21 Books Every Gay Man Needs To Read Right Now | Thought Catalog

Contents:

• 13 VERY GAY AND VERY GOOD BOOKS YOU SHOULD READ THIS PRI MONTH
• 21 BOOKS EVERY GAY MAN NEEDS TO READ RIGHT NOW
• TOP 100 GAY NOVELS OF THE XXI CENTURY
• RELATNSHIP GAY BOOKS
• THE 20 BT GAY ROMANCE BOOKS YOU SHOULD HAVE READ ALREADY BY NOW!
• 60 GAY ROMANCE NOVELS THAT ARE THE BT THE GENRE: THE ULTIMATE GUI

13 VERY GAY AND VERY GOOD BOOKS YOU SHOULD READ THIS PRI MONTH

And while you n always zy up on the uch and prs play on a movie about queer love, the LGBTQ books will take thgs one step of the classics, bt-sellers and new releas on this list put gay characters at the heart of the story — or at the very least, are wrten by thors who intify as LGBTQ+. "How We Fight for Our Liv" by Saeed JonPoet Saeed Jon’ g-of-age memoir is a rehgly hont look at the realy of beg a Black gay man the south.

You won’t fd a buttoned-up gay love story the pag: Purnell unearths the dysfunctn of Black, broke and queer men fallg and out of love (or, well, lt). The says foc on Chee’s personal experienc as a gay Korean-Amerin wrer, and range topic om the wrg life to a logy of a iend lost to AIDS.

Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers is a fascatg look at not only the history of gay rights, but the tersectn of how beg a woman played to that journey — and a soberg remr that the work still isn’t done. From drag shows to gay bars to polil ralli, Allen tak rears on a journey to all rners of the Uned Stat, fdg LGBT+ people everywhere and revealg the pri that manag to flourish even the most nservative plac.

21 BOOKS EVERY GAY MAN NEEDS TO READ RIGHT NOW

Another novel set Texas, Orphs Girl tells the story of Raya and Sarah, two lbian teenagers who are sent to nversn mp to have their homosexualy “cured”. This raw and lyril book don’t flch away om the vastatg btaly of nversn therapy, bravely bearg wns to the mental and physil pa the girls experience as a direct rult of homophobia. For a novel that was ed as evince of Osr Wil’s homosexualy his trial for gross cency 1895, The Picture of Dorian Gray is likely to strike morn rears as remarkably not so homoerotic, after all.

This Gothic novel trac the moral cle of Dorian Gray, a young man whose obssn wh his own bety leads him to make some unwise cisns… Askg endurg qutns about art and athetics, Osr Wil’s remarkable novel is a breathtakg tale about the fear of agg, as well as a piece of gay lerary history s own right. Another gay l classic, Gvanni’s Room is the plex story of David, a young Amerin 1950s Paris, who is sperately tryg to accept what society has tght him is morally rrect and appropriate: a heterosexual marriage.

TOP 100 GAY NOVELS OF THE XXI CENTURY

SJ Sdu, thor of Marriage of a Thoand Li, lled , "One of the first Anglophone works to challenge the trope of the sad/suicidal gays who die at the end, this book gave a blueprt of what queer fictn uld look like. Forster (A Passage to India, A Room Wh a View, Howards End) wrote the benchmark gay novel Mrice cir 1913, was published posthumoly a lh tale of manners, posn, and sire, the tular character meets and falls for his classmate Clive while at Oxford.

The pair embark on a two-year affair until Clive leav Mrice to marry a woman and live out his proscribed life as part of the land gentry, leavg Mrice shambl and seekg to cure his Forster's novel do not end gay tragedy.

Alan Hollghurst famoly qutned the future of the gay novel this year, which is strikg sce he's often viewed as helpg make queer books accsible to a mastream dience. The queer g-of-age novel about Jim Willard and his search for love was the first novel om a rpected wrer (Gore Vidal) to speak directly and sympathetilly about the gay experience an era when homosexualy was still very much taboo. The book is remembered today for this legacy as well as for var them -- Hollywood's glass closet, beg gay the ary, the poisono effects of homophobia on society -- that still reverberate today.

RELATNSHIP GAY BOOKS

The only novel by the great Osr Wil may not be overtly gay, but there's plenty of gay subtext there for the reful rear - about as much gay subtext as a popular thor uld get away wh 's iends Basil Hallward and Lord Henry Wotton exprs tense admiratn for his bety, and passag that show Basil's feelgs for Dorian as more clearly homoerotic were excised by an edor, acrdg to Nicholas Frankel, who eded an edn prentg Wil's origal text the text as origally published has referenc to Dorian's rptn of not only young women but young men: "There was that wretched boy the Guards who mted suici. Cy of Night, a 1963 novel by John Rechy, is a semal piece of fictn that follows the life of a gay htler New York Cy, Los Angel, New Orleans, and San Francis.

THE 20 BT GAY ROMANCE BOOKS YOU SHOULD HAVE READ ALREADY BY NOW!

"This epic chronicle of gay culture the Amerin sixti is as far-reachg as is important, givg a glimpse to inty and motive, " affirmed SJ Sdu, the thor of Marriage of a Thoand Li. Gay lerature was forever changed the day Mary Ann Sgleton first met her transgenr landlady, Anna Madrigal, when she moved to San Francis's 28 Barbary Lane. The 1982 book by Edmund Whe, which begs wh the first sexual enunter of a 15-year-old boy, is based on his own experienc g to terms wh his gay inty as a youth the Midwtern Uned Stat.

Whe would later wre two addnal novels, The Betiful Room Is Empty (1988) and The Farewell Symphony (1997), which follow his gay protagonist to young adulthood. Integral to the lbian non (spe s beg nsired somewhat problematic) Brish wrer Radclyffe Hall's 1928 novel foc on Stephen Gordon, an upper-class lbian who dons men's clothg and be a novelist who eventually be a part of a lerary salon Paris at a time when there were no overt laws exprsly barrg homosexualy. Hall's novel was groundbreakg her troductn of the views of "sexologists" Richard von Krafft-Ebg and Havelock Ellis, who posed that homosexualy was an born, unalterable tra that was nsired a ngenal sexual versn that simply meant a "difference" and not a fect.

Wonrful book, " gay refugee activist and lumnist Danny Ramadan rav about the global-md book unpacks the emotnal life of a young girl displaced by the Nigerian civil war who begs a gut-wrenchg affair wh a fellow refugee. "A great rellectn of everythg anyone would say Nigeria agast homosexualy g the fense of relign, " explas David Nnanna Ikpo, the Nigerian thor of Fimisile Forever. Dalloway, a novel to which Cunngham pays homage; mid-20th-century Los Angel, hoewife Lra Brown, disntented wh her life, nonts her attractn to women; and 1990s New York Cy, Clarissa Vghan, who is lbian, plans a party for her bt iend, wrer Richard Brown, a gay man dyg of AIDS.

60 GAY ROMANCE NOVELS THAT ARE THE BT THE GENRE: THE ULTIMATE GUI

In 2015, when the novel was published, reviewer and thor Garth Greenwell clared The Atlantic, "A Ltle Life: The Great Gay Novel Might Be Here. The book featur a st of dozens of gay men, who varly engage bathhoe i, e a slew of party dgs, and vort clubs wh nam like The Toilet Bowl and Fire Island.

In honor of LGBTQ History Month, celebrated every October, here are books that aim to shed light on and clarify signifint historil moments that rmed and shaped the morn lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer rights movement. "The Gay Revolutn: The Story of the Stggle" by Lillian FarmanA thorough troductn to the history of the gay and lbian civil rights movements, this book chronicl the early stggl of LGBTQ dividuals om the 1950s to prent day g a pilatn of enlighteng terviews wh policians, ary officials and members of the muny. "When We Rise: My Life the Movement" by Cleve JonThis semi-tobgraphil acunt follows Cleve Jon as he explor his inty as a gay man the 1950s, disvers a muny and a e through his mentor, Harvey Milk, and p wh the ravagg effects of the AIDS epimic.