The Queer Bookshelf is intended to be a curated resource for those looking for books about queer people. This includes gays, lesbians, nonbinary folks, agender, aromantic, basically the whole LGBTQIA+ spectrum. Every book on this site has been personally vetted (read) by me – it is not intended to be a comprehensive compendium of every queer book ever published (I can't read that fast!).
I created this site because it's surprisingly hard to get good recommendations beyond a handful of books and whatever one or two LGBT fiction books happen to catch the zeitgeist in a given year.
Updates should happen frequently, on a schedule of "whenever I finish a book and write up a review." I originally had a newsletter, and created some social media accounts, but ... I don't want this to be a push-based project. It's here as a resource when you need something to read. That's it.
Who am I? I am just a late 30s queer lady living in the US. I am a former journalist and editor (English minor, babay!). I have no personal or professional ties to any authors or publishers. I just read. A lot.
Rating system
For each book, I try to provide a longform review and a recommendation in lieu of star or numerical ratings. The recommendation scale goes:
- Must-read: Everyone should read this
- Highly recommend: Most people would like this, though there may be one or two quibbles.
- Recommended: This is a perfectly fine book that was worth reading. It may have some stylistic or plot issues, but nothing detracting from the experience.
- Recommended, maybe: This book has some issues. Either one or more aspects of it are pretty bad (else it'd be recommended), or only or two bright spots exist in it. Usually this is reserved for books in a series, where the caveat is "only for completeness' sake."
- Not recommended: This book is not worth your time.
Overall, you will not see an even distribution among the categories. I very rarely would bother to throw up a Not recommended (I'd more likely just skip it entirely). Not recommendeds are likely only to come from review requests (where I'm obligated to post), or popular books / books from authors whose other works I've enjoyed.
The site
You will never see ads on this site. You will never see sponsored content on this site. I literally don't even have analytics because I don't particularly care and am not looking to sell your attention/eyeballs nor anything else. I do use affiliate links for book purchases, but I honestly don't expect the revenue from that to ever even cover server costs. It'll all just go back into the "buy more books" fund.