April 23, 2012

Good Lesbian Book Lists: finding lesbian fiction through our site

So the first round-up of links went viral, which was awesome. Unfortunately, it’s also out of date. Out of date in a good way, because now we have more book lists. For the most up-to-date list in future, see this page on the site. For a list and star rating of all the titles we’ve reviewed to date, see the List of Book Reviews.

Themed/Niche Book Lists

Want something FREE?

Lesbian Webcomics & Really NSFW Webcomics
Free Books Online (from original fiction to lesfic sites to fanfic sites)
Links & Free Stuff: A page rounding up the free stuff on the site, as well as links to other LGBTQ book reviewers, lesbian friendly publishers, and lesbian book related random resources.

You don’t quite have what I want… where else can I start looking for good lesbian books?

Well, there’s our actual reviews, of course! (Come see what we’ve posted lately!)
For general scifi and fantasy, the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards are a great place to start; we’ve got a short list of the lesbian books out of the whole spectrum here: The Gaylactic Spectrum Awards: Overview & Lesbian Recipients
The Sci-fi/Fantasy page is also pretty up to date, and gives a nice overview of what we’ve already reviewed on the site so far, and introduces you to some good authors.
For reliable lesbian fiction authors, check out the Alice B Readers Awards, which go to authors who publish a lot of good (enough) lesbian fiction, rather than to specific books.
To just start browsing books on Amazon, try the Good Lesbian Books Amazon Store. Yes, we know that searching for ‘lesbian’ just brings up porn and everything in the ‘Gay & Lesbian’ category, so we’ve curated this handy store. It doesn’t contain every lesbian book published, but it’s got an awful lot of them.
For more award winning GLBTQ books, check the Award Winning Lesbian Books page (we’ve got the Lambda and Stonewall awards up, as well as the previously mentioned Alice B Readers and Gaylactic Spectrum Awards. They tend to be mixed GLBTQ, so we’re going through and identifying the lesbian stuff).

How About Some Fun Arty Stuff?

Lesbian Posters on Zazzle and Amazon - a round-up of the best lesbian posters out there. There’s lots.
Lesbian Pulp Fiction Postcards - yes, the classic covers we love to share around on the internet and laugh at. Now available in postcard form on Zazzle.

Why don’t you have a list on…?

because we’re still putting it together
because we haven’t thought of it yet
because there aren’t really any books that fit
because there are way too many and we’re scared

So if there’s something you’re dying to find books on, suggest it!

Filed under good lesbian books lesbian fiction book lists book reviews lgbtlaughs lesbian gay lesbrarians genres

2,665 notes

February 8, 2012

Lesbian Themed Booklists

marthur:

puelhathnofury:

goodlesbianbooks:

For your general perusal, these are all the current, completed niche booklists we have put together. If you know of any books that should be on one of these lists and isn’t, please let us know!

Asexual Lesbians/ Asexual Women in Fiction

Lesbian Christmas Fiction

Lesbian Fairytale Fiction

Lesbian Historical Fiction

Lesbian Knights in Fiction

Lesbian Librarians in Fiction and Nonfiction

Lesbian Pirate Fiction

Lesbian Shapeshifter Fiction

Lesbian Time Travel Fiction

Lesbian Vampire Fiction

Lesbian Young Adult Fiction

Transgender Young Adult Fiction

Yuri Manga Published in English

Award-winning Lesbian Graphic Novels

Award-winning Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction

Picture Books For Children With Lesbian Parents

Lesbian Webcomics & NSFW Webcomics

…also taking suggestions for future lists.

There’s a whole list of lesbian pirate fiction?

Well, I know what I’m reading.

I was about to post “*hurls actual work out of the window, buries face in lesbian pirates*” but then I realised that was possibly the least subtle innuendo that would ever have graced my blog

and then I posted it anyway

Among an entire list of awesome, hilarious comments, I think this is my favourite (why yes, yes we are stalking the reblogs. IT IS RESEARCH).

But anyway, some additional lists (these are all books from the full YA list, but with more information and divided further into topic):

Lesbian Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction Books
Lesbian Young Adult Historical Fiction
The Quick List of Contemporary Lesbian YA Fiction
Lesbian YA Fiction With A Non-Lesbian Main Character (there are quite a few of these, so we took them out in order to avoid confusion and having to disclaimer them everywhere. Mixture of contemporary and historical)

And for the record, I do not consider either Tamora Pierce’s books, or the Gemma Doyle trilogy, or several of the other frequently cited books as lesbian fiction. They just happen to have lesbian characters, who get to be lesbian as a side issue. And they keep sneaking into my lists based on other people’s recommendations, and I keep having to weed them out once I actually take a good hard look at them. Yes, we’ll probably make a list of those in future, but I consider it highly misleading to put them on a list of books promising Real Lesbians and Bisexuals All The Time With Rainbows Coming Out Their Eyes.

However, if you want to argue that they DO feel lesbian to you, I may be swayed by majority votes. At least on books neither me nor Cress have read. And of course, if you know of any books we just haven’t found or confirmed as having tasty lesbian goodness with creamy fill-uh, I think I’ll stop there. But we want.

Filed under lesbian fantasy lesbian fiction ya books young adult rant books genres

63 notes

February 1, 2012

fuckyeahlesbianliterature:

[image description: a list of lesbian teen fiction, separated into genre:

CONTEMPORARY

Bach, Tamara - Girl from Mars

Benduhn, Tea - Gravel Queen

Boock, Paula - Dare Truth or Promise

Borris, Albert - Crash Into Me

Garden, Nancy - Annie On My Mind

Garden, Nancy - Good Moon Rising

Lazara, Dole Mayra - Down to the Bone

Lieberman, Leanne - Gravity

Jahn-Clough, Lisa - Country Girl, City Girl

Johnson, Maureen - The Bermudez Triangle

Jousan, Juli - Drawing Love

Kerr, M. E. - Deliver Us from Evie

Mac, Carrie - Crush

Ryan, Sara - Empress of the World

Ryan, Sara - The Rules for Hearts

Peters, Julie Anne - Between Mom and Jo

Peters, Julie Anne - Define “Normal”

Peters, Julie Anne - Keeping You a Secret

Peters, Julie Anne - Far From Xanadu

Peters, Julie Anne - grl2grl (short story collection)

Peters, Julie Anne - Rage: A Love Story

Peters, Julie Anne - She Loves You, She Loves You Not…

Scoppettone, Sandra - Happy Endings Are All Alike

Wallace, Kim - Erik & Isabella series

Watts, Julia - Finding H. F.

Williams, Bett - Girl Walking Backwards

Wittlinger, Hard Love

PARANORMAL/URBAN FANTASY

Healey, Karen - The Shattering

Tiernan, Cate - Sweep Series

FANTASY

Diemer, Sarah - The Dark Wife

Lo, Malinda - Ash

Lo, Malinda - Huntress

Pierce, Tamora - Protector of the Small Quartet

Pierce, Tamora - Will of the Empress

HISTORICAL

Eagland, Jane - Wildthorn

OTHER

Cat, Michael (ed.) - How Beautiful the Ordinary

End description.]

mambo-chocobo:

evewithanapple:

mambo-chocobo:

cancer-man:

-redux:

evewithanapple:

mambo-chocobo:

The list (so far) of YA books that feature lesbian characters. Notice anything?

Fuckton of Contemporary, not so much with the other genres?

That said, “Wildthorn” looks AMAZING, and I am putting it on my wishlist right now.

(there were lesbians in the Sweep series? I read through all fourteen of them when I was fourteen- oh god, the shame- but I don’t remember any. I might’ve blocked them out as a coping mechanism, though.)

Ash was actually really wonderful; I picked it up when it was a draft waiting to be published and it was great (my friend still has it though- I need to get it back!). And of course, the lovely Tamora Pierce (whom I met and was awestruck by how fantastic she was) but I mean, no one else? Wtaf.

Wait wait wait where is the gemma doyle trilogy?

Felicity was a lesbian. She was such a lesbian. I mean the sexual tension build between her and Pippa jesus are we just going to ignore this there were lesbian kisses and talks of wanting to go to paris with all the other “free women” and wear pants

Thank you for reminding me of that series. The list isn’t complete yet so if there are some missing, just assume I haven’t added them yet (or I truly don’t know about them, in which case suggestions are welcome.)

Hmm, are you going to be reviewing/putting content warnings on the books as well as listing them? Because the AGATB books, while they did include a gay character, also had child molestation in that character’s backstory.

I do think we should try to do content warnings if at all possible, yes, but we likely won’t be posting reviews on the site. It’s more a fanlisting type site where you publicly pledge to read a certain amount of YA books that have queer characters in them, to help boost support for those books. Hopefully we’ll get a lot of book bloggers involved, however, and they can review the books they read.

Our list of lesbian YA fiction gives us these numbers:

(Disclaimer: we didn’t have the paranormal titles or ‘How Beautiful the Ordinary’ (checking them out now!), and I don’t consider the Tamora Pierce series ‘lesbian enough’ as they only have ambiguous background couples, with the exception of the final book where Daja comes out. So those aren’t included).

Contemporary: 92 (70.8%)
Fantasy: 10 (7.7%)
Historical: 10 (7.7%)
Science Fiction: 4 (3.1%)
Non-lesbian main character: 15 (11.5%) (11 contemporary (8.5%), 4 historical (3.1%))

Still pretty dire ratios, but there are a few more non-contemporary books there.

(Source: einmyrias)

Filed under young adult lesbian fiction genres lesbian fantasy lesbian books