Even outside of that, I’m constantly hearing about upcoming queer books: from my fellow Book Rioters, from authors, from Netgalley and Edelweiss listings. And despite the resurgence of book bans and the anti-queer, anti-trans backlash in recent years, we’re living in the golden age of queer lit: there are more new LGBTQ books coming out every month than ever before. All of that adds up to a sprawling spreadsheet with hundreds and hundreds of new queer books in every conceivable genre.
If you’re reading this the week it publishes and live in Canada or the United States, you’re either just coming off or entering into a long weekend. Rather than put together something think-y, it seemed a better use of all our efforts to roundup the latest in YA book news from the past month or so.
Here are the five books of the summer (so far)! They include dystopia, thrillers, romance, and historical fiction. One interesting development is that #5 didn’t show up on any of the previous “Most Read Books on Goodreads This Week” lists in June; it has been in the top ten, but this is the first time it’s cracked the top five.
There aren’t any new additions to this list from last week, but I am happy to see that two of the biggest bestsellers of the moment are both by and about queer women. In fact, the top three hardcovers on the Indie Bestsellers list this week are Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab, The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong: all queer books by queer authors.
Well, friends, it’s that time again: time to round up what’s been happening in the World of Libraries. We’re jumping into the difficult stuff, including some significant censorship updates from across the country and around the world, and then finishing with a bit of a palate cleanser (aka literally anything else happening right now).