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10 Books to Read for Pride Month

In honour of Pride Month, Read Alberta is highlighting 10 books that centre LGBTQ2S+ authors, stories, and perspectives. Support LGBTQ2S+ authors and read these stories year-long.

The Definition of Beautiful by Charlotte Bellows

Charlotte Bellows wrote The Definition of Beautiful between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, in the wake of lockdown and in recovery from anorexia. Bellows offers a potent fusion of insight and innocence — a story for those who suffer or have suffered from eating disorders, but, more, a vital coming of age story of a young gay and artistic woman, tugged and throttled by a myriad of pressures, not least from the dark gravity that is the underside of her own creative drive.

The Definition of Beautiful: A Memoir

Charlotte Bellows (CA)

Published: Sep 01, 2023 by Freehand Books
ISBN: 9781990601460

Accessible icon: a stick person inside a circle. Available as an accessible eBook

Next Time There’s a Pandemic by Vivek Shraya

In Next Time There’s a Pandemic, artist Vivek Shraya reflects on how she might have approached 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic differently, and how challenging and changing pervasive expressions, attitudes, and behaviours might transform our experiences of life in—and after—the pandemic. With generosity, Shraya captures the dissonances of this moment, urging us to keep showing up for each other so we are better prepared for the next time…and for all times.

Next Time There's a Pandemic

Vivek Shraya (CA)

Published: Mar 01, 2022 by University of Alberta Press
ISBN: 9781772126051

Accessible icon: a stick person inside a circle. Available as an accessible eBook

The Melting Queen by Bruce Cinnamon

Every year since 1904, when the ice breaks up on the North Saskatchewan River, Edmonton has crowned a Melting Queen—a woman who presides over the Melting Day spring carnival and who must keep the city’s spirits up over the following winter. But this year, something has changed: a genderfluid ex-frat brother called River Runson is named as Melting Queen.

Melting Queen, The

Bruce Cinnamon (CA)

Published: Apr 01, 2019 by NeWest Press
ISBN: 9781988732503

Accessible icon: a stick person inside a circle. Available as an accessible eBook

Muster Points by Lucas Crawford

Muster Points is a frank discussion of desire, nostalgia, mental illness, and health from a professor with one foot kicking the ivory tower and both feet sloshing in all the sundry fluids of queer sex and depression. These poems bring us on a trans boy’s trips through the shard-sharp ruins of heterosexual marriages, into weird rural masculinities and their fraught survival, into regret and recovery, durability and desire.

Muster Points

Lucas Crawford (CA)

Published: Jun 15, 2023 by University of Calgary Press
ISBN: 9781773854533

Accessible icon: a stick person inside a circle. Available as an accessible eBook

Pass Me By: Electric Vice by Kat Simmers & Ryan Danny Owen

Book 2 in the award-winning series, Pass Me By: Electric Vice is a queer love story set in the outrageous world of 1970s glam rock. A journey of self-discovery, heartache, glam rock, and love, this inverted coming of age story is about understanding queer identity and what happens to the stories you never tell.

Electric Vice

Kyle Simmers (CA), Ryan Danny Owen

Published: Oct 19, 2021 by Renegade Arts Entertainment
ISBN: 9781988903859

Accessible icon: a stick person inside a circle. Available as an accessible eBook

Deviant by Patrick Grace

Deviant traces a trajectory of queer self-discovery from childhood to adulthood, examining love, fear, grief, and the violence that men are capable of in intimate same-sex relationships. Richly engaged with the tangible and experiential, Patrick Grace’s confessional poetry captures profound, sharp emotions, tracking a journey impacted equally by beauty and by brutality. 

Deviant

Patrick Grace (CA)

Published: Feb 12, 2024 by University of Alberta Press
ISBN: 9781772127416

Accessible icon: a stick person inside a circle. Available as an accessible eBook

Dare to Bird by Melissa Hafting

Showcasing some of Melissa’s most stunning bird images from the continental United States, Hawaii, and Canada, Dare to Bird explores the joy that birding and photography has brought to her life and how both have allowed her to foster meaningful connections with young birders from diverse backgrounds, along with the conservation community, eco-travel advocates, rare bird enthusiasts, and ethical wildlife viewing practitioners in order to preserve bird habitats that are constantly under threat. At the same time, she is determined to expand birding to include more BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour), women, and LGBTQIA+ through youth outreach and talking about the barriers she herself has faced in her journey to become part of the birding community.

Dare to Bird: Exploring the Joy and Healing Power of Birds

Published: Jun 18, 2024 by RMB | Rocky Mountain Books
ISBN: 9781771606547

Accessible icon: a stick person inside a circle. Available as an accessible eBook

Indigiqueerness by Joshua Whitehead, in dialogue with Angie Abdou

Beginning with memories of his childhood writing and travelling through the library of his life, Whitehead contemplates the role of theory, Indigenous language, queerness, and fantastical worlds in all his artistic pursuits. This tender, eclectic reflection celebrates Indigenous writers and creators who defy expectations and transcend genres.

Indigiqueerness: A Conversation about Storytelling

Joshua Whitehead (CA)

Published: Apr 25, 2023 by Athabasca University Press
ISBN: 9781771993913

Accessible icon: a stick person inside a circle. Available as an accessible eBook

In the Defense of Liberty by Keith Maillard

It’s 1964, and the students at Merida University in Ohio can sense that something is brewing — the campus is rippling with undercurrents of anger and alienation. As they work to make sense of the rapidly shifting cultural and ideological climate, the four main characters are also consumed by their own personal dramas. In this fascinating and fast-paced novel, Keith Maillard expertly captures the ethos of the mid-1960s and explores threads of gender and sexuality, while holding up a mirror to the roots of modern-day American polarization.

In the Defense of Liberty

Keith Maillard (CA)

Published: May 01, 2023 by Freehand Books
ISBN: 9781990601415

Accessible icon: a stick person inside a circle. Available as an accessible eBook

Entropic by R.W. Gray

In this collection of stories, author and filmmaker R. W. Gray finds the place where the beautiful, the strange, and the surreal all meet—sometimes meshing harmoniously, sometimes colliding with terrible violence, launching his characters into a redefined reality. A lovestruck man discovers the secret editing room where his girlfriend erases all her flaws; a massage artist finds that she has a gift, but is uncertain of the price; a beautiful man sets out to be done with beauty; and a gay couple meets what appear to be younger versions of themselves, learning that history can indeed repeat itself.

Entropic

R.W. Gray (CA)

Published: May 15, 2015 by NeWest Press
ISBN: 9781927063866

 

Accessible icon: a stick person inside a circle. Available as an accessible eBook