‘If nobody sees you, are you still there?’ Akwaeke Emezi The Aesop Queer Library
This Pride Month, Aesop is devoting three of its stores to the pursuit of amplifying queer stories. That means clearing the shelves of products to make way for significant works of literature detailing the experiences of LGBTQIA+ individuals from around the world. Conscious of the tendency for social justice movements to be co-opted by the corporate sphere, but also keenly aware of the resources at Aesop’s disposal, we hope that this gesture will have the meaningful effect of reifying queer identity and encouraging allyship. Since its inception, Aesop has sought opportunities to promote the written word. Increasingly, that means giving prominence to voices that have been historically ignored by the literary establishment and canon. These titles will be offered as gifts, one at a time, to visitors of the store—regardless of purchase. Some were donated by our long-term partners at Penguin Random House, while others were purchased from the two queer bookstores below: do pay them a visit if on the lookout for a thought-provoking read.
Glad Day Bookshop Bureau of General Services — The Ripped Bodice 499 Church St Queer Division 3806 Main St Toronto, ON M4Y 2C6 208 W 13th St #210 Culver City, CA 90232 New York, NY 10011 One of the world’s oldest queer bookstores—and Canada’s first—Glad Tubby + Coo’s Mid City Bookshop Day combines literature and liquour in Giovanni’s Room @ Philly AIDS Thrift 432 N Anthony St Suite 305C a spirited collision that is bold, bright 345 S 12th St New Orleans, LA 70119 and celebratory. Duck in for a cocktail Philadelphia, PA 19107 or to find queer classics as well as more idiosyncratic work from Unabridged Bookstore independent publishers. Housing Works Cafe & Bookstore 3251 N Broadway 126 Crosby St Chicago, IL 60657 New York, NY 10012 Women & Children First 5233 North Clark St Wooden Shoe Chicago, IL 60640 Librarie L’Insoumise 704 South St 2033 St Laurent Blvd Philadelphia, PA 19147 Its violet canopy a beacon to feminists Montreal, QC H2X 2T3 and queer folk since 1979, Women & Children First remains one of the most important, and radical bookstores in Loyalty Bookstore the Mid-West; the extensive collection 843 Upshur St NW of women’s and queer writing matched Washington, DC 20011 only by the store’s stellar line up of events, readings and community 823 Ellsworth Dr outreach initiatives. Silver Spring, MD 20910
Bluestockings Quimby’s Bookstore 116 Suffolk St 1854 W North Ave New York, NY 10002 Chicago, IL 60622
BookWoman 5501 N Lamar Blvd #A-105 Austin, TX 78751
1 ‘If nobody sees you, are you still there?’ Akwaeke Emezi The Aesop Queer Library
A. Andrea Abi-Karam Alison Bechdel Kacen Callendar We Want it All: An Anthology of Fun Home Felix Ever After Radical Trans Poetics The Secret to Truman Capote Superhuman Strength André Aciman In Cold Blood
Call Me by Your Name Billy-Ray Belcourt Anne Carson NDN Coping Mechanisms Arvin Ahmadi Autobiography of Red How It All Blew Up This Wound Is a World Alexander Chee
Sara Ahmed Lauren Berlant How To Write an Queer Phenomenology Cruel Optimism Autobiographical Novel
Amrou Al-Kadhi Richard Blanco Staceyann Chin Life as a Unicorn: A Journey from The Prince of los Cocuyos The Other Side of Paradise Shame to Pride and Everything in Between Julian Bond Chris Colfer Race Man:The Collected Works of Stranger Than Fiction Daniel Aleman Julian Bond Indivisible Timothy Conigrave Archie Bongiovanni Holding the Man Mohamed Abdulkarim Ali A Quick & Easy Guide to They/ Angry Queer Somali Boy Them Pronouns CA Conrad The Book of Frank Hilton Als Tanya Boteju White Girls Bruised Michael Cunningham The Hours Kings Queens and In-Betweens Jeremy Atherton Lin
Gay Bar W. Ian Bourland
Bloodflowers: Rotimi Fani-Kayode, D. Angela Davis Dean Atta Photography, and the 1980s Women, Race & Class The Black Flamingo
James Brandon Glennon Doyle Michael Ausiello Ziggy, Stardust and Me Untamed Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies
Adrienne Maree Brown Martin Duberman
Emergent Strategy Hold Tight Gently: Michael Callen, Essex Hemphill, and the Battlefield B. James Baldwin Pleasure Activism of AIDS Another Country Carol Rifka Brunt Giovanni’s Room Tell the Wolves I’m Home
Go Tell It on a Mountain E. Francesca Ekwuyasi
I Am Not Your Negro Butter Honey Pig Bread
The Fire Next Time C. Gabriela Cabezon Camara Akwaeke Emezi Slum Virgin The Death of Vivek Oji Aziza Barnes The Blind Pig Freshwater
2 ‘If nobody sees you, are you still there?’ Akwaeke Emezi The Aesop Queer Library
F. Leslie Feinberg Tan Hoang Nguyen K. Ruth King Stone Butch Blues A View from the Bottom: Asian Mindful of Race American Masculinity and E.M. Forster Sexual Representation Maurice L. Larissa Lai bell hooks Iron Goddess of Mercy All About Love: New Visions Lewis Laney G. Roxane Gay Lauren Hough The Little Book of Pride Bad Feminist Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing Difficult Women Sam Lansky Broken People Hunger
I. Robert Alexander Innes Not That Bad Celia Laskey Indigenous Men and Masculinities: Under the Rainbow Legacies, Identities, Regeneration Jewelle Gomez
The Gilda Stories Ursula K. LeGuin Samantha Irby The Left Hand of Darkness We Are Never Meeting in Real Sophie Gonzales Life: Essays Only Mostly devastated Gary Leupp
Male Colors:The Construction of Christopher Isherwood Torrin A. Greathouse Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan Berlin Stories Wound from the Mouth of a Wound Ariel Levy Andrew Sean Greer The Rules Do Not Apply Less J. Abbi Jacobson R. Zamora Linmark I Might Regret This Hervé Guibert The Importance of Being Wilde at
To the Friend Who Did Not Save Heart Marlon James My Life A Brief History of Seven Killings Malinda Lo
Last Night at the Telegraph Club N.K. Jemisin
How Long ‘til Black H. Samar Habib Catherine Lord Future Month We Have Always Been Here Art and Queer Culture
E Patrick Johnson Jack Halberstam Audre Lorde Honeypot: Black Southern Women In a Queer Time and Place: Sister Outsider Who Love Women Transgender Bodies, Subcultural The Black Unicorn Lives George M. Johnson Zami All Boys Aren’t Blue: Jin Haritawarn A Memoir-Manifesto Marvellous Grounds: Queer of
Colour Formations in Toronto Saeed Jones M. Carmen Maria Machado How We Fight for Our Lives Bill Hayes Her Body and Other Parties
Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, Jamal Jordan In the Dream House and Me Queer Love in Color
3 ‘If nobody sees you, are you still there?’ Akwaeke Emezi The Aesop Queer Library
T Kira Madden O. Mary Oliver S. David Sedaris Long Live the Tribe of Thirst Dress Your Family in Corduroy Fatherless Girls and Denim Me Talk Pretty One Day Zenju Earthlyn Manual The Way of Tenderness P. Camille Perri Vivek Shraya When Katie Met Cassidy The Subtweet
Ilana Masad All My Mother’s Lovers: A Novel Torrey Peters Richard Siken Detransition, Baby Crush
Sarah McBride Tomorrow Will Be Different Paul B. Preciado Danez Smith Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, Don’t Call Us Dead and Biopolitics in the Claude McKay Romance in Marseille Pharacopornographic Era C. Riley Snorton
Black on Both Sides: A Racial Brontez Purnell Mia McKenzie History of Trans Identity 100 Boyfriends Skye Falling Rivers Solomon Casey McQuiston An Unkindness of Ghosts Red, White & Royal Blue Q. Miaojin Qiu The Deep Tehlor Kay Mejia Notes of a Crocodile We Set the Dark on Fire Dean Spade Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity Paul Mendez During This Crisis Rainbow Milk R. Paola Ramos (and the Next)
Finding Latinx Madeline Miller Susan Stryker The Song of Achilles Andrea Ritchie Transgender History Queer (In)Justice:The Janet Mock Criminalization of LGBT People in Douglas Stuart
Redefining Realness the United States Shuggie Bain
Darnell L. Moore Gabby Rivera Lou Sullivan
No Ashes in the Fire Juliet Takes a Breath We Both Laughed in Pleasure
Jose Esteban Munoz Syan Rose Cruising Utopia: The Then and Our Work Is Everywhere: An There of Queer Futurity Illustrated Oral History of Queer T. Meredith Talusan and Trans Resistance Fairest
Jordy Rosenberg Brandon Taylor N. Maggie Nelson Confessions of the Fox Real Life Argonauts
Rainbow Rowell Bluets Kai Cheng Thom Carry On Fierce Femmes and
Notorious Liars Steven Rowley The Guncle I Hope We Choose Love
4 ‘If nobody sees you, are you still there?’ Akwaeke Emezi The Aesop Queer Library
Aiden Thomas Jeanette Winterson Cemetery Boys Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
The Stone Gods Jacob Tobia Sissy (A Coming of Gender Story) David Wojnarowicz
Close to the Knives Trans People of Colour Project Cooking with Trans People of Colour
X. Zairong Xiang Monique Truong Queer Ancient Ways: A Book of Salt Decolonial Exploration
V. Kevin Van Whye Y. Hanya Yanagihara Date Me, Bryson Keller A Little Life
Various Pride: Fifty Years of Parades and Protests
Ocean Vuong On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
W. Bryan Washington Lot Memorial
Sarah Waters The Paying Guests
Joshua Whitehead Full Metal Indigiqueer: Poems Jonny Appleseed
Love after the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction
Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams Radical Dharma
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