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Adelaide

loves these books and thinks

maybe you might too

It’s mostly: scifi, fantasy,

queer fiction, anarchist/revolutionary

non-fiction,

and a smattering of other delights. The

books are written by all sorts of authors

from different parts of the world. You can

find ideas and visions from people who

are very different from you, probably, and

that’s important. It’s books that will

hopefully be fun or challenge you and be

educational,

and maybe make you cry. If you read any

of these and enjoy them, let me know!

The City in the Middle of the Night

by Charlie Jane Anders

As with everything Charlie Jane writes,

this book has veins of magic pulsing

through it, bringing the words off the page

and into new dimensions. The City in the

Middle of the Night will entertain you; it is

imaginative and exciting. But it will also

make you feel; it's characters are real and

the situations they are in are

disconcertingly relatable. This book is

wonderful.

Assata

by Assata Shakur

Assata tells us one of the

necessary stories. It is

heartbreaking and inspiring

by turns and reveals a life

pushing the definitions of

courage and bravery to their

fullest limits. Assata Shakur

currently lives in Cuba and

continues to inspire

revolutionaries everywhere.

Pet

by Akwaeke Emezi

Wow! Akwaeke Emezi's vision

of a post-liberation world is

breath-taking. But they don't

stop there; they show us how a

revolution must be made every

day and how complacency lets

the horrors creep back in. CW

for references to sexual assault

and child abuse.

We Want It All

edited by Andrea Abi-Karam & Kay Gabriel

From them. Magazine: Beyond a “narrow

fight over particular rights and recognitions,”

as Abi-Karam and Gabriel note in their

introduction, We Want It All offers a vision of

trans liberation that “touches directly on

movements for ecological and climate

justice, for a world without prisons and

borders, for a liberatory reworking of gender

and sexual relations, and for universal

access to housing and health-care.” Put

more simply, We Want It All takes its title

literally: “What we want is nothing other than

a world in which everything belongs to

everyone.”

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

by Kai Cheng Thom

I don't want to say that trans people

have magic powers, because there's

already enough exoticising and

dehumanizing of us in popular

culture....buuuuuuuut Kai Cheng Thom

has magic powers and she filled this

story with so much of it, glitter oozes

from the pages. Read and be delighted.

Shut Up, You’re Pretty

by Tea Mutonji

Ummm, yes please! This

title is everything. The

stories are real, and they

hurt. But they are also

beautiful and they tug

the strings of my heart.

The Raven Tower

by Ann Leckie

This book left me speechless, utterly,

completely devoid of words. Reading

it felt like Ann Lecking flexing on her

readers, like a taunt on every page,

goading us into her strange, unique

world, until she finally pulled the rug

out, leaving us flailing, falling, utterly

undone. This book is absolutely

perfect.

A People’s Future of the

united states

edited by Victor LaValle and

John Joseph Adams

This is a spectacular collection.

The futures imagined here are

disparate, wild; some are

hopeful, others...less so.

Speculative fiction offers

windows into our present time

that realistic fiction is often

unable to; the authors in this

collection use it to great effect.

Extratransmission

by Andrea Abi-Karam

Wow! Andrea distills so much rage

and anger into a most ferocious

concentration in these poems. As I

read I could feel them placing a

switchblade into my hands, showing

me how to use it, as "Kill Bro // Kill

Cop" repeated in my mind.

Lilith's Brood

by Octavia Butler

This is my favorite of Octavia Butler's

works. She asks questions which don't

have easy answers, and are perhaps,

unanswerable, except by those of whom

they are asked. Especially challenging are

the themes of consent and hierarchy in,

supposedly, symbiotic relationships. As

with most of her works, Butler concerns

herself with how people survive within

these lopsided power structures, and in so

doing, illuminates oft-ignored realities of

the human experience.

The Dreamblood Duology

by N. K. Jemisin (includes The

Killing Moon and The Shadowed

Sun)

Everyone knows N.K. Jemisin from

her Broken Earth trilogy, and rightly

so as that is probably the best

fantasy series to ever be written.

And her older stuff is amazing too!

The Dreamblood Duology is rich in

everything that make books good

and this series is excellent.

The Incorrigible Children of

Ashton Place series by

Maryrose Wood (#1 is

Mysterious Howling)

This is my favorite series for

young readers, ever. I even took

a character's name as my middle

name (no really). Maryrose

Wood's writing is so absolutely

gorgeous and her world so

wonderfully whimsical, I never

wanted to leave. Awhoo! Awhoo!

The Wayward Children series

by Seanan McGuire (especially and specifically Down Among The Sticks And

Bones and In An Absent Dream)

Okay, so stick with me. This series is kinda split into two strains: The odd

numbered books tell a linear story and the even numbered books are stand-

alone stories that tell the background of characters from the main one.

What are they about? A child finds a doorway that asks her to 'Make Sure'.

She steps through and finds herself in a world, tailored made for her needs

and temperament. She lives in this new, magical place, making friends with

its occupants, learning more about herself and finding the acceptance she

has longed for her whole life. But then, Something Happens, and she is

transported back to our own world, sometimes violently, sometimes by

choice. The adults in her life believe she has been kidnapped, or run away,

but whatever they choose, they will not listen to her. She becomes more and

more isolated from those around her, desperately longing to find another

doorway, to go back to her home. Her parents enroll her in Eleanor West's

Home for Wayward Children, believing it to be a state-of-the-art boarding

school dedicated to treating mentally unwell children like their own. But it is

really a place where all the children who have been torn from their true

homes too early can find solace in each other's company. And so begins our

linear tale.

This series is wonderful but it's the stand-alone tales that get me. They are

heartbreakingly perfect, and I mean that in it's most literal sense; my heart

was torn in pieces over and over again. My copies are tear-stained and the

binding is weak from my grip as I pressed them to my chest. Each one feels

so like a trans/queer allegory, they hit so hard and so close to the secret

parts.

If you like books full of magic that also make you cry, this series is perfect.

Little Fish

by Casey Plett

Little Fish took me into its arms and

swallowed me until I disappeared

completely, only to spit me out again

with all my secrets laid bare under the

piercing moonlight of Casey Plett's

words. No other book has felt so fully

like an author dipping their pen into the

well of my soul; no other book has

been this overwhelming.

We Both Laughed In Pleasure

by Lou Sullivan, edited by Ellis Martin

& Zach Ozma

Come for the cute butt on the cover,

stay for the most thoroughly self-

documented life of a trans man to exist

in the english language. Lou’s diaries

are beautiful to read and Ellis Martin &

Zack Ozma have done a lovely job

curating this book from literally

thousands of pages.

Bella Figura

by Kamin Mohammadi

Kamin Mohammadi takes us

through a year of her life in Italy,

showing what it mean to live as a

‘beautiful figure’. This book is so

romantic, so sensual, and in a

year where it can be hard to find a

reason to change out of

sweatpants, Kamin encourages us

to love ourselves and find ways of

injecting beauty into the mundane.

The Mermaid, the Witch, and the

Sea

by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

This book is so lovely! My favorite

are the chapters when the Sea

speaks; literally crying over every

one. But everything else too! The

Mermaids, the Witch, the

enchanting world! This is a

fabulous debut novel from Maggie

Tokuda-Hall, I can’t wait for more!

Sketchtasy

by Mattlida Bernstein Sycamore

Gender pronouns are fluid, the drugs

are in supply and everything is gay,

Gay, GAY! This book is exciting, like

when the molly hits, and exhausting,

like the next day. Alexa is a wild and

entrancing narrator and swept me

away for the ride.

Interiors

edited by Phaidon

I am currently accepting

applications for someone to

provide me with

accommodations like the ones

pictured in this book. Tell your

friends. xox, Adelaide

My Sister, the Serial Killer

by Oyinkan Braithwaite

This is one of the most shockingly

delightful books I’ve stumbled

across. The title is SO intriguing and

the book itself does not let down. In

so many ways it is a traditional piece

of realistic fiction, but the absurdity of

the macabre that Oyinkan

Braithwaite peppers throughout

elevates it to a completely unique

and singular place on any bookshelf.

Disintegrate/Dissociate

by Arielle Twist

Disintegrate: a dream, a longing.

Dissociate: all day.

I am going to study Arielle Twists's

words; resonate with them, learn from

them. Feel them in my depths, they

shake, they rock my bones.

Heads of the Colored People

by Nafissa Thompson-Spires

Reading the story, Belle Lettres, had

me cracking up; I decided

immediately that I like Nafissa

Thompson-Spires's writing. It is sharp,

full of wit and has many-layered

textures, some of which I'm sure, as a

white reader, I am not privy to. I'm

looking forward to more of her short

stories in the future, she is excellent

at them.

Pereira Maintains

by Antonio Tabucchi

What if journalists weren’t so predictably

disappointing all the time? What if they

took an active role in fighting the

injustices they report on? Pereira

Maintains is a reference point for what

that might look like. It contextualises the

liberal hand-wringing so common today

and is an accusation against everyone

who speak excuses instead of actively

fighting the rise of fascism.

The Witches of New York

By Ami McKay

19th century witchy-feminist

fiction? That’s pretty much all

this girl needs. (Well, maybe a

cozy chair, large glass of wine

and my cat-friend Matilda curled

up in my lap.)

A Year Inside MS-13

by Juan Jose Martinez D'Aubuisson

Rather than a voyeuristic look into the lives of

gangsters, this book is important for how it

humanizes it's subjects and reveals the

incredibly brutal and bleak worlds they

inhabit. It is an indictment of u.s. immigration

policy, past and present, and a prescient

reminder that the news' caricatures of these

men are as ridiculous and absurd as borders

themselves.

The Selected Works of Voltairine

De Cleyre

edited by Alexander Berkman

Nothing I have encountered holds

more beauty, joy, more exuberance

for life than the Idea. What anarchism

as a theory and anarchy as a social

reality offer is nothing short of total

liberation, for the collective and the

individual. De Cleyre's writings are

some of the most moving and

provocative to come out of the early

20th century. Prepare to be

entranced.

They Were Her Property

by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers

There is an unbroken line between the white

women, slave holders detailed in this book,

racist suffragettes, those who overwhelmingly

voted for trump (twice) and those who insist

on championing a 'tough on crime' candidate

(biden) and his top-cop vice presidential pick

(harris) during a national uprising against

police and anti-Black racism. Until we (white

women), reckon with this lineage and set

aside any insistence on the progression of

'women's rights' as somehow distinct from

racial equity, true social justice will remain as

ashes in our mouths.

Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour

of Chaos Theory

by James Cagney

These are quite incredible poems. If

you have an opportunity to hear them

read aloud, take it! James Cagney

(no, not that one, he dead) reads and

writes in the small space wisdom

inhabits.

Soledad Brother

by George Jackson

Every summer we (Abolitionists)

commemorate Black August.

George and his brother Jonathan’s

actions during this month, though

one year apart, have given us a

legacy of resistance to the modern-

day slavery of the prison system.

This is an incredibly important book

to read.

Maroon the Implacable

by Russell 'Maroon' Shoatz

This book is comprised of essays

written during Russell Shoatz's lengthy

prison sentence, the majority of which

he has spent in solitary confinement,

due to the prison system's inability to

crush his spirit (or keep him locked up;

he has escaped prison twice!). He is

currently struggling with severe health

problems and the movement to

demand his freedom has been

reinvigorated. For abolitionists and

revolutionaries everywhere, he is

revered.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated

Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own

Making

by Catherynne M. Valente

At the beginning of ‘rona I read my

insta followers a bedtime story every

night. I chose this book and it was a

smashing success. It’s a lovely

fairytale, at turns exciting, others more

somber. It is delightful and inventive

and I highly recommend it for children

of all ages.

Pangayaw and Decolonizing

Resistance

by Bas Umali

The struggle for decolonization and total

liberation is alive and strong in the

Philippines, despite duterte’s best efforts

to stamp it out. Anarchism takes so many

different forms, depending on local

context; this book does a wonderful job of

furthering the struggle and offering

potential strategies that we can all learn

from.

Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the

Sun

By Sarah Ladipo Manyika

Morayo, the protagonist of this perfect

novella, is the type of older woman I

hope to someday be. She lives a vibrant

life, remembering the fullness she has

lived while remaining intensely curious

about the young people around her. This

is a wonderfully meditative book.

My Eighty-One Years of

Anarchy

by May Picqueray

May Picqueray writes with such

joy about her life in anarchy and

wow, it is intoxicating! The

whimsy! The violence! The

absolute dedication to total

liberation! I swoon!

Thursday's and Every Other Sunday Off

by Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor

Race, gender, and class all intersect in this

incisive examination of the lives of Black

domestic workers. Originally published in

1972, many of the stories, and certainly the

analysis, are just as prescient today; it's a gift

that it has been reprinted.

What it Means When a Man Falls

From the Sky

by Lesley Nneka Arimah

In each story Lesley Nneka Arimah

beckoned me forward, up a hill, with

promises of wonders too incredible

to imagine, just over the peak. By

the time I crested each ridge, it was

too late, and I found myself

plummeting over the edge of a cliff.

Take these stories slowly and let

each wreck you in it's way.

How Mamas Love Their Babies

by Juniper Fitzgerald, illustrations

by Elise Peterson

Other picture books have made

me cry more than this but I've

never felt so grateful for another

to exist. Juniper Fitzgerald and

Elise Peterson have given a gift

with this creation.

Annals of the Western Shore

by Ursula K. Le Guin

One day my friends and I decided we were going to get the

archipelago from Earthsea tattooed across our butts, so our

fannies, when seen in total, would reproduce the map at the

beginning of each book in the series. We probably aren’t

going to get any tattoos from Annals of the Western Shore,

but I am going to read it and reread it. I love Ursula Le Guin so

much and I go to her books when I need to slow down, dream

better and get in touch with truths deep within the foundations

of existence.

Queer and Trans Artists of Color

interviews by Nia King, edited by Maliha Ahmed

This third volume of Queer & Trans Artists of Color is easily my

favorite, not only because Nia King interviews some of my friends

(!!!) but I was able to see several of the contributors when they

debuted the book. There is such a great and wide array of artists

and artistic disciplines represented in these pages, it truly is a

delight.

*this book is self-published and so not able to be linked to our website. Please

give us a call or stop by if you would like a copy!

100 Boyfriends

by Brontez Purnell

Find a friend, a partner, a

random, and read each other

chapters, preferably in bed.

Guaranteed to up the vibes and,

goddamn if you aren’t wet, then I

dunno, call a doctor.

I Hope We Choose Love

by Kai Cheng Thom

In many ways these essays are a

love letter to movements for

liberation. Kai Cheng challenges us

to do better, to act from love. Her

critiques are sober reflections on the

gaps between our desires to create

more magical worlds and our

behaviors which so often reflect the

carceral logic of our current one.

The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion

By Margaret Killjoy

A queer anarchist traveler arrives in Freedom, Iowa, a

utopic community of former itinerants and misfits,

searching for answers to her friend's recent suicide. While

there she experiences a taste of anarchy; a society with

no obvious hierarchy, no material want and an abundance

of care and generosity. But lurking beneath this appealing

veneer is a force strange and mysterious, otherworldly and

oh so deadly. This novella is a lot of fun, and Margaret

Killjoy does a fantastic job of teasing out the contradictions

inherent to utopic enterprises.