The Good Men Project has asked LGBT authors for their five choices of the best gay books of all time. Not surprisingly, they are varied lists, with so many great novels, memoirs and pieces of prose from and about queer lives. Among the authors polled, a handful of lesbian writers gave some suggestions that you might want to check out.
From what I can tell, Giovanni’s Room is just as popular with women as it is with men. (As it should be – the book is a great piece of gay-themed literature.) Also it appears a lot of the women agree on the relevancy (though not necessarily the same titles) of Virginia Woolf and Audre Lorde.
Here are the contributions from out female writers at The Good Men Project:: The Hotel Wentley Poems by John Wieners La Batarde by Violette Leduc Wrong by Dennis Cooper Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution by Jill Johnston Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
My required reading by this author: Cool For You; Inferno. Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph: The Complete 1922 Text by T.E. Lawrence The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies by Vito Russo The Color Purple by Alice Walker Reflections of a Rock Lobster: A Story about Growing Up Gay by Aaron Fricke Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century by John Boswell
My required reading by this author: The Front Runner. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life by Marjorie Garber Conundrum by Jan Morris Olivia by Olivia (pseudonym of Dorothy Strachey) Orlando by Virginia Woolf
My required reading by this author: “The End of Sexual Identity” Koolaids: The Art of War by Rabih Alameddine “The Transformation of Silence Into Language and Action” from Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde Aquamarine by Carol Anshaw Funeral Rites by Jean Genet The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers
My required reading by this author: Girls, Visions and Everything; Ties That Bind. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin Mrs. Dallowayby Virginia Woolf Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde The Master by Colm Toibin Life Maskby by Emma Donoghue
My required reading by this author: The Big Bang Symphony. Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
Another Country by James Baldwin
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
Valencia by Michelle Tea
My required reading by this author: The IHOP Papers. Love and Rockets by Los Bros Hernandez
Dar: A Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary by Erika Moen
Don’t Bite the Sunand Drinking Sapphire Wine by Tanith Lee
Baker Street by Guy Davis
The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel
My required reading by this author: Small Favors.
I think it’s an interesting mix of contemporary memoirs and grahpic novels or comic books with some of the first texts we had on lesbian life and relationships. I also like the inclusion of books by and about gay people of color, despite all of the authors polled being very, very white. There are a few I still haven’t read, and are hoping to find in a used bookstore or on my Kindle.
I’m kind of surprised no one chose The Well of Loneliness, Rubyfruit Jungle or any of Sarah Waters’ work. What’s on your required reading list?
