The House in the Cerulean Sea by
1984 meets The Umbrella Academy with a pinch of Douglas Adams thrown in. Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He's tasked with determining whether six dangerous magical children are likely to bring about the end of the world. Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn. And his secrets will come to light. The House in the Cerulean Sea is an enchanting love story, masterfully told, about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place--and realizing that family is yours.
Red, White and Royal Blue by
The special Collector's Edition of Casey McQuiston's beloved New York Times bestselling novel, featuring illustrated endpapers, an all new Henry-POV chapter, and more! What happens when America's First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales? When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius--his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There's only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse. Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. Casey McQuiston's Red, White & Royal Blue proves: true love isn't always diplomatic.
Tales of the City by
Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City has blazed a singular trail through popular culture -- from a groundbreaking newspaper serial to a classic novel to a television event that entranced millions around the world. The first of six novels about the denizens of the mythic apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane, Tales is both a wry comedy of manners and a deeply involving portrait of a vanished era.
Further Tales of the City by
The calamity-prone residents of 28 Barbary Lane are at it again in this deliciously dark novel of romance and betrayal. While Anna Madrigal imprisons an anchorwoman in her basement, Michael Tolliver looks for love at the National Gay Rodeo, DeDe Halcyon Day and Mary Ann Singleton track a charismatic psychopath across Alaska, and society columnist Prue Giroux loses her heart to a derelict living in San Francisco park.
A Little Life by
An epic about love and friendship in the twenty-first century that goes into some of the darkest places fiction has ever traveled and yet somehow improbably breaks through into the light. Truly an amazement--and a great gift for its readers. When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring act∨ JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he'll not only be unable to overcome--but that will define his life forever. In rich and resplendent prose, Yanagihara has fashioned a tragic and transcendent hymn to brotherly love, a masterful depiction of heartbreak, and a dark examination of the tyranny of memory and the limits of human endurance.
All Boys Aren't Blue by
In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson's All Boys Aren't Blue explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys. Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren't Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy.
Coming Together by
In Coming Together, Ryan Powell captures the social and political vitality of the first wave of movies made by, for, and about male-desiring men in the United States between World War II and the 1980s. From the underground films of Kenneth Anger and the Gay Girls Riding Club to the gay liberation-era hardcore films and domestic dramas of Joe Gage and James Bidgood, Powell illuminates how central filmmaking and exhibition were to gay socializing and worldmaking. Unearthing scores of films and a trove of film-related ephemera, Coming Together persuasively unsettles popular histories that center Stonewall as a ground zero for gay liberation and visibility. Powell asks how this generation of movie-making--which defiantly challenged legal and cultural norms around sexuality and gender--provided, and may still provide, meaningful models for living.