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EPL Picks: Must Read Titles for Pride Month

June is Pride Month! Many Pride events occur this month in commemoration of the Stonewall Uprising, an important catalyst in the Queer Liberation Movement. In celebration and recognition, we have compiled a list of contemporary titles by queer authors or with LGBTQ2 representation for you to enjoy.

Edmonton Public Library

40 items

  • We Are Everywhere

    Protest, Power, and Pride in the History of Queer Liberation

    Riemer, Matthew, 1982-
    A rich and sweeping photographic history of the Queer Liberation Movement, from the creators and curators of the massively popular Instagram account @lgbt_history, released in time for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.
    Book, 2019California : Ten Speed Press, [2019] — 306.76609 RIE
  • Soulful and uproarious, forceful and tender, Untamed is both a memoir and a galvanizing wake-up call. It offers a piercing, electrifying examination of the restrictive expectations women are issued from birth; shows how hustling to meet those…
    eBook, 2020[Place of publication not identified]: Random House Publishing Group, 2020. — 7 DAYS, NO HOLDS
  • "Poet Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling. With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and…
    Book, 2019New York : Penguin Press, 2019. — VUO
  • Rita Mae Brown tells the story of Molly Bolt, the adoptive daughter of a dirt-poor Southern couple who boldly forges her own path in America. With her startling beauty and crackling wit, Molly finds that women are drawn to her wherever she goes--…
    eBook, 2014Random House Publishing Group, 2014
  • "Fairest is a memoir about a precocious boy with albinism, a “sun child” from a rural Philippine village, who would grow up to become a woman in America. Throughout her journey, Talusan shares poignant and powerful episodes of desirability and love…
    Book, 2020[New York] : Viking, [2020] — 306.768 TAL
  • Caroline Lawson is three months away from freedom, otherwise known as graduation day. That's when she'll finally escape her rigid prep school and the parents who thought they could "fix" her. Until then, Caroline is keeping her head down, pretending…
    eBook, 2020Kids Can Press, 2020
  • As a young man Garrard Conley was terrified and conflicted about his sexuality. At nineteen he was outed to his parents, and was forced to make a life-changing decision: either agree to attend a church-supported conversion therapy program that…
    Book, 2016New York : Riverhead Books, 2016. — 306.766 CON
  • Intimacy has always eluded twenty-seven-year-old Maggie Krause. When Maggie's mom, Iris, dies in a car crash, Maggie returns home only to discover a withdrawn dad, an angry brother, and, along with Iris's will, five sealed envelopes, each addressed…
    eBook, 2020Penguin Publishing Group, 2020
  • In the city of Houston - a sprawling, diverse microcosm of America - the son of a black mother and a Latino father is coming of age. He's working at his family's restaurant, weathering his brother's blows, resenting his older sister's absence and…
    eBook, 2019Penguin Publishing Group, 2019
  • In this richly developed fantasy, Lei is a member of the Paper caste, the lowest and most persecuted class of people in Ikhara. She lives in a remote village with her father, where the decade-old trauma of watching her mother snatched by royal…
    eBook, 2018Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2018
  • The Stonewall Reader is a collection of first accounts, diaries, periodic literature, and articles from LGBTQ magazines and newspapers that documented both the years leading up to and the years following the riots. Most importantly the anthology…
    Book, 2019[New York] : Penguin Books, 2019. — 306.76609 STO
  • Almost everything about Wallace, an introverted African-American transplant from Alabama, is at odds with the lakeside Midwestern university town where he is working toward a Biochem degree. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a…
    eBook, 2020Penguin Publishing Group, 2020
  • Sister Outsider

    Essays and Speeches

    Lorde, Audre
    In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose are incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting…
    eBook, 2012Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed, 2012
  • Katie Daniels, a twenty-eight-year-old Kentucky transplant with a strong set of traditional values, has just been dumped by her fiancé when she finds herself seated across a negotiating table from native New Yorker Cassidy Price, a sexy,…
    eBook, 2018Penguin Publishing Group, 2018
  • Sissy

    A Coming-of-Gender Story

    Tobia, Jacob
    "A heart-wrenching, eye-opening, and giggle-inducing memoir about what it's like to grow up not sure if you're (a) a boy, (b) a girl, (c) something in between, or (d) all of the above" - Publisher. Also available in print and eAudiobook formats.
    eBook, 2019Penguin Publishing Group, 2019
  • "Andrea Gibson explores themes of love, gender, politics, sexuality, family, and forgiveness with stunning imagery and a fierce willingness to delve into the exploration of what it means to heal and to be different in this strange age" - Publisher.…
    Book, 2018New York, New York : Plume, [2018] — 811.6 GIB
  • Here for It

    A Read with Jenna Pick: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America; Essays

    Thomas, R. Eric
    Eric Thomas didn't know he was different until the world told him so. Everywhere he went - whether it was his rich, mostly white, suburban high school, his conservative black church, or his Ivy League college in a big city - he found himself on the…
    eBook, 2020Random House Publishing Group, 2020
  • Gripping and provocative, The Life and Death of Sophie Stark is a story of the power of art to transform lives and to destroy them, and of an artist's drive to create something greater than herself, even if it means sacrificing everything - and…
    eBook, 2015Penguin Publishing Group, 2015
  • Spoiler Alert

    the Hero Dies : a Memoir of Love, Loss, and Other Four-letter Words

    Ausiello, Michael
    Television industry journalist Michael Ausiello tells the story of his final year with his partner of thirteen years, Kit Cowan. Diagnosed with a rare and very aggressive form of neuroendocrine cancer, Michael revisits the many memories that…
    Book, 2017New York : Atria Books, 2017. — 306.848 AUS
  • In a near-future New York City, where a service alerts people on the day they will die, teenagers Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio meet using the Last Friend app and are faced with the challenge of living a lifetime on their End Day. Also available…
    eBook, 2017[Place of publication not identified] : HarperCollins, 2017. — 7 DAYS, NO HOLDS