Over the Rainbow Book List: LGBTQIA+ Picks from Librarians

Ace

What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex

By: Angela Chen
Narrated by: Natalie Naudus
Length: 7 hours 43 minutes

“This book is an eye-opening collection of personal testimonies, research, and history about asexuality, and to a lesser extent, aromanticism. Whether you are new to learning about asexuality or are asexual yourself, by the end of the book you will have a richer and multifaceted understanding of ace identity and experience. Read more

Here for It

Or, How to Save Your Soul in America; Essays

By: R. Eric Thomas
Narrated by: R. Eric Thomas
Length: 7 hours 34 minutes

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today • From the creator of Elle’s “Eric Reads the News,” a heartfelt and hilarious memoir-in-essays about growing up seeing the world differently, finding unexpected hope, and experiencing every awkward, extraordinary stumble along the way.

“Pop culture–obsessed, Sedaris-level... Read more

Homie

Poems

By: Danez Smith
Narrated by: Danez Smith
Length: 1 hour 32 minutes

“In their third collection, Danez Smith shakes to life the parts of people that have gone to sleep waiting for this time in the world to be over. Those emotions that raise up too much anger or grief — all of them are alive again and seen and spoken for with utmost care and a tremendously welcome sense of humor. Pick this book up and carry it with... Read more

My Autobiography of Carson McCullers

A Memoir

By: Jenn Shapland
Narrated by: Jenn Shapland
Length: 5 hours 33 minutes

Winner of the Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian NonfictionWinner of a Lambda Literary AwardFinalist for the National Book AwardLonglisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in NonfictionHow do you tell the real story of someone misremembered—an icon and idol—alongside your own? Jenn Shapland’s celebrated debut is both... Read more

Plain Bad Heroines

A Novel

By: Emily M. Danforth
Narrated by: Xe Sands
Length: 19 hours 27 minutes

“This one's a stunner. Emily Danforth writes so compellingly, that even for its slow pacing, Plain Bad Heroines is impossible to put down. This is so much more than horror - a queer, coming-of-age, love story, history rewritten to include those it should never have erased - so atmospheric and character-driven, I found it difficult to find myself... Read more

The Prettiest Star

By: Carter Sickels
Narrated by: Charlie Thurston & Tiffany Morgan
Length: 10 hours 21 minutes

“This beautiful, elegiac novel tells the story of the last homecoming to rural Ohio for Brian, who is dying of AIDS at the height of the 1980s epidemic. Told with empathy and heart, complemented by a pitch-perfect sense of time and place, The Prettiest Star is a deeply affecting story about what it means to understand each other and where we come... Read more

Real Life

A Novel

By: Brandon Taylor
Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
Length: 9 hours 25 minutes

A FINALIST for the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the VCU/Cabell First Novelist Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, the NYPL Young Lions Award, and the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award 
 
“A blistering coming of age story” —O: The Oprah Magazine

Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington... Read more

What's Your Pronoun?

Beyond He and She

By: Dennis Baron
Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
Length: 6 hours 55 minutes

Contextualizing one of the most pressing cultural questions of our generation, Dennis Baron reveals the untold story of how we got from he and she to zie and hir and singular—they.

Like trigger warnings and gender-neutral bathrooms, pronouns are sparking a national debate, prompting new policies in schools, workplaces, even prisons, about what... Read more