Mid-December 2024

Niche Book Recommendations for Last Minute Shopping & More

Hey hey!

Here we are, approaching solstice in this apocalyptic timeline we call home. I’ve got a small reading log & a few niche book-lists for you this time, whether you’re planning to HIBRAC¹ or you need winter holiday presents. As always, please buy from your local indie bookstore or bookshop.org if you can!

Reading Log (December, so far)

• Jen Beagin’s Big Swiss (2023): Hudson NY apparently is unhinged & “unhinged” is apparently some sort of code? All I know is I found this novel unexpectedly poignant in its unfolding revelations about the narrator’s early years & the tonal complexity felt very gay² to me. But definitely read Emma Copley Eisenberg’s “The Unhinged Bisexual Woman Novel” at Lux for what is likely a better take!

• Miranda July’s All Fours (2024): I guess I was on an unhinged bisexual tear this month? I really loved her Big Miss Moviola project back in the day (ah, DUMBA) & I fondly remember seeing Me & You & Everyone We Know with my girlfriend at Pleasant Street Theater, but otherwise have no opinion on MJ but everyone was raving about this book. I am curious about how it’s going for straight-married Millennials. What can I say? Turns out “unhinged bisexual divorce novels” are not as relaxing as other novels but I’m not sorry I read it.

• Nell Stevens’ Briefly, A Delicious Life (2023): When something starts like this, I’m in: Of course, it wasn’t the first time I’d seen two men kissing. It was 1838 and I had been at the Charterhouse in Valldemossa for over three centuries by then. I had seen hundreds of monks arrive, kiss each other, and die, but still, the sight of these two stopped me in my tracks. Really pleasurable writing, a ghost story, George Sand…come on!

What I’m Watching

• Riverdale, Season 7 (Netflix): If you gave up after one or two seasons of this maximalist pop-culture fantasia, I recommend dipping back in for the metafictional pansexual bacchanalia of the last season. If, like me, you do not love horror, it’s mostly a respite from the rabbithole of horror down which the previous seasons got boringly stuck. I’m about 3/4 through & having lots of interesting thoughts about: 28 year olds playing teens, reboots, Once More With Feeling, the utopian political & social-emotional affordances of dialogue, YA as a genre, intentional anachronism, 1950s fashion, etc. It’s a LOT but also maybe genius?

• Black Doves (Netflix): I’m one episode in. So good. No spoilers, please! I love Ben Wishaw so much & Kiera Knightley has become really fun to watch as well.

• Young Sheldon (Netflix): Late to the game. Super cute!

A Few Niche Booklists

Books for Mystery Lovers Who Prioritize Good Writing & an Authorial Worldview that is Baseline Feminist & Anti-Racist & Who Don’t Want to Deal With a Lot of Gnarly SA, Child Harm, or Misogynist Violence

• Justine Champine’s Knife River (2024): A highly compelling literary mystery with an actual class analysis, sharp eye for detail & believable depiction of rural queer life for once! So good.

• Cory Doctorow’s Red Team Blues (2024) & The Bezzle (2024): Fun mysteries about tech & financial instruments, from a very smart writer who is excellent at explaining things & is, I am pretty sure, my kind of anarchist. Also he’s Canadian. These could be great presents for someone on your list who has complicated feelings about Luigi.

• Tana French’s The Likeness (2009): I think The Likeness might be my favorite Tana French because it’s the most uncanny & queer but I also love all the Dublin Murder Squad books & even the new ones with the American guy. I wish for myself she would write a new book every year but I respect her need to have a life.

• Jane Pek’s The Verifiers (2022) & The Rivals (2024): The Verifiers is a fun & smart character-driven queer Asian American detective novel set in the world of online dating. Late-breaking news: the sequel just dropped! Thank you to the Forbes librarian who recommended this last year. Librarians are the best. I also love mysteries set in the world of tech.

• Craig Willse’s Providence (2024): Edgy queer dark academia, with notes of Hitchcock & Highsmith. So fun for people who like bad gays & talking shit about professors!

Books for Little Kids From People Who Want Those Kids to See a World with QT People Just Living Their Lives & Where Queerness or Transness is Not a Theme

• Remy Charlip’s Fortunately (1964) or Dress Up & Let’s Have a Party (1956): Or anything by Remy Charlip, the original guncle.

• Jacob Kramer & K-Fai Steele’s Noodlephant (2019) & Okapi Tale (2020): Picture books. Adorable anti-capitalist fables for anyone, really.

• Susan Meyers & Marla Frazee’s Everywhere Babies (2001): Best board book! Babies love to look at babies, it turns out. Delightful art with lots of detail & a huge ranges of types of families.

Books for Tweens Who Already Know that Queer & Trans People Exist & Might Want to Think About Something Else for the Love of All That is Holy

• Alan Gratz’s Ban This Book (2017): Compelling middle-grade novel about a kid who fights book banning in her school. What I like about this book is that it’s pitched to kids, not dogmatic & represents activism with nuance.

• Molly Knox Ostertag’s Witch Boy (2017) & sequels: Sweet fantasy graphic novel with QT kid characters & a good story with actual stakes.

• Yoon Ha Lee’s Dragon Pearl & sequels: Korean shapeshifting foxes, tigers & spirits in space! Lots of action, some intense violence.

• Torrey Maldonado’s What Lane? (2021): Terrific short novel about a Black 6th grader figuring out that he needs both community & solidarity, written in a way that’s both accessible to actual kids & smart about political coming-into-awareness.

• K. O’Neill’s Tea Dragon Society (2020) & sequels: Extremely peaceful & sweet graphic novel series for younger kids, with QT kid characters, good stories & appealing worldbuilding.

• Lincoln Pierce’s Max & the Midknights (2019) & sequels: Fun adventure series with a casually gender nonconforming hero.

• Dav Pilky’s Cat Kid series: Dav Pilky’s books are the best: hilarious to kids, full of heart & tonic masculinity, abolitionist at the core. Cat Kid Comic Club is probably the single best book about art-making I’ve ever read. I’m not even exaggerating.

• Greg Pincus’s The Homework Strike (2017): Another enjoyable middle-grade novel, about a kid who starts a movement against too much homework. Again, the novel has a nuanced take on activist tactics, played out against a backdrop tweens can recognize.

Books for Your Friends Whose Taste You Can’t Predict

• Mosab Abu Toha’s Forest of Noise (2024): The poetry collection of the year by a young Palestinian poet who’s become the voice of his generation. Also, his first book, Things You May Find in My Ear, is fantastic.

• Emma Copley Eisenberg’s Housemates (2024): For all the young artists in your life, a re-imagining of the lives of Bernice Abbot & Elizabeth McCausland, set in Philly not too long ago.

• Henry Hoke’s Open Throat (2023): I am constantly making people read this perfect little novel about a queer mountain lion who lives under the Hollywood sign in Griffith Park.

• Kevin Killian’s Selected Amazon Reviews (2024): Just what it sounds like. A work of pure genius from a writer gone too soon. Kevin, we miss you!

• Lisa Ko’s Memory Piece (2024): For all the grown artists in your life! The story of three friends who meet in high school, tracking them throughout their lives. An astonishing book.

• Amanda Lee Koe’s Sister Snake (2024): Here’s what I wrote in my somewhat-extra blurb: “Intoxicating, coruscating, sparkling, fascinating, devastatingly witty and just plain devastating– I’m happy to use up all my prettiest words on Amanda Lee Koe’s freaking genius queer feminist retelling of the Chinese Legend of the White Snake. One of my favorite retellings of all time! I can’t wait to re-read this book!”

Bookstore Swag For The Booklover Who’s Already Read It All

• Room of One’s Own has very cool beanies, mugs, etc.

• Bookmoon has many great teeshirts, including the classic Read Books, Punch Nazis.

• Fabulosa has extremely stylish merch! You will look fabulosa & then get to talk about Polari (the secret gay language from days of yore)!

• Bluestockings! Cute cat teeshirts! You know you want one.

Book Subscriptions (Perfect for Impressive Last Minute Gifts)

• Interlink’s Read the World Book Club: “…great literature from—Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Yemen to Nigeria, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Chile, Brazil, and more—each and every month of the year.”

• Odyssey’s First Editions Club: Curated first editions from the excellent Odyssey Bookshop.

Tidbits

• I loved Drew Burnett Gregory’s “An Oral History of ‘Adam’ (2019), the Most Controversial Trans Movie of All Time.” So satisfying. Drew is probably my favorite film/tv critic right now. I also loved the book Adam & the movie Adam, so it’s nice to see this bit of retrospective on the ancient discourse of the past decade.

Fundraisers & Benefits

• From Dean Spade: gofund.me/6f167bb9

Western Mass Round-Up

• Drop-in classes at Spirit of the Heart. This queer/trans/feminist/inclusive martial arts studio offers self-defense classes & martial arts training & more for kids & adults. First class is free! Sometimes people need a safe place to hit things & also learn self-defense.

• Saturday Sangha at Insight Western Mass. Queer/trans/family/inclusive/recovery/beginner-friendly weekly Insight Meditation space. Co-led by Bernadine Mellis & Sarah Malzone. Drop in or come every week! Kids very welcome & don’t have to be quiet. Donuts provided! 9-10am, Saturdays at Eastworks!

• Very useful Collective Trans Resource List from the good people at Translate Gender. Massachusetts-focused but with national & online resources.

• Trans Relocation Support WMass. If you need help relocating to Western Massachusetts from a hostile environment, check this out. Also, if you’re in Western Mass & can help, check this out. We are the ones who will help us!

Hey, happy solstice to you & yours!

1. HIBRAC stands for Hiding in the Bedroom Reading at Christmas, an incredibly useful acronym from the delightful Sophie Lewis. You could read her books while hiding out during the holidays, for a fun meta thrill!

2. I also feel, perhaps controversially, that Sally Rooney’s Normal People is extremely gay in tone & much more queer than her other books.