Stack your reading list for Pride Month and beyond with these 11 new titles chronicling the struggles and celebrations of the Queer community.
Black, Queer, & Untold: A New Archive of Designers, Artists, and Trailblazers by Jon Key | Levine Querido
Growing up in Seale, Alabama as a Black Queer kid, then attending the Rhode Island School of Design as an undergraduate, Jon Key hungered to see himself in the fields of Art and Design. But in lectures, critiques, and in the books he read, he struggled to see and learn about people who intersected with his identity or who got him. In Black, Queer, & Untold, Key manifests the book he and so many others wish they had when they were coming up. He pays tribute to the incredible designers, artists, and people who came before and provides them an enduring, reverential stage – and in so doing, gifts us a book that takes its place among the creative arts canon.
About Face: Stonewall, Revolt, and New Queer Art by Jonathan D. Katz | Phaidon
Though the Stonewall Riots might now be shorthand for the start of the gay rights movement, so much of art and culture has been ‘queer’ since the beginning of time. In About Face, art historian and curator Jonathan D. Katz explores this concept head-on, curating a tapestry of works that connect historical threads and reveal how gender and sexual identity have been interwoven by artists contemporaneous to and since Stonewall.
A Place of Our Own: Six Spaces That Shaped Queer Women’s Culture by June Thomas | Hachette Book Group
In A Place of Our Own, journalist June Thomas invites readers into six iconic lesbian spaces over the course of the last sixty years, including the rural commune, the sex toy boutique, the vacation spot, and the feminist bookstore.
Queer World Making: Contemporary Middle Eastern Diasporic Art by Andrew Gayed | UWA Press
Building on global art histories and transnational queer theory, Queer World Making illuminates contemporary understandings of queer sexuality in the Middle Eastern diaspora. The author focuses on the visual works of artists who create political art about queer identity, including Jamil Hellu, Ebrin Bagheri, 2Fik, Laurence Rasti, Nilbar Güres, and Alireza Shojaian.
Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler | Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Judith Butler, the groundbreaking thinker whose iconic book Gender Trouble redefined how we think about gender and sexuality, confronts the attacks on “gender” that have become central to right-wing movements today. Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time and more.
Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair by Mercury Stardust | DK
For too many people, the simple act of contacting a plumber or repair person can feel like a game of chance. Mercury Stardust, AKA The Trans Handy Ma’am, has discovered (the hard way) that we live in a world with much to fear. If you’ve ever felt panicked about opening your home to strangers in order to fix a maintenance issue, this book is for you.
Nothing Ever Just Disappears: Seven Hidden Queer Histories by Diarmuid Hester | Pegasus Books
An exploration of artistic freedom, survival, and the hidden places of the imagination, including James Baldwin in Provence, Josephine Baker in Paris, Kevin Killian in San Francisco, and E. M. Forster in Cambridge, among other groundbreaking queer artists of the twentieth century.
Photography – A Queer History by Flora Dunster, Theo Gordon | Ilex Press
Examines how photography has been used by artists to capture, create and expand the category ‘Queer’. It bookmarks different thematic concerns central to queer photography, forging unexpected connections to showcase the diverse ways the medium has been used to fashion queer identities and communities.
How to Live Free in a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir by Shayla Lawson | Tiny Reparations Books
Poet and journalist Shayla Lawson follows their National Book Critics Circle finalist This Is Major with these daring and exquisitely crafted essays, where Lawson journeys across the globe, finds beauty in tumultuous times, and powerfully disrupts the constraints of race, gender, and disability.
Long Live Queer Nightlife: How the Closing of Gay Bars Sparked a Revolution by Amin Ghaziani | Princeton University Press
In this exhilarating journey into underground parties, pulsating with life and limitless possibility, acclaimed author Amin Ghaziani unveils the unexpected revolution revitalizing urban nightlife.
Queer Art: From Canvas to Club, and the Spaces Between by Gemma Rolls-Bentley | Quarto
With nearly 200 artworks selected by leading LGBTQI+ curator Gemma Rolls-Bentley, this book mixes the high-brow with the low, gallery stalwarts with Instagram stars, and the racy with the fabulous.
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