Reading recommendations this LGBT+ History Month
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To mark it, we’re sharing a handful of our favourite books that engage with LGBTQIA+ history, culture and experience. There’s fiction, non-fiction, poetry and much more – all recommended by Arts Council England staff. Dive in.
Variations (2021)
by Juliet Jacques
Using fiction inspired by real-life events, this short story collection explores the history of transgender Britain.
Variations was published by Influx Press, who were supported by the Arts Council for this project through National Lottery Project Grants.
Reckless Paper Birds (2019)
by John McCullough
This poetry collection by John McCullough explores everything from birdlife, Grindr and My Little Pony – while also addressing social issues from homelessness to homophobia.
Reckless Paper Birds is published by National Portfolio Organisation Penned in the Margins.
C+nto & Othered Poems (2021)
by Joelle Taylor
Part-memoir and part-conjecture, Joelle Taylor explores sexuality and gender in poetry that is lyrical, expansive, imagistic, epic and intimate. C+nto & Othered Poems won the TS Eliot Prize for Poetry in 2021.
Joelle has received support from the Arts Council for several projects, including through National Lottery Project Grants, for research, writing, and the development of written work into stage shows.
Release the Beast: A Drag Queen’s Guide to Life (2021)
by Bimini Bon Boulash
A hilarious and inspiring guide to transforming your life through lessons from drag, by the star of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, Bimini Bon Boulash. With illustrations by Jules Scheele, Release the Beast combines advice with queer history.
The Go-Between: A Portrait of Growing Up Between Different Worlds (2022)
by Osman Yousefzada
A coming-of-age story set in Birmingham in the 1980s and 1990s, Osman Yousefzada explores gender roles against the backdrop of a closed migrant community living in a red-light district.
Osman discussed his memoir with Sara Wajid MBE, Co-CEO of National Portfolio Organisation Birmingham Museums Trust, at Ikon Gallery’s book launch in January.
How to Survive a Plague (2016)
by David France
Winner of the Baille Gifford prize for non-fiction, How to Survive a Plague is compelling account of the AIDS crisis between the years 1981-1996.
Written by journalist and documentary film maker, David France, who reported on the AIDS crisis from its beginnings, the book brings together the voices of several individuals to tell the story of how the activist community fought to develop the drugs that would tame the epidemic.
David directed an Oscar-nominated documentary of the same name in 2012.
Girl, Woman, Other (2019)
by Bernardine Evaristo
Winner of the Booker Prize in 2019, Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other follows 12 characters on their personal journey. They’re each looking for something – a shared past, an unexpected future, a place to call home, a lover…
Bernardine was appointed as the first ever Woolwich Laureate as part of Woolwich’s Cultural Destinations programme, which was led by Visit Greenwich, Royal Borough of Greenwich, FESTIVAL.ORG, and the Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust.
The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney (2019)
by Okechukwu Nzelu
Shortlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize in 2020, The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney is a funny and heart-warming novel that covers themes of race, gender, class, family and redemption.
As part of National Portfolio Organisation National Centre for Writing’s Early Career Writers’ Resources, Okechukwu Nzelu discussed his process for crafting the novel’s plot.
Queer Writing for a Brave New World (2021)
by Out on the Page
This wonderfully diverse selection of new writing, photography and visual poetry explores the spirit of modernism through the lens of 20 LGBTQIA+ artists and writers.
The chapbook was developed through a series of writer development workshops, funded by National Lottery Project Grants.
Out on an Island (2022)
Edited by Franko Figueiredo-Stow and Caroline Diamond
Out on an Island is an inspiring collection of 18 interviews from LGBTQIA+ people that takes a deep dive into their personal experiences in the Isle of Wight. Created in a collaborative effort among LGBTQIA+ island residents, it celebrates a close-knit community surviving together in the face of exclusion, prejudice and misrepresentation.
Out on an Island was developed as part of the first ever project dedicated to local LGBTQIA+ oral history by StoneCrabs Theatre, who were supported through the Government’s Culture Recovery Fund.
Tales of the City (1978)
by Armistead Mauplin
Tales of the City follows the lives of a group of friends in the LGBTQIA+ community in the 1970s, when Mary Ann Singleton spontaneously moves to San Francisco and finds herself intertwined with her neighbours’ complex lives.
Exploring themes of sexual freedom, gay culture and what it means to be family, Tales of the City was included in BBC News’ 100 most influential novels list in 2019. It’s the first instalment in a nine-book series published between 1978-2014 and has been adapted over the years for television, including a recent mini-series on Netflix (2019).
The Good Son (2015)
by Paul McVeigh
Inspired by his own experience growing up working class in 1980s Northern Ireland, The Good Son is a coming-of-age story that follows a young boy’s struggle as an outsider against the backdrop of the Troubles.
The novel won the Polari First Book prize in 2016, which is awarded annually to writers whose first books explore LGBTQIA+ experiences.
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