Pride is a celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community and to bring awareness of our struggle for equal rights.  It is celebrated in June to commemorate the Stonewall riots, which occurred early on the morning of Saturday, 28 June 1969, in response to a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City. The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender persons and drag queens rioted in anger at police harassment. This riot lasted for days and is the watershed moment for the LGBTQIA+ rights movement and the impetus for organizing pride events.  You can celebrate pride by reading one of these incredible books written by and representing LGBTQIA+ people:

Described as a foundational Pride text, “Rubyfruit Jungle” by Rita Mae Brown also launched Brown’s prolific literary career.  It tells the story of Molly Bolt, the adoptive daughter of a dirt-poor Southern couple who boldly forges her own path in America. With her startling beauty and crackling wit, Molly finds that women are drawn to her wherever she goes– and she refuses to apologize for loving them back.

“Girls and Their Horses” by Eliza Jane Brazier is set in the glamorous, competitive world of showjumping.  It’s a novel about the girls who ride, their cutthroat mothers, and a suspicious death at a horse show.  These mothers will stop at nothing to give their daughters everything they think the daughters deserve.

“We Could Be So Good” by Cat Sebastian is a favorite of mine–think Newsies as a romance novel.  In the late 1950s–a hostile time for gay men–reporter Nick Russo forms an unlikely friendship with Andy Fleming, the son of a newspaper-tycoon father, and as they work closely together, they fall in love and must decide if, for the first time, they’re willing to fight.  This is the first book in a series set in midcentury New York and it’s not to be missed.

“All My Mother’s Lovers” by Ilana Masad is a classic road trip novel.  Intimacy has always eluded twenty-seven-year-old Maggie Krause–despite being brought up by married parents, models of domestic bliss–until, that is, Lucia came into her life. But when Maggie’s mom, Iris, dies in a car crash, Maggie returns home only to discover a withdrawn dad, an angry brother, and, along with Iris’s will, five sealed envelopes, each addressed to a mysterious man she’s never heard of.  In an effort to run from her own grief and discover the truth about Iris–who made no secret of her discomfort with her daughter’s sexuality–Maggie embarks on a road trip, determined to hand-deliver the letters and find out what these men meant to her mother.  Maggie quickly discovers Iris’s second, hidden life, which shatters everything Maggie thought she knew about her parents’ perfect relationship.  What is she supposed to tell her father and brother?  And how can she deal with her own relationship when her whole world is in freefall?

You’ll find these titles and lots more in our “Celebrate Pride” display.  We also have a nonfiction Pride display downstairs at the Reference desk.  For additional title suggestions, see the lists below: