LGBTQ

From lesbian necromancers in space to a magical send-up of the classic high school romance, there is a queer science fiction or fantasy book to suit everyone's taste, says the bestselling author Everina Maxwell. Here, she selects five cracking reads with queer protagonists.

Recently there has been a big push among queer writers to foreground stories of love and joy, says Aaron Aceves, the debut author of a YA novel about longing, lust, and the value of friendship. Here, he selects five of the best LGBTQ+ romance novels with joie de vivre—but which also aren't afraid to engage with a bit of hard reality on the way to a happy ending.

Queer history is not simply about exploring the historical incidence of non-heteronormative sexual desire and experience. It is also a way of looking at the past and of placing gender and sexuality at the heart of historical change. Here, Benno Gammerl, professor of Gender and Sexuality at the European University Institute, explains.

Good books for teens and young adults are often about identity and figuring out who you are. Novels with LGBTQ+ characters are some of the best examples of (fictional) young people learning to be themselves while navigating the world. Here, librarian Cassie Kemp shares her top picks of LGBT novels for teens and young adults.

Queer readers have had to transpose themselves into heteronormative stories for most of their lives, says the comedian and writer Rosie Wilby. That's one of the reasons why straight, cis- readers should make time to read books from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and intersex community. Here she highlights five landmark books by LGBTQI writers that everyone should read.  

The novels of James Baldwin, Alice Walker, Wallace Thurman and James Early Hardy bring the America of the last two centuries vividly to life. Marlon James brings us a fantasy trilogy set in ancient Africa. Robert Jones Jr., author of The Prophets—a love story set on a plantation in the American South—talks us through his choices of the best books by Black queer writers.

Many of the current controversies over trans rights and identities derive from false beliefs, explains the author and academic Susan Stryker. Here she selects five excellent contemporary trans titles with depth, complexity and heart, to help us reframe what has all too often become a toxic debate

"Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same," wrote Michel Foucault; a brilliant transdisciplinarian whose work spanned philosophy, history, social theory and literary criticism. He mined past ways of thinking so as to see present-day assumptions and practices afresh, explains the philosopher Gary Gutting.

Autofiction is writing that blurs the boundaries between autobiography and fiction. The writer of Trans: A Memoir, Juliet Jacques, picks her top five examples of the genre.

For thousands of years, human societies have tried to regulate sexual activity. The author of Sex and Punishment tells us why this should be so, and how what’s permissible has varied according to time and place.