themselves apart to molt and rebirth. Each story is a folk tale of a girlhood insidiously entangled in the ritualistic devotion called kinship.
3. Dyke (geology) by Sabrina Imbler
In gorgeously written prose, Sabrina Imbler entangles the matters of being loved and being fetishized by queering the history of the world and its dykes, with their feelings palpable to the point of crystallization and then eruption.
Parrish Turner, Office Administrator
1. Sex Wizards Series by Alethea Faust
I have been annoying all my friends about the book series Sex Wizards by Alethea Faust. As a fantasy fan, I am always seeking out innovative series that use new magic systems and imagine a truly different world. The universe of Sex Wizards imagines a world where magic is created out of BDSM scenes. Is this high fantasy or erotica? I don’t care. It is often hard to find kinky erotica that has such clear consent at every moment and trigger warnings at the top of each chapter that read as in world literature. It is a character driven, found-family, pansexual dream of a story.
