This is it. This is the book that, if I could, I’d put in to every person’s hands. It will speak to you no matter what shape your God or spirituality takes.
recommended if you like: quoates you'd want to get tattooed
Bluets is a stunning collection of synchronicities forged into a 95 page love letter. This is a love letter for an ex, for depression, for sex, for love, and most of all, a love letter for the color blue and how it binds all humans together through time and space.
recommended if you like: writing about your ex
One of the most important books I’ve ever read. Brick by brick, Machado builds and explores the structures in which emotional abuse thrives and how it goes largely undetected in queer relationships. Machado is, hands down, one of the best writers of our time.
recommended if you like: The Twilight Zone & The L Word
This book reads like an epic poem. After tragically losing the love of their life, Jules concocts a wild plan to spread B’s ashes. While their loss is heartbreaking, Jules is so present in their grief and remembrance of B that you can’t help but feel heartful by the pure love that emanates from this story. I wish I could read this forever.
recommended if you like: buddy road trips and epic love
I feel very called out by this book and I guarantee you will too. Most of these stories are so simple they’re divine, and Bob-Wakesberg essentially reinvents narrative to tell it like it is.
recommended if you like: confrontational humor and unapologetic honesty
Selin is highly educated, technically skilled, painfully observant, and also unreasonably oblivious and naive. Hilarious, frustrating, and most of all, smart, The Idiot gives us the best worst anti-manic pixie dream girl.
recommended if you like: Russian lit and first loves
I started this book because I was very excited to read about a horny mortician. Then I was unexpectedly broken open by Baxter’s illustrations of grief; how it exists in the body, and what it feels like to lose your mother.
recommended if you like: Six Feet Under, your mom
This is a sapphic, psychosexual, wet dream of a book. Broder cuts through the current fascination with Daddies and Daddy Issues to deliver us The Mommy; an arguably more taboo area of subconscious pain and pleasure. CW: This book heavily discusses eating disorders.
recommended if you: have any Taurus placements
![The Sisters Brothers [Movie Tie-in]: A Novel By Patrick deWitt Cover Image](https://images.booksense.com/images/books/574/893/FC9780062893574.JPG)
Eli Sisters is a gentle and poetic storyteller, full of profound observation, existential inquiry, and dark humor. He and his brother, Charlie, are also renowned hired killers. Join the Sisters Brothers on their journey of brotherhood and mortality through the lush landscape of 1840s Oregon and California for their last job.
recommended if you like: Deadwood
This book is utterly heartbreaking and wild but also holds golden nuggets of truth about family, unconditional love, and what it means to be a freak. Please, pick up this book, take a seat, and enjoy the Binewski’s Carnival Fabulon.
recommended if you like: cults, freaks, unconventional families
This book dug deep into my soul and reached parts of me I had forgotten were there. Emezi bends and flows the English language to their will and in doing so they thin the veil between worlds. I promise you’ve never read anything like this.
recommended if you like: cosmic coming-of-age stories
God’s first draft of the world will soon be scrapped to make way for the second draft. Heti tells us the story of the micro and macrocosm through kaleidoscopic narration and poetic prose. Pure Colour celebrates, grieves, and releases the world as we knew it.
recommended if you like: Tiffany lamps
As you can see from the blurbs, this book is E R O T I C. But it’s also a fascinating character study of someone who can shapeshift into different gender presentations and how it changes their experience of the world and the people in it. This is a highly enjoyable and utterly wild ride.
recommended if you like: mixtapes and smut
My best friend put this book in my hands and said “READ THIS, TRUST ME.” So just imagine me as your best friend saying the same thing. These short stories transcend genre to deliver emotional and gripping mind f*ckery. You’ll love it, trust me.
recommended if you like: gay ghost stories
I read this book in a single day. It gave me the feelings I had as a child reading fantasy novels. Miller decenters the men of Greek mythology in order to give Circe, the original witch of the west, her epic and long overdue story.
recommended if you like: witchcraft and revenge
Disability, sexuality, sobriety, codependency, and self-image are just a few of the topics O’Connell explores/blows (open) in this multitudinous story. Hilarious, heartfelt, and H-O-R-N-Y, I devoured the (w)hole thing.
recommended if you: think brunch is overrated (but go anyway)
This was everything I wanted in a story; romance, adventure, found families, and even a murder mystery. The landscape that Owens paints will consume you and by the end it will feel like Kya’s marsh is as familiar as your own home.
recommended if you like: fresh cornbread and sunsets
Peters broaches delicate topics of gender, race, sexuality, and class with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The story is tough yet compassionate and the characters will jump off the page and into the darkest parts of your heart. Peters sees how deeply complex humans are and she’s exposing us all.
recommended if you like: new ways to love
Crow is the animated stench of death, the archaic lineage of grief, the mushy, slipperiness of your internal organs. Crow is what fills every corner of your life when you are experiencing loss. I love this book. I love crow. KRACAW!
recommended if you like: bird omens
Strange, Southern, queer, earthy, and raw. Thomas gives us characters unlike any we’ve read about before. As they search history for pieces of themselves, you will find unexpected pieces of yourself in these characters.
recommended if you like: Fried Green Tomatoes, Carmen Maria Machado
The perfect American coming-of-age story. Told to us by Little Dog, a queer, first genration Vietnamese immigrant who explores the epigenetic trauma of his family to give context to his upbringing. This story is both brutal and deeply tender and reads like long form poetry.
recommended if you like: poetic memoir-fiction
Sheffield brilliantly harnesses music’s power of nostalgia to tell the story of his marriage and the untimely death of his wife. Here he writes about the songs that brought them together, what they loved about music, and how they loved each other.
recommended if you like: that one song that reminds you of your first love
This book is simply GORGEOUS. It dives into tarot history and the evolution of the cards’ imagery. There are so many wonderful examples of the cards from a myriad of decks. This book is about art as much as it is about tarot.
recommended if you like: nice things
If you’re going to read The Odyssey, this is the translation you want! Wilson makes this epic story accessible and easy to read while preserving its compelling plot and gorgeous metaphors.
recommended if you like: O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Instead of filling in the blanks, Carson lets them emphasize what remains of Sappho’s poetry. This collection is unreasonably beautiful and shows us that not much has changed since 630 BC when it comes to matters of the heart.
recommended if you like: ruins and other lost history
You’d be hard pressed to find a poet who better explores and distills the dynamics of family than Vuong. His poems are a form of caretaking and reading them makes the broken things feel tended to.
recommended if you like: family photo albums
This is an intimate and wild journey through Hanawalt's early work. We can start to see familiar themes and characters develop that are now featured on the TV series Bojack Horseman and Tuca & Bertie. Hanawalt's work is strange yet completely relatable.
recommended if you like: Bojack Horseman, Tuca & Bertie
The relationships in Stone Fruit are their own living, breathing creatures with soft hearts and claws and fangs. I've never read or seen anything like this before. It left me cracked open and in awe.
recommended if you like: chaotic intimacy and heart mending
If you think you know this story because you saw the movie, no you don't!! I'm gonna be that guy and say, THE BOOK IS BETTER.
recommended if you like: gay heartbreak
If you thought being a teenager was intense, try being an assassin in training on top of it. Deadly Class has all of the compelling and familiar angst, drama, lust, and awkwardness of adolescence but with, like A LOT more blood.
recommended if you like: dark humor, '80s nostalgia
A singular horror comic that depicts witch mythology in the most bone chilling and unsettling way. While they look more like beasts than old crones, they are methodical and calculated in their hunting. Seriously, you’ve never seen witches like this before.
recommended if you like: new takes on old tales
If Romeo and Juliet were space cowboys who, instead of dying, fought tooth and nail and all kinds of aliens for their love and a brighter future, it would look like this.
recommended if you like: hot aliens
For someone who claims to hate writing short stories, she writes the best short stories. My favorite part of this collection are the personal insights written by Butler after each story giving us a sneak peek into her process and one of a kind mind.
An apocalyptic tale that feels eerily familiar, written by someone highly attuned to the world around her. Parable of the Sower accounts horrendous hardship, but plants the seed for new opportunities and hope.
recommended if you: don't usually read sci-fi
Yes, this book has everything you could want from a horror story: demons, haunted cabins, eerie bird behavior, exorcisms, and ‘80s camp. But more than anything this is a powerful testament of friendship. Seriously, when I finished I called my BFF crying to tell them how much I love them.
recommended if you: barely survived high school
This ghost story with zero ghosts in it is one of the best ghost stories I've ever read. Jackson taunts us with her subtle and slow burn genius. In a small book, she brings to life a behemoth house that will haunt you for days to come.
recommended if you like: spooky picnics
I ripped through this book in one day. VanderMeer transports you to the most luscious and chaotic landscape. I never read the rest of the series and I don't plan to. This book stands on its own.
recommended if you like: things that aren't what they appear to be
Reignite your childhood passion for Greek Mythology with the comprehensive book on the subject. Whether you know everything about Greek & Roman mythology or nothing, this is a staple for every book shelf.
recommended if you like: D’Aulaires' Greek Myths
To me, Nara feels like the people's artist. His work is accessible and captivating no matter where you are in life. His art is both soothing and stimulating, refined and totally punk rock. I love revisiting his paintings, sketches, sculptures, and ceramics in this book.
recommended if you like: album artwork
This collection of cultural critiques floored me. Abdurraqib’s observations are sharp and poignant but written with so much heart and tenderness. He could be reviewing foot creams and I’m sure I’d still be moved to tears.
recommended if you like: Fall Out Boy, Nina Simone
Remarkable. Ditlevsen was tragically smart and self-aware for the life she was born into. Her prose is brutal and poetic while remaining sparse. She is my Slyvia Plath, I’m completely obsessed.
recommended if you like: Sylvia Plath
Unreasonably funny and relatable. I laughed, I cried, I got horny reading about Gutowitz being horny for Julianne Moore. Her essay titled “The Ten Most Sapphic Paparazzi Photos” is nothing short of searing cultural criticism.
recommended if you: want Cate Blanchett to step on you
Prado has collected every song, fad, break-up, identity crisis, and loss that has made her and she's distilled them all into this powerful collection of essays.
recommended if you: still listen to your high school playlists/mixtapes
My mom wrote this and it's really good :)
recommended if you: love your mom
A remarkable little guidebook for the unconventional tourist who wants to see the parts of LA that mean something to the people who live here. “Chicken Boy” is a landmark of my childhood!
recommended if you like: Atlas Obscura
A punk rock fairy tale set in a surreal yet recognizable Los Angeles. This book was the cornerstone of my identity as a teen.
recommended if you like: cowboy boots, Okie Dogs, night drives
As a little witch named Hazel, I endorse this book. I can't wait to take it back to my small home in the forest and read it to all of my animal, fairy, and elven friends.
recommended if you like: owls, berries, cool pants
This is a sweet story about a dog enjoying his last day on Earth with his forever friend. This is a real tearjerker and a lovely book to help understand death and loss and eternal love.
recommended if you like: awwwpuppies!
If your knowledge of death care begins with caskets and ends with ground burials then let this book take you all around the world to explore how other cultures care for their dead. Doughty is always personable, thoughtful, and intent on finding “the good death”.
recommended if you like: travel and dead things
This a recontextualization of a medieval guide to death. It is believed that a good life and a good death are inextricably linked, and in order to truly have a good life we must face our mortality. This book is gentle, profound, and utterly fascinating.
recommended if you: want to know what a dancing plague is
Discernibly grotesque and yet undeniably beautiful, The Anatomical Venus blends art, science, history, and romance. I could pour over this book for ages. It makes for a great reference or gift for the special morbid person in your life.
recommended if you like: wax museums
Sometimes all we can do is take things one day at a time. This little book of daily meditations on grief helps break down our grief into bite sized pieces. Checking this book every day feels like a safe place to be in touch with my feelings.
recommended if you like: taking things slow
Love, a word we are all familiar with but whose definition often feels nebulous and subjective. hooks offers us a more tangible meaning of the word so that we may build better boundaries, set healthy expectations, and have a deeper experience of love.
recommended if you like: personal growth