Notable works on LGBTQIA+ topics (2023)
In recognition of Pride Month, Princeton University Library shares media recommendations by students, staff, and faculty who visited Princeton University’s Pride Fair in April 2023.
A Pride Fest visitor prepares to write down their favorite LGBTQIA+ work. Photo credit: Brandon Johnson
Authors
Ashley Herring Blake is an award-winning author and teacher. She loves coffee, cats, melancholy songs, and happy books. She is the author of the young adult novels Suffer Love, How to Make a Wish, and Girl Made of Stars (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), and the middle grade novels Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World and The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James. Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World was a Stonewall Honor Book, as well as a Kirkus, School Library Journal, NYPL, and NPR Best Book of 2018. Her YA novel Girl Made of Stars was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. She’s also the author of the adult romance novel Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, and a co-editor on the young adult romance anthology Fools in Love.
Having true international appeal, James Baldwin was as well known in Istanbul and Paris as he was in Harlem. His reputation was made on incendiary and eloquent essays written and published to mass acclaim in the late 1950s and early 1960s as well as a trio of early novels dealing with racism, sexuality, violence, and religion. Among his lauded works are “Go Tell It on the Mountain”, “Notes of a Native Son”, and the controversial “Giovanni's Room.”
Victoria “V. E.” Schwab is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than 20 books, including the acclaimed “Shades” universe, the “Villains” series, the “City of Ghosts” series, “Gallant,” and the international bestseller “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.” Her work has received critical acclaim, been translated into over two dozen languages, and optioned for television and film. First Kill – a YA vampire series based on Schwab’s short story of the same name – is now a Netflix series.
bell hooks was an activist, author, feminist, poet, professor, and scholar, and from reading accounts from those who were blessed to know bell hooks personally, a phenomenal family member, friend and teacher. Trying to encompass the work of bell hooks in a few sentences is a futile task. Dr. Imani Perry, Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, stated, “I think we can’t overstate her influence.” Selected readings are available on the PUL website.
Roxane Gay’s writing appears in Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many others. She is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. She is the author of the books “Ayiti,” “An Untamed State,” the New York Times bestselling “Bad Feminist,” the nationally bestselling “Difficult Women,” and the New York Times bestselling “Hunger.”
Books
This is How You Lose the Time War
Two time-traveling agents from warring futures, working their way through the past, begin to exchange letters—and fall in love in this thrilling and romantic book from award-winning authors Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone.
When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius―his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There's only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.
After enduring an injury at Dunkirk during World War II, Laurie Odell is sent to a rural veterans’ hospital in England to convalesce. There he befriends the young, bright Andrew, a conscientious objector serving as an orderly. As they find solace and companionship together in the idyllic surroundings of the hospital, their friendship blooms into a discreet, chaste romance. Then one day, Ralph Lanyon, a mentor from Laurie’s schoolboy days, suddenly reappears in Laurie’s life, and draws him into a tight-knit social circle of world-weary gay men. Laurie is forced to choose between the sweet ideals of innocence and the distinct pleasures of experience.
In Tamil Nadu, India, a boy is born with blue skin. His father sets up an ashram, and the family makes a living off of the pilgrims who seek the child’s blessings and miracles, believing young Kalki to be the tenth human incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. In Kalki’s tenth year, he is confronted with three trials that will test his power and prove his divine status and, his father tells him, spread his fame worldwide. While he seems to pass them, Kalki begins to question his divinity.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jump start her career.
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.
Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World
“Gay New York” brilliantly shatters the myth that before the 1960s gay life existed only in the closet, where gay men were isolated, invisible, and self-hating. Based on years of research and access to a rich trove of diaries, legal records, and other unpublished documents, this book is a fascinating portrait of a gay world that is not supposed to have existed.
Films and TV Shows
My Brother the Devil (2012)
Two teenage brothers must face their own prejudices head on if they are to survive the perils of being Egyptians growing up on the streets of gangland London.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman.
Special (2019)
A young gay man with cerebral palsy branches out in hope of finally going after the life he wants.
Victor/Victoria (1982)
A struggling female soprano finds work playing a male female impersonator, but it complicates her personal life.
Heartstopper (2022)
“Heartstopper” is a British coming-of-age romantic comedy-drama television series on Netflix, adapted from the webcomic and graphic novel of the same name by Alice Oseman. Teens Charlie and Nick discover their unlikely friendship might be something more as they navigate school and young love in this coming-of-age series.
Call Me By Your Name (2017)
In 1980s Italy, romance blossoms between a seventeen-year-old student and the older man hired as his father's research assistant.
Published on June 1, 2023
Compiled by the Office of Library Communications
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