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I'll start! Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments was a favorite of the month for me (Black history book). So inventive and expansive!

I also loved Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid—I continue to be delighted by the queerness in her work.

And if anyone is looking for graphic nonfiction, I also highly recommend A Pros and Cons List for Strong Feelings by Will Betke-Brunswick. Heartbreaking but really warm and funny, too.

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Mar 6, 2023Liked by Laura Sackton

I would love some recommendations for "protagonist over 50" if anyone has them!

In February I read FT Lukens' In Deeper Waters which is a YA fantasy about a prince with secret magic and a merman. It's very sweet.

I also read Belly of the Beast by Da'Shaun Harrison, and I highly recommend for nonfiction that lays out the intersections of anti-fatness, anti-blackness, and queerness.

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Mar 6, 2023Liked by Laura Sackton

I made a delightful discovery this month. Shipwrecked: Being a tale of true love, magic, and goats by Juniper Butterworth. It's like goblin-core meets cozy fantasy. Sapphic fantasy romance between two goblins (a pirate and a principle goatherd). The world building and character development is charming. Also deeply weird in the best possible way. And with more emotional depth than I was expecting from a low-stakes fantasy novella about goblins falling in love.

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Three cheers for queer lit!✨

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Mar 16, 2023Liked by Laura Sackton

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon! Recommended by a fellow reader of Books & Bakes. Normally don’t read sci-fi/fantasy but this consumed me!

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Mar 9, 2023Liked by Laura Sackton

I've had a great reading month so far! I read How Far the Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler for the science/nature writing prompt and loved how it blended the scientific and the personal, so glad I picked it up after seeing it being recommended. I also just finished reading She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan, a genderqueer historical fantasy epic set in 14th-century China that absolutely blew me away. I'm currently reading the anthology Xenocultivars: Stories of Queer Growth for a book with under 100 ratings on Goodreads and I'm finding it to be a very excellent collection of SFF/fantasy short stories centered around plant life.

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Mar 7, 2023Liked by Laura Sackton

I ended up (re)reading Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All for the prompt, book published in the decade you were born (1980s). It's kind of a fascinating example of a book where the protagonist would never ever say, or even think, the word "queer" out loud, but if you know you know. There's a couple of instances of same-gender desire on the page but a whole lot more that's kinda quiet. Recommend or not? I'm not sure! I put some thoughts here on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5320676754

I also recently finished Michelle Gallen's Factory Girls and loved it - not a queer book (or is it??? I saw some space you could wedge a queer reading into, though I didn't get the impression that was the author's intent). But I loved its anger, it's a darkly funny fuck-you-and-fuck-the-world book. The main character is just burning up with it, and it goes from feeling despairing to feeling like righteous burn-it-all-down fury. Does anyone have a rec with that feeling? (Maybe Your Driver Is Waiting, which is in my holds list?)

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I enjoyed Lori L. Lake's "Eight Dates" very much. She writes humor so well, and also children (there's a little girl character in the book). One thing I'd like to see in these threads is poetry. Queer poetry exist! (I know; I read and write it.) Mary Oliver is a favorite. My own poetry collections are published by Launch Point Press, which publishes lots of queer authors.

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Mar 7, 2023·edited Mar 7, 2023

I could use recommendations for fluffy queer classics. I prefer genre fiction (mostly romance and fantasy but I read others too). I’m not in the mood to read bleak or depressing right now.

I loved Patience and Sarah by Isobel Miller. I’m not aware of m/any other classics with a happy / optimistic ending.

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