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Your Ultimate AfterEllen.com Summer Reading List

It’s May! The flowers are blooming! Your favorite TV shows are winding up their season finales, and/or being cancelled and cutting your heart out! The end of school looms so deliciously close (yet still so far away)! You’re breaking out the flip flops and t-shirts and sunglasses even though it’s not quite time for them yet! It is so almost summer!

To help with your plans for All Those Books You’re Going to Read This Summer, here’s a handy extra-queer and lady friendly guide in three parts for you, with love, from me.

Those Books Everyone Else Talked About This Year That You Never Got Around To

1. The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Emily Danforth

Wait, you HAVEN’T read this one yet? What is wrong with you?

2. Adaptation, Malinda Lo

The sequel AND the companion novella come out in September. That is plenty of time for you to catch up this summer, especially as there is a good chance that once you start reading Adaptation, you won’t put it down until you finish.

3. The Last Nude, Ellis Avery

Winner of the Stonewall Award and a contender in the upcoming Lambda Awards, if you missed this book club selection from back in January, and you like art and history and France and sexytimes, you need to jump on this now.

4. Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel

I mean, it’s Bechdel.

5. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, Jeanette Winterson

I mean, it’s Winterson.

6. Ask the Passengers, A.S. King

This just won the L.A. Times Book Prize, which it deserved, because it is touching and awesome and right-on.

7. Carry the One, Carol Anshaw

Emma Donoghue, Alison Bechdel, Publisher’s Weekly, and AfterEllen.com approved.

8. The Music Box, Elaine Atwell

Mourning the end of Elaine’s Bomb Girls recaps? Want more war-time lady love? Well then read her book, duh.

9. Herself When She’s Missing, Sarah Terez Rosenblum

A novel from another AfterEllen.com writer which experiments with form in all sorts of fun ways, the two main characters meet through fandom, sooo, I don’t know, maybe some people will be able to relate to that.

10. Round House, Louise Erdrich

If being up to date on the crazy good female writers who are holding their own with the men in hoity toity literature circles is something that interests you, while not queer, you probably want to read the National Book Award winner from this year.

Next page: 7 Upcoming Summer Reads to Keep an Eye Out For

7 Upcoming Summer Reads to Keep an Eye Out For

1. The Strangers in Paradise Omnibus, Terry Moore (July)

Terry recently announced that with all the work around the omnibus, along with a Treasury edition for the fall, the new full-length Strangers in Paradise novel he talked about for this year will probably be pushed to 2014. All the more time for us who haven’t read any of it to get up to speed.

2. Freak of Nurture, Kelli Dunham (May 21, Topside Press)

I loved My Awesome Place, the autobiography of Cheryl B., a book which had the double bonus of introducing me to Dunham as well, who was Cheryl’s partner until Cheryl’s untimely death. Dunham has clearly persevered since the loss of Cheryl, as this newest book is slated to be a collection of hilarious personal essays, a la the style of David Sedaris. Speaking of which–

3. Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls, David Sedaris (Little, Brown and Co.)

Okay, so this one is already out, but I probably won’t get to it until the summer (or next summer, or the one after that), so let’s just go with it. Who doesn’t love David Sedaris? The titles of his books alone deserve all the awards.

4. The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (June 18, HarperCollins)

I know this is two dudes in a row for what I promised would be a lady loving list, but let’s be truthful here, lesbians love Neil Gaiman. The Internet has been all atwitter about this newest release, his first book aimed at adults since 2005.

5. Queers Dig Time Lords, edited by Sigrid Ellis and Michael Damian Thomas, with an introduction by John Barrowman and Carole E. Barrowman (June 4, Mad Norwegian Press)

I just received an advanced copy of this so I can’t tell you if it’s good or not yet, but I CAN tell you that queers really do dig time lords. They really, really do.

6. If You Could Be Mine, Sara Farizan (August 20, Algonquin)

Two teenaged girls in modern day Iran attempt to figure out how they can sustain their love in a country where homosexuality isn’t allowed–but gender reassignment surgery is. So excited for this one.

7. The Fainting Room, Sarah Pemberton Strong (May 7, ig publishing)

For creepy family drama fans, this deals with a kooky teenager who gets involved with an older couple whose marriage is crumbling, and basically even after reading a more in-depth review at Lambda, I still feel a little confused about it all. But intrigued. Alls I know is that the cover is of the back of a red headed gal filled with tattoos, so, I have a hunch I might be into her. Or, I mean, the book, I might be into the book.

That’s all I’ve got for the summer, although there are a LOT of other exciting queer releases waiting for us in the fall, so look forward to another reading list then.

Next Page: Queer Classics

And Finally, A Reading List of Queer Classics We Always Meant to Read But Never Did Because We Suck

You know how colleges sometimes send out summer reading lists in preparation for the fall semester? Let’s pretend that’s happening, except the college we’re attending is all about being queer. Best college ever!

1. Orlando, Virginia Woolf

Because Virginia Woolf was all over genderqueerness before it was even a phrase.

2. The Color Purple, Alice Walker

Because I’m mainly making this list to spell out all my reading guilt and I have yet to read this and what’s up with that?

3. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Audre Lorde

Because Lorde named this book a “biomythography,” and that still deserves mad props.

4. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson

Because it’s Winterson.

5. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Fannie Flagg

Because the straight-washing of the moving is still bullshit. Never forget.

6. Fingersmith, Sarah Waters

Because when are we going to get a new Waters novel when when wheeeen?

7. Bastard Out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison

Because damn, just this title always gives me chills.

8. Annie on My Mind, Nancy Garden

Because everyone’s talking about queer characters in YA being a new thing when Nancy Garden was all over it ages ago.

9. Desert of the Heart, Jane Rule

Because lesbian love in the desert, you guys.

10. The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, Alison Bechdel

Because I always want to know more dykes.

I’ve created a Goodreads list that includes all these titles so you can easily add them to your “to read” piles, with the exception of Freaks of Nurture, which I disappointingly couldn’t find listed on Goodreads, but I’ll continue to check on it.

If you do decide to read any of these and document it on Goodreads, feel free to make an “AfterEllen Summer Reading” tag. I’m going to try to read as many as I can and will use that tag, as well, and would be interested in seeing who else is reading along!

What other recent, forthcoming, or old books would you add? How many of these 27 titles have you already read?

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