Rainbow Reads for Adults

Recommended books by and about 2SLGBTQQIA+ people.

Updated May 8, 2025
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1

An Evening with Birdy O'Day
Kearney, Greg
Paper Book
Roland Keener is an aging hairstylist who's lived and worked in the same town all his life. He's more or less content with the quiet and predictable days he shares with his partner of twenty-five years, Tony. That is, until he hears that Birdy O'Day - washed-up music icon and Roland's childhood best...

Canadian author.

2

Our wives under the sea
Armfield, Julia
Paper Book
Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah may have come back wrong. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the...
Also available in eBook and eAudiobook formats.

3

Hijab butch blues : a memoir
H, Lamya
Paper Book
A queer hijabi Muslim immigrant survives her coming-of-age by drawing strength and hope from stories in the Quran in this "raw and relatable memoir that challenges societal norms and expectations" (Linah Mohammad, NPR). "A masterful, must-read contribution to conversations on...
Also available in eBook and eAudiobook formats.

4

Rubyfruit jungle
Brown, Rita Mae
CD

5

A Sweet Sting of Salt : A Novel
Sutherland, Rose
Paper Book
A young woman uncovers a dark secret about her neighbor and his mysterious new wife. Now she'll have to fight to keep herself-and the woman she loves-safe. "A modern sapphic updating of the selkie wife folk tale that's already scoring with readers"-Parade (A Best Romance and...

Canadian author.

6

The book eaters
Dean, Sunyi
Paper Book
THE NO. 2 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'I devoured this' V.E. Schwab 'A vampire-themed Handmaid's Tale, with effective thrills that are intensified by social commentary' Guardian A gorgeous new fantasy horror - a book about...
Also available in eBook and eAudiobook formats.

7

Gods of want : stories
Chang, K-Ming
Ebook
Surreal and seductive - brimming with moths, myths and mothers, nine-headed birds, ghost cousins and storm-chasers - Gods of Want is a startling first collection of short stories from a rising talent. 'Stunning and moving... One of our most brilliant...
Also available in eBook format.

8

The foghorn echoes
Ramadan, Ahmad Danny
Paper Book
A devastating novel about broken relationships, the promises we're unable to keep and living with the ghosts of your past.

Also available in eBook and eAudiobook formats.

Canadian author.

9

Tell me I'm worthless
Rumfitt, Alison
Paper Book
Alison Rumfitt's Tell Me I'm Worthless is a dark, unflinching haunted house story that confronts both supernatural and real-world horrors through the lens of the modern-day trans experience. "Alison is like the twisted daughter of Clive Barker and Shirley Jackson...
Also available in eBook and eAudiobook formats.

10

The dawnhounds
Stronach, Sascha
Paper Book
Gideon the Ninth meets Black Sun in this queer, Māori-inspired debut fantasy about a police officer who is murdered, brought back to life with a mysterious new power, and tasked with protecting her city from an insidious evil threatening to destroy it....
Also available in eBook and eAudiobook formats.

11

Orlando : a biography
Woolf, Virginia
Paper Book
The fictional portrait of Woolf's close friend and lover Vita Sackville-West, the hero Orlando is a young nobleman in Elizabethan England, a dreamy and romantic youth who wakes up one day to find himself transformed, astonishingly, into a woman. Over the span of three centuries, Orlando will fall...
Also available in eBook format.

12

I'm so (not) over you
Jackson, Kosoko
Paper Book
It's been months since aspiring journalist Kian Andrews has heard from his ex-boyfriend, Hudson Rivers, but an urgent text has them meeting at a cafe. Hudson has a favour to ask - he wants Kian to pretend to be his boyfriend while his parents are in town, and Kian reluctantly agrees. The dinner...

13

Stonewall : the definitive story of the LGBTQ rights uprising that changed America
Duberman, Martin B.
Paper Book
On June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village, was raided by police. But instead of responding with the routine compliance the NYPD expected, patrons and a growing crowd decided to fight back. The five days of rioting that ensued changed forever the face of gay and...
Also available in eBook format.

14

Trans bodies, trans selves : a resource by and for transgender communities
Erickson-Schroth, Laura
Paper Book
There is no one way to be transgender.Trans Bodies, Trans Selves is a revolutionary resource - a comprehensive, reader-friendly guide for transgender people, with each chapter written by transgender and gender expansive authors. Inspired by Our Bodies, Ourselves, the classic and powerful compendium...

Also available in eBook format.

15

Gender queer : a memoir
Kobabe, Maia
Paper Book
2020 ALA Alex Award Winner 2020 Stonewall -- Israel Fishman Non-fiction Award Honor Book In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was...

Also available in eBook and eaudiobook format.

16

Gender queer
Kobabe, Maia
Paper Book
2020 ALA Alex Award Winner 2020 Stonewall -- Israel Fishman Non-fiction Award Honor Book In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was...

L'auteure relate son parcours, son coming out aupres de ses proches ainsi que le cheminement qui lui a permis de s'identifier comme une personne non binaire et asexuelle.

Aussi disponible en format numerique.

17

Bury Your Gays
Tingle, Chuck.
Paper Book
From Chuck Tingle, author of the USA Today bestselling Camp Damascus, comes a new heart-pounding story about what it takes to succeed in a world that wants you dead. Misha is a jaded scriptwriter who has been working in Hollywood for decades, and has just been...

Also available in eBook and eAudiobook formats.

18

Woodworking a novel
St. James, Emily.
Paper Book
LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE 2025 "Big-hearted and hilarious, an ode to authenticity and a must-read in our current times." --Shelby Van Pelt, New York Times bestselling author of Remarkably Bright Creatures <...

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