Reading inspiration from our Pride Network this LGBTQIA+ History Month

It’s LGBTQIA+ History Month, and members of our Pride Belong Network at Penguin have been sharing their reading recommendations with us 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️

Memoirs, historical fiction, and graphic novels — these books allow us to explore and imagine the extraordinary lives of lesbian, gay, bi, trans, and non-binary people throughout history 📚  

Carmella L. , Senior Marketing Executive, Vintage 

Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue 

Since the success of the BBC’s Gentleman Jack, 19th century landowner and industrialist Anne Lister has moved from a niche figure in LGBTQIA+ history to a well-recognised name. But have you heard of her boarding-school romance with British-Indian heiress Eliza Raine, a relationship which some have claimed as the inspiration for Mr Rochester’s ill-fated first marriage to Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre?

In Learned by Heart, Emma Donoghue fictionalises Eliza’s story as she looks back on her relationship with the eccentric young Lister from inside the walls of Clifton House Asylum, where she spent four decades of her adult life. It’s a beautifully written and heart-breaking novel that unearths a forgotten chapter in an iconic figure’s life. 

Vartika Rastogi , Editorial Trainee 

Paul Takes The Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor 

Set in 1993, this book is part modern-day retelling of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, and part highly-original journey through the queer archives of struggle and pleasure. 22-year-old Paul Polydoris studies queer theory, makes zines, bartends at the only gay club in his university town, and is a flaneur with a rich dating life. He’s also a shapeshifter, and can change both sex and gender presentation at will.

Paul Takes The Form of a Mortal Girl follows him on his adventures across Queer Americana, playing on gender fluidity and deftly exploring queer joy, queer chronology, and the queer spirit of the 90s – think riot grrrl, leather clubs, women’s-only communes, and the painful unravelling of the AIDS emergency. There’s plenty of nods in here to Greek mythology and various attempts at queering popular children’s fairy tales – well-suited for fans of Jeanette Winterson (and highly recommended by Juliet Jacques!) 

Frankie Fitch-Bunce , Learning and Development Coordinator 

Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker and Julia Scheele 

Activist-academic Meg-John Barker and cartoonist Jules Scheele illuminate the histories of queer thought and LGBTQ+ action in this ground-breaking non-fiction graphic novel. From identity politics and gender roles to privilege and exclusion, Queer explores how we came to view sex, gender and sexuality in the ways that we do; how these ideas get tangled up with our culture and our understanding of biology, psychology and sexology; and how these views have been disputed and challenged.   

Along the way we look at key landmarks which shift our perspective of what's 'normal' - Alfred Kinsey's view of sexuality as a spectrum, Judith Butler's view of gendered behaviour as a performance, the play Wicked, or moments in Casino Royale when we're invited to view James Bond with the kind of desiring gaze usually directed at female bodies in mainstream media. Presented in a brilliantly engaging and witty style, this is a unique portrait of the universe of queer thinking. 

Kirsty George , Communications Assistant 

Just Above My Head by James Baldwin 

Just Above My Head follows Hall Montana as he looks back over thirty years at the life of his brother and their group of friends: from their childhood spent preaching and singing in Harlem churches, to their struggles with war and poverty, and their encounters with wealth, love and fame. 

Set against a background of the civil rights movement of the sixties, the novel ranges from New York to Paris, Korea to Africa to portray how profoundly racial politics can shape life, especially in the private business of love. 

Ryn Gardner , Publicity Manager, Vintage

Nevada by Imogen Binnie 

Maria Griffiths is almost thirty and works at a used bookstore in New York City while trying to stay true to her punk values. She's in love with her bike but not with her girlfriend, Steph. She takes random pills and drinks more than is good for her, but doesn't inject anything except, when she remembers, oestrogen, because she's trans. Everything is mostly fine until Maria and Steph break up, sending Maria into a tailspin, and then onto a cross-country trek in the car she steals from Steph. She ends up in the backwater town of Star City, Nevada, where she meets James, who is probably but not certainly trans, and who reminds Maria of her younger self. As Maria finds herself in the awkward position of trans role model, she realises that she could become James's saviour—or his downfall.   

Sabrina Parker , Publicity Assistant, Cornerstone

All the Young Men by Ruth Coker Burks 

This memoir is equal parts dazzling and devastating, and a staunch reminder of how recent the AIDS crisis was and how fundamentally mis-handled it was. Ruth Coker Burks is one of the rare “good-guys” whose dedication began with sitting with AIDS patients in hospital, to many more young men’s ashes on her family grave plot so they would get the burial they were refused.    

Beautiful and sad and uplifting all at once.  

Andy Auton , Contracts & Business Affairs Executive (Permissions)

My Cat Yugoslavia by Pajtim Statovci

This wonderfully original book, full of magical realism, cultural exploration and discussions of sexuality & desire, is one of my favourite pieces of queer fiction. If you can accept the fact there’s an emotionally abusive talking cat and a dormant-yet-menacing boa constrictor in the cast of characters, you’ll have a great time in this gorgeous novel. So good, I got a tattoo… 😊

Ben Horslen, Publisher – Fiction Acquisition  

When You Call My Name by Tucker Shaw 

A novel about two gay teens coming of age in New York. 

It's 1990 in New York City. Adam is falling in love for the first time. Ben is leaving home for the last. Drawn by the city's irresistible energy, the boys are swept up into the queer scene, where the potential for life and love seems limitless.   

But as the shadows of prejudice gather, Ben and Adam discover how their newfound community is facing the looming threat of AIDS, which will touch their lives more closely than they ever could have imagined.   

Heartbreaking yet hopeful, When You Call My Name tells the story of the moments that break our hearts and the people who make us whole - and shows how together we burn brightest in times of darkness.