Cameron Awkward-Rich
[isbn]
These poems shine light on the realities of racial and gendered American violence both past and present, asking how to thrive as marginalized people, to flourish and fight back against the violence from the oppressors that threatens to consume the narrative. At once both loving and powerful.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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T Fleischmann
[isbn]
This is one of those pieces that makes you change the way you look at art, and in doing so, yourself: in and out of the art gallery, only ever seen from the bodies we are and experience from. At times confessional in the intimacy of their prose, T. Fleischmann has given us all a gift that I'm going to treasure for years.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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C. Riley Snorton
[isbn]
This profoundly important book analyzes the intersections of blackness and transness from the mid-19th century to present, illuminating a history that has long been overlooked in a trans theory that centers whiteness. Necessary reading.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Hazel Jane Plante
[isbn]
A gorgeous ode to the life of Vivian and our author's unrequited love for her, Little Blue Encyclopedia gushes with loss and desire between trans women. This is pure tenderness in the face of struggle, about grief and the ways that we hold each other. One of the best love letters ever written.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Kai Cheng Thom
[isbn]
Instead of focusing outward at the society that harms us, Kai Cheng Thom excavates the ways trans and queer folks reenact our traumas on each other and confronts the troublesome questions needed to forge a better path. How do we learn from the past when our foremothers have disappeared? What do we do when the revolution hasn't happened yet but babies do? How do we liberate our liberation from the cold heart of neoliberalism? What does it mean to... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Casey Plett
[isbn]
Little Fish is a story centered around Wendy — a trans woman who, after a family death, begins to suspect her late Mennonite grandparent may have been trans too. While tackling the complexities of sex work, suicide, relationships, and harassment, author Casey Plett doesn't shy away from the fact that people and identity are messy, or that to be trans is to exist in conflicting modalities with the worlds we inhabit and the time that... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Calvin Gimpelevich
[isbn]
Effortlessly laying bare the intersections of oppression — Calvin Gimpelevich's Invasions conjures visions and possibilities that liberate even as they ache. Every story is a gem, but "Rent, Don't Sell" and "You Wouldn't Have Known" were so good they hurt: exploring gender, bodies, and minds in bold and groundbreaking ways.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Susan Stryker
[isbn]
Susan Stryker is an incredible historian, and in her seminal Transgender History she compiles a trans history of resilience from the mid-20th century to the present to show that progress is at times less like an arrow than it is a boomerang. A must-read for anyone and everyone.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Kai Cheng Thom
[isbn]
Author Kai Cheng Thom has a problem with the easily consumable trans narratives that cis people love so much, wherein trans people suffer through the trials and tribulations society inflicts like angelic sacrificial lambs. In her stunning Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars, she delivers us the cure. It's a memoir/not-memoir, featuring pantheons of trans goddesses as deeply complex as they are beautiful, knife fights in the name of fallen... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Jas M. Morgan
[isbn]
A fabulous, slim memoir that explores the complex intersections between chosen queer family and blood family through cyclical Indigenous narrative techniques, Nîtisânak is immense in its vision and breadth. Equal parts witty and powerful, Lindsay Nixon is a phenomenon.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Virginie Despentes
[isbn]
Baise Moi (or Rape Me) is the brutal revenge story of two women who, through cosmic happenstance, team up to unleash the violence that has been done to them and others onto the world at large. This is not an easy read and the peerless Virginie Despentes does not aim for likable protagonists, but with her in the driver's seat you will begin to feel that their actions are more reasonable than at first glance, and, like when faced... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Akihito Tsukushi
[isbn]
Made in Abyss transitions smoothly between sugary cuteness and body horror, delightful coming-of-age adventuring and heartrending gut punches to your soul. It's the best thing ever and everyone should experience it!
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Andrea Long Chu
[isbn]
Perhaps most well known for her deliciously brutal take-downs of writers such as Bret Easton Ellis and Jill Soloway, Andrea Long Chu is a vicious intelligence that cannot be ignored. She's deeply controversial within trans circles because of her tendency to so fully illuminate her own self-loathing for cis audiences (see her unfortunately titled NYTimes article, "My New Vagina Won't Make Me Happy"), many criticizing her for giving the... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Carmen Maria Machado
[isbn]
This magical book is all sinew and blood–shattered fragments of memory filtered through lenses ranging from academic theory to pop culture, all shimmering and shifting perspectives just like the Dream House itself. Laying bare the inner workings of psychological abuse in a lesbian relationship, it interrogates the hard questions of how to address when queers sometimes harm other queers, how abuse occurs when the man is absent, and how to tell the... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Kazuo Umezz
[isbn]
This gorgeous new edition of Kazuo Umezz's masterpiece finally brings that early ’70s horror story about disappeared students fighting for survival in a terrifying alternate dimension into the hands of a new generation. Drifting Classroom is the manga that horror manga maestro Junji Ito says inspired and captivated him as a little boy, opening the door for him to become the artist he is now. It is my pleasure to announce that this... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Shintaro Kago
[isbn]
Imagine if horror manga master Junji Ito took psychedelics and then attempted to write erotica. That's basically everything Shintaro Kago does, and it's glorious.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Shuzo Oshimi
[isbn]
Inside Mari is the quintessential body swap tale with a twist — a dark and deeply psychological coming-of-age story that plumbs the depths of gender, desire, and identity. A must-read.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Tatsuki Fujimoto
[isbn]
This tale of a burning immortal out for revenge in a frozen wasteland is both witty and infinitely horrifying, always reaching to some new level of terror as it surprises with new subversions and twists. True trope-busting depravity.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Autumn Christian
[isbn]
This is a story of sex worker as superhero and saint, and of sex as both superpower and sacrament. Girl Like a Bomb follows Beverly Sykes — a teenage girl bursting with desire who finds everyone she has slept with profoundly changed for the better — and her journey takes us everywhere from church orgies with depressed housewives to covert missions to sleep with a terrorist. Here, Autumn Christian has woven together an unapologetic fairy... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Sachiko Kaneoya
[isbn]
I love everything Iron Circus Comics puts out, but the main reason I picked up this delightful art book was because a friend told me it's "the closest it's possible to get to a female equivalent of the cishet male gaze." Almost every single painting involves the same man, objectified in perhaps every way imaginable in everything from portraits to surreal fever dreams — exploring themes of submission, erotism, the monstrous, and the abject. It's... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Caitlin R. Kiernan
[isbn]
This Gothic tale about fractured lives and the selves that live them is horrific (but not necessarily horror) and a ghost story (not necessarily about ghosts). What follows is the deeply weird The Drowning Girl — a fractal of memory and experience that is both fantastic and true.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Daniel Mallory Ortberg
[isbn]
Daniel Ortberg — perhaps most famous for cofounding the wry and side-splitting feminist website The Toast — brings us his deliciously subverted collection of classic fairy tales that turn gendered expectations on their head. Hilarious, dark, deeply intelligent — in short, unmissable.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Meredith Russo
[isbn]
If I Was Your Girl is a wonderful coming-of-age tale about a trans girl who moves to a new school and passes as cis — burdened with the possibility that discovery will destroy her new life or her chances with the boy she likes. An accessible treatment of young love from a trans perspective that immediately asserts itself as a YA classic.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Larissa Glasser
[isbn]
Larissa Glasser's F4 is Bizzaro fiction at its best, featuring a trans bartender contending with fractured selves and wars with Internet trolls on the back of a kaiju (like, you know, Godzilla). From start to finish, it's a roller coaster of the strangest and most delicious pulp.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Esmé Weijun Wang
[isbn]
Here, Esmé Weijun Wang is at her brilliant best and her writing is a chisel, precisely revealing the discomforting relationship our histories both past and present have with both the categorization and treatment of the famously reviled schizophrenias. Diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder herself, Wang has delivered us a book that delves down to the depths of the self with perfect sentences that elevate us even when they devastate.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Han Kang
[isbn]
Taking advantage of the white on the page, this sparse experimental novel on the color white is reminiscent of Maggie Nelson's Bluets in its gorgeous, mournful meditations. Best known in the English-speaking world for her extraordinary The Vegetarian and Human Acts, Han Kang's newest work recalls her past theme of the tensions between violence and nonviolence in ways that always feel deeply personal — even while the... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Esme Weijun Wang
[isbn]
The Border of Paradise is a novel about the trauma inflicted upon us and that we in turn inflict on others, a ;saga chronicling the lives of a neurotic Polish American man who comes to marry a beautiful Taiwanese woman. We learn this man is about to kill himself on the first page, and from there their haunting histories unfold — bridled with abuse, mental illness, and lost love. Esme Weijun Wang is a master at weaving these different... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Jenny Hval
[isbn]
Paradise Rot is the erotic sapphic novel that I've always wanted, a slow-burning hallucinatory romance that evokes Han Kang's surreal The Vegetarian in the best possible ways. The story follows a Norwegian student living in a ;renovated warehouse with a strange roommate, and lays witness as their environment, identities, bodies, and the borders between them become less and less stable as everything becomes more and more alive —... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Rita Bullwinkel
[isbn]
Belly Up is a strange and wonderful collection of stories about women and girls, exploring the ways that their bodies and identities commingle, or are objectified, or consume/are consumed. Herein the tuning of a harp gives a woman a second self, high school girls talks about eating themselves and becoming flowers, a dead husband feels omnipresent in his widow's sex life, and a saleswoman finds it more and more difficult to distinguish... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Sabrina Orah Mark
[isbn]
I am not sure if these are story dreams, or narrative poems, or maybe even spells. Language is given about motherhood, love, and everything else and then it's broken, or dispersed, or maybe inhaled. Whatever Wild Milk is, I know that it's still floating around in me, and that maybe now even words themselves are different then they were before.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Maryse Meijer
[isbn]
Heartbreaker is an earthshaking short story collection that will break you. Maryse Meijer plumbs the depths of human desire and pushes our possibility for empathy outward — far past the edge where our moral norms teeter. Among these stories is a man in love with the life-destroying fire he brought into the world, a girl at fat camp who has an affair with a fox, a mother who has a man come play her daddy whenever her family leaves the... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Joshua Hunt
[isbn]
I did my undergrad at UO and, full disclaimer, couldn't stand the culture built around football and the Ducks or anything else related to the revoltingly dubbed "Uncle Phil" and his Nike empire. Luckily, I ran in activist and academic circles that had long whispered about his dirty dealings with our administration — including, but not even remotely limited to, his successful attempts at shutting down student protests over Nike's financial... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Kago
[isbn]
The youthful and optimistic health home aide Yukie Sakai strives to be the best she can be in a series of stories about the fear and humor of old age — each at once surreal, hilarious, and horrific. People blow up when forgotten by an aging psychic, elderly kaiju discuss the old days of destroying cities over their ailments, labyrinthine wrinkly skin leads to new dimensions, and self-replicating sentient dentures plot nefariously. Kago's art... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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K ONeill, Katie ONeill, Kay ONeill
[isbn]
Katie O'Neill has done it again with this absolutely breathtaking fairy tale about the the beauty of our ocean and our obligation to protect it. Her art stuns and her bold colors shine in a narrative that brims over with love, set in a fantastical and queer world where children and people of all ages can feel like they belong. Aquicorn is a place to play in the sand, dip your toes in the foam, and let your imagination go deep and wild.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Inio Asano
[isbn]
A Girl on the Shore is a unsettling teen romance unlike anything you've read before, oscillating between optimism and nihilism until they start to blur. Asano's intricate art is alive on the page, depicting young people in a relationship defined by repressed trauma and forbidden desire. This is a story about the unsaid — more about the spaces in between words than the words themselves. It is that silence that will stick with you more... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Waters, Sarah
[isbn]
Fingersmith is Sarah Waters's lush Victorian lesbian masterpiece — a novel about the intricate roles we play to survive in the cultures we live in, while pursuing what is forbidden across class, gender, and sexuality. Full of twists and turns, Waters queers the Dickensian novel to create something much more thrilling and erotic. Fingersmith is also the story upon which Korean director Park Chan-wook's gloriously excessive film... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Miaojin Qiu, Eileen Myles, Bonnie Huie
[isbn]
Besides the main character's name becoming synonymous with "lesbian" in Taiwanese, this classic that arose in the queer literary scene of ’80s Taiwan helped drastically push societal norms in a more accepting direction. Far ahead of its time even internationally, Notes of a Crocodile's youthful and angsty protagonists challenged and deconstructed gender in ways that are only now in vogue. If you're not sold yet, it also features one of... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Miles Gunter
[isbn]
A young woman in a fishing village is turned into a vampire, kills her maker, and retreats to the ocean for a century or so to live in tranquility under the sea. When her best friend (a giant shark) dies from an oil spill, she emerges to a modern world ravaged by climate change and becomes determined to stop all these awful humans before they destroy the food supply she needs to subsist on for eternity. Who doesn't want to watch a rad vampire gal... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Sarah Mirk, Eva Cabrera, Claudia Aguirre
[isbn]
Open Earth is an erotic story about polyamorous relationships set in space. Or, to say it another way, it's a profoundly hopeful tale about the first generation to grow up in space coming into adulthood, born of a group of scientists who abandoned a dying earth. The young people who grew up unaffected by the media and norms of Earth are contrasted with their parents — Earthlings — with their strange nostalgia for past ways and weird... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Aminder Dhaliwal
[isbn]
Woman World is a hilarious and delightful collection of Aminder Dhaliwal's web comic, imagining a world where the last people to remember the existence of men are now nearing old age. Razor-sharp wit about feminist issues is given new context in a world that hardly needs it, as women the world over build, create, and love. Bonus points: it's the only trans-inclusive story about a post-men utopia I've come across, and features some really... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Akihito Tsukushi
[isbn]
Don't let the adorable art fool you: Made in Abyss packs a vicious punch. The last corner of the world that has not been fully explored is a magical abyss, brimming with all manner of wonders and horrors waiting to be unearthed. The story does a brilliant job at slowly zooming out to reveal an increasingly complex world and a endlessly intriguing mystery, compelling you to go ever deeper. The characters and their relationships to each... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Hazel Newlevant
[isbn]
Sugar Town is a wondrous little love story about polyamory, queer dance parties, gentle doms, and really excellent communication. At ;least semi-autobiographical and set in Portland, we get to follow a cute queer cartoonist named Hazel who's visiting from New York, who soon finds herself falling for a rad woman she's just met who works as a dominatrix. The best thing about this is how good everyone is to each other — how Hazel and her... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Charlie Jane Anders
[isbn]
All the Birds in the Sky blasts off as a genre fiction wrestling match, pitting sci-fi and fantasy against each other until they begin to blur together so thoroughly that you can't tell what's what. There are highly trained assassins from ancient societies, highly empathetic AI, witches who heal the sick and turn bad people into wooden figurines, and an anti gravity machine that may save humanity or tear apart the fabric of reality. Our... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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JY Yang
[isbn]
JY Yang is a queer nonbinary Singaporean writer who self-describes as a postcolonial intersectional feminist, and their sublimely gorgeous fantasy world that we first see in The Black Tides of Heaven reflects these identities in its every facet. Its aesthetic is an Eastern twist on steampunk (silkpunk), and our protagonists — twins — are perfect reflections of each other until they slowly develop their own personalities and, wonderfully,... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Inio Asano
[isbn]
The Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction series is a slice of life with an alien invasion serving as background noise, centered around a teenage girl and her friend as they stumble toward adulthood with nihilistic zest. Asano's art and storytelling are as stellar as always, and here he depicts a world that went mad long before the mothership appeared in the sky.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Stoya
[isbn]
Stoya has made a name for herself in the public sphere through porn, and here she collects her years of fiery, sharp writing to make clear that one's participation in sex work in no way demeans one's intellect. She weaves philosophy and theory into insights from a career in an industry that is both famously romanticized and reviled — refusing to let us get away with lazy caricatures. Even with all that aside, she proves that she's an excellent... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Melissa Gira Grant
[isbn]
This is an absolutely extraordinary crash course on how general disgust, pity, and fear about the existence of sex workers from both the right and left is precisely what most contributes most to exploitation and violence against them. Melissa Gira Grant demonstrates a ruthless brilliance as she lays out how the biggest enemies of sex workers are the systems that claim to "save" them while also systematically ignoring their actual voices: law... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Jenny Offill
[isbn]
Dept. of Speculation is a gorgeous little novel that sometimes feels more like poetry than prose — a slice of life about the devastations of artistry, marriage, and concepts. Jenny Offill imbues her sentences with a dazzling humanity that will make you feel all the things across the spectrum.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Stjepan Sejic
[isbn]
Did you ever wish you could have been in on the whole Fifty Shades craze, but were a little bit too concerned with enthusiastic consent and/or prefer your stories queer? Sunstone is for you. Primarily following the relationship between two women who find each other online through their complementary interest in all things BDSM, the story tackles big themes like queer desire, friendship, and acceptance alongside all the steam. The... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Mujirushi Shimazaki
[isbn]
Imagine a world where numerous city-destroying Kaiju à la Godzilla do in fact appear to devastate the earth, but this time with an adorable twist. Turns out that certain teenage girls can can sing with enough empathy and at just the right frequency to calm and even befriend these giant monsters, a lovely fact that allows for this story about friendship and believing in yourself to unfold. This is the crossover no one asked for, but it turns out... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Georges Bataille
[isbn]
Everything about and behind The Sacred Conspiracy is just so cool that I can barely handle it. Georges Bataille, who obsessed over (and indulged in) all manner of societal taboos and was ;the neurotic philosophical contemporary of French bigwigs like Camus and Sarte, was also known for being a staunch Marxist. He thought that fascism in its many manifestations was a cultural hydra that had to be defeated, but was sure it would continue... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Jennifer Lewis, Jessie Carver
[isbn]
Love Is the Drug and Other Dark Poems is an absolutely extraordinary anthology of poetry and other art that plays within the contradictions and intersections that arise from desire, identity, and love. This is not a collection of flowery words for wooing: they are sharpened knives and the blue part of a fire. Lucky for us, safety is boring.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Melanie Gillman
[isbn]
The way in which feminism centered around the most privileged women betrays the most vulnerable is brought into stark display in this gorgeous story about an all-girls sleepaway camp making a pilgrimage to a Christian feminist holy site. Our protagonist, Charlie, is the only black girl in a sea of white, dealing with her queer identity as she befriends a girl named Sydney, who has to hide the fact that she's trans. Together, they face the... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Sophie Lucido Johnson
[isbn]
Many Love is a memoir about author Sophie Lucido Johnson and her relationships, but it's also a road map for decentering our societal concepts about love as it relates to the nuclear family. Building on the queer theory that came before her, Johnson demonstrates how love doesn't have to be a box where a single romantic partner is the only person you can ever really love. You can love friends more than a sexual partner, you can give... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Sofia Samatar, del Samatar
[isbn]
Reading Monster Portraits was like being initiated into some forbidden magic — requiring you to give every part of yourself as it both overwhelms and elevates. This phenomenal sibling duo bring us both poetic and imaginative prose interwoven with philosophy (Sofia Samatar) and absolutely stunning portraits of the monsters that are as gorgeous as they are grotesque (Del Samatar). Every page brims with it's own unique cosmos — meditating... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Sanzo
[isbn]
This manga is as cute as you may expect, but much stranger and melancholic than you may be prepared for. It's mostly about teenagers and their rather impulsive decisions when it comes to young love, but also about how powerful ancient gods have their own similar hangups. I mean, come on, just read that title. Is not reading it really an option?
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Niki Smith
[isbn]
Crossplay is a super cute graphic novel about young people making friends and hooking up at a cosplay convention, finding that being in a space where they can be someone else for a while may be the key to finding out who they really are. A delightfully affirming story, this little slice of life allows their diverse set of characters to play with relationships and gender until they find the ones that fit.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Hota , Chirolu
[isbn]
Don't listen to the title: at least in Vol. 1 of this lovely little manga, there's not much demon lord action going on. Instead, a young adventurer finds a mega-cute demon girl abandoned in the forest and decides to take her in, beginning the adorable fumbles, sacrifices, and effusive love that comes with parenthood. It wouldn't be surprising if a demon lord shows up later on to cause trouble, but by then I'm sure this dynamic duo will be ready... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Kyoko Okazaki
[isbn]
Whatever the adorable cover and art style suggest, Pink is an absurdist satire about a young woman in Tokyo working as a call girl in order to make enough money to feed her pet crocodile. Love, capitalism, desire — in this crazy, messed-up world, who can tell which is which? This is laugh-out-loud stuff, and as those final gut punches meet their mark, nothing sacred is left unscathed.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Nagata Kabi
[isbn]
My Solo Exchange Diary is Nagata Kabi's perfect sequel to her debut, the mega-cute yet deeply sad My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness. She chronicles the process of releasing a huge hit while still dealing with intense anxiety and stagnancy, while also hiding the fact of her book's release (and its taboo contents) from her disapproving and disappointed parents, with whom she still lives. As she sees how her narrative has... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Chelsea Hodson
[isbn]
These essays flirt among the intersections and commingling of commodification, connection, agency, and love, never shying from the difficulties of contradiction. Chelsea Hodson's writing at times feels coldly sexy, like looking at something beautiful through glass. Don't fall for this trap: these words draw blood.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Mariko Tamaki
[isbn]
Skim is both beautiful and morose, a tale about a girl nicknamed after the thing she's not. It pulls no punches while exploring the loneliness of navigating coming into a queer identity alone, of being outcast, of the attempt to construct meaning out of a world that seems continuously cruel. If any of this recalls things for you, this dark and complex little story about being Goth and uncool and floundering is for you.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Larissa Lai
[isbn]
Salt Fish Girl is a phenomenal creation story resembling The Little Mermaid, wherein our fishlike goddess falls in love with one of her creations and sacrifices everything to become human. Divided between two threads of story set in 1800s China and a futuristic Pacific Northwest, Salt Fish Girl tells the tale of two women fighting to make a life with each other against all odds.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Antoine Revoy
[isbn]
Through a beautiful art style that draws from both French comics and Japanese manga, Animus tells an eerie little modern folktale about a haunted playground. The machinations of the playground equipment do strange things to the natural laws we take for granted, and the mysterious boy with the fox mask seems like he's hiding something. When the end comes, you may feel a confused and at least a little awed. Like the best folktales,... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Michelle Tea
[isbn]
Each one of Michelle Tea's essays are sharp, in many cases eviscerating the thick fog society has used to obscure and diminish some of America's most vital and complex queer and feminist history. She is not interested in stale orthodoxy, and excavates gender and sacred idols with a passionate (yet steady) hand. Bouncing through Tea's life on the page makes you feel as if you're gathered around her armchair, listening as she recounts with vigor... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Junji Ito
[isbn]
From horror manga master Junji Ito comes a set of gruesome tales following a polite devil-worshiping young man and his demonic little sister. Some of the images that you're forced to confront as you turn the pages will haunt you longer than any Hollywood jump scare. Consider yourself warned: Dissolving Classroom will blow your mind and lick it up afterward.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Vladimir Nabokov
[isbn]
When Nabokov first went to publish this stunning collection of words, he wanted to call it Speak, Mnemosyne in homage to the Greek goddess of memory. Although his publisher convinced him to change it to something simpler, the mark of this divine call still lingers.Speak, Memory is a dizzying descent into Nabokov's mind, spinning through the opulent senses spilling from his childhood memories to the political upheaval that would... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Michelle Perez and Remy Boydell
[isbn]
The Pervert is a monster, at various times choking me with my own tears and at others shaking me with my own laughter. Gorgeous watercolors depict and animate the life of a trans woman working as a sex worker in Seattle with a complexity that never shies from the beauty of its subjects. Depicted through cute anthropomorphized animals, the characters of The Pervert lull you into a strange middle place between childhood innocence... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Makoto Shinkai, Tsubasa Yamaguchi
[isbn]
She and Her Cat is a beautiful little love story between, as the title suggests, a young woman and her adorable cat. Told largely from her cat's point of view, we watch the passing of time rendered in stunning illustrations as the cat's adored human struggles through the trials and tribulations of young adulthood. At once both tranquil and empowering, this manga is a salve for hard times.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Pamela Ribon and Cat Farris
[isbn]
If you're the type of person who likes to date dude-identifying people and sometimes wonders if it would be easier to date a bear, this book is a gift custom-made for you. Even if you don't fit this description, My Boyfriend Is a Bear is equal parts hilarious and touching and will endear any reader regardless of romantic preference.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Kaori Ozaki
[isbn]
An almost unbearably gorgeous tale about the stories parents tell their children and what happens when their cracks start to show as they begin to crumble. Meditating on the nature of family, connection, and love, The Gods Lie lifts up the weightiest feelings and makes them soar.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Karen Thompson Walker
[isbn]
This story takes place within a world identical to ours, except for the eerie fact that the days and nights start to grow longer and longer as time passes. What happens when you can no longer be sure that the sun will rise at the same time each morning? More about the small moments than the big ones, The Age of Miracles is a gentle apocalypse that gives you the time you need to think and breathe.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Han Yujoo, Janet Hong
[isbn]
A devious little experiment, The Impossible Fairy Tale is a story that lets the fourth wall shatter so the author Han Yujoo can converse with her characters and contemplate the suffering she has helped inflict through the cruelty of her narrative. Her meditation delves deep into abuse, beauty, and language in ways that produce strange and meaningful echoes long after the narrative itself has faded.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Yuhta Nishio
[isbn]
The first volume of After Hours is the beginning of an endlessly endearing story about a woman in her early 20s, who, feeling a little adrift and dissatisfied with her life, has the borders around her torn down after a fling with a beautiful DJ. It's about finding new narratives for yourself, embracing self-discovery in unexpected places, and rad dance parties put together by two women in love. I’m excited to see where Emi and Kei take... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Jen Wang
[isbn]
This book is a little miracle about how stifling being forced into an identity can be and how liberating it is to finally break out and find yourself. Beautiful illustrations in soft pastels make this story about acceptance and gorgeous dresses a delightful pool to soak in.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Reina Gossett, Eric A Stanley, Johanna Burton
[isbn]
Trap Door is a gorgeous collection of essays and other art that explores the uncomfortable contradictions within the media's obsession with the "Transgender Tipping Point" and the mixed results it brings for the actual lived experiences of trans people. What does visibility actually mean? What are the consequences of "acceptance" within oppressive dominant norms? How does one live authentically within a system that was built for your... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Aldous Huxley
[isbn]
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is prophetic sci-fi at its best, an early 20th century novel crying out to us as we stare transfixed at our little glowing screens and watch the excesses of late capitalism unfold. As Huxley once wrote to George Orwell after the success of his dystopic classic, 1984: our "lust for power can be completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples
[isbn]
Saga is the type of grand-scope epic Hollywood wishes it had the guts to make. It's characters are as nuanced and diverse as even the pickiest reader could ask for, with plots tackling every kind of real-world issue within the stunningly imaginative vastness of its universe. Despite all this immensity, it remains grounded around the timeless story of a young girl's life as she grows up protected by inter-species parents, fighting to... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Tillie Walden
[isbn]
More a short and beautiful dream than it is a book, I Love This Part is about two girls who find first love in each other. Presented in stunning moments both surreal and bittersweet, author Tillie Walden serves up pure melancholic joy.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Hiromi Kawakami and Allison Markin Powell
[isbn]
Strange Weather in Tokyo is all about atmosphere, evoking a bountiful sense of place with every sentence. Author Hiromi Kawakami makes you taste each mouthwatering food she puts before you in small bites, and the seasons change outside as you read. In some ways, it's a simple story about friendship, loneliness, and love. In others, it's a dreamscape that reveals surprising and delightful things in the way that only the best dreams can.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Nagata Kabi
[isbn]
Both laugh-out-loud funny and heart-wrenchingly sad, My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness is a beautiful queer narrative that shouldn't be overlooked. Adorably illustrating her personal struggles with body dysphoria and sexual identity in deeply poignant ways, author Kabi Nagata explores what it is to want to connect, to want to be held, to want to belong. If you've ever needed a friend, this book is for you.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Kristen Sollee
[isbn]
How has the word "witch" historically transformed and intersected with more modern terms like "slut" and "feminist"? Kristin Sollee brilliantly dissects the histories of these terms as they relate to women's oppression and liberation, demonstrating how within them lies a powerful legacy on which to build a call for a woman's right to her own body; spiritual alternatives to patriarchy; queer identity; and sex positivity. If you need to illuminate... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Matt Fraction, Chip Zdarsky
[isbn]
Sex Criminals is hard to explain, but the gist is that two people who stop time when they orgasm find that they have the same power and fall in love. Their attempts to save a beloved library from being foreclosed on involves both bank robberies and sex cops, and despite the high-octane absurdity, these story lines manage to delve into serious issues like mental illness and slut-shaming in empathetic and powerful ways. If you want... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Delilah S. Dawson, Ashley A. Woods, Rebecca Farrow
[isbn]
When almost all of the men in a kingdom are eaten by a dragon, what happens to the women? Besieged by a curse of constant monster attacks due to the men's previous lack of empathy, the women take things into their own hands. Throwing the roles they had been forced into through a blender, the blacksmith's wife becomes the new king and the princess, who has spent her life trapped in a tower, becomes her knight, quickly discovering there are better... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Kurtis J Wiebe and Roc Upchurch
[isbn]
The titular Rat Queens don't play by the rules, and this single defining similarity forges the friendships between this rad group of women. While delivering diverse and fully developed characters of every kind, their stories manage to bring to life the most fun and wacky impulses of Dungeons and Dragons adventuring. The Rat Queens are a blast no matter what they're doing — whether that's killing monsters, starting brawls, antagonizing authority,... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Michael Dante DiMartino and Irene Koh
[isbn]
The beloved animated TV show Avatar: Legend of Korra ended with the long-brewing couple Korra and Asami walking hand in hand into a spirit portal, a landmark moment for queer representation in mainstream children's animation. Gifting us with a delightful queer history of the Avatar world that we already know, Turf Wars is allowed to explore the interesting complexities of navigating queer relationships in an imperfect... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Mary Ruefle
[isbn]
Mary Ruefle's lectures are rich in their simplicity, and every one of the countless stunning images she delivers deepen and expand as time passes. When I first stumbled upon her beautiful little collection years ago, poetry was transfigured from the esoteric and inaccessible art that high school ruined to a field bursting with wonder and boundless possibility. Even if you feel like poetry isn't for you, this book is.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Ottessa Moshfegh
[isbn]
Eileen is about what it means to
look back on our foundational moments, about how memories are deceivingly
amorphous, about the complexity of female friendship and desire, and about how
poverty and violence seep out to stain everything in their proximity. Eileen is
a character you may not like, but she's someone whose story will make you
think and feel deeply, succeeding in the way that only the greatest stories
do.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Sarah Sentilles
[isbn]
The words you'll find here overflow with empathy and grace. Reading as both a theory-laden call to action and a deeply felt spiritual screed, Sentilles will lead you on a journey through the horrors of violence and direct you toward the possibility of peace. No book has ever convinced me more of our imperative to create, to throw healing words into this whirlpool of humanity while amplifying the voices of those who need it most.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Gail Simone
[isbn]
Clean Room takes some of the best traditional horror fodder (cults and their brainwashing, aliens and their abductions, demons and their possessions) and puts them into a blender to create something totally original. If you're looking for some extremely alarming and entertaining horror that doesn't take itself too seriously, you've found it.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Fabien Vehlmann
[isbn]
Beautiful Darkness is the fairy-tale twist you never knew you needed. Our hero, the gentle and kind Princess Aurora, ventures out into the big world with her little subjects, learning lessons about things like ruling, sharing, and the nature of the human condition. Replete with both adorable watercolor illustrations and some of the most macabre scenes you may ever come across, this story will make you feel emotions from joy to creeping... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Italo Calvino
[isbn]
Invisible Cities is the most generous book I've ever read,
feeding me something vital each time I pick it up, as each new context imbues it with
fresh meaning. Straddling the blurry lines between reality and fiction, Italo Calvino gives us a phenomenology of cities, and by extension, a deep examination of everything human. The little myths that compose Invisible Cities offer meditations on all of the things that matter most:... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Katie O'Neill
[isbn]
Are you desperate for a powerful antidote to a lifetime of Disney princesses? Look no further. This little story is the adorable queer fairy tale we all needed as kids, and I envy anyone who has the privilege to grow up with it as a part of their own treasured childhood narratives.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Maggie Nelson
[isbn]
The Argonauts impacted me deeply, and continues to with each revisit. While it should be required reading for everyone, it's absolutely invaluable to anybody navigating or coming into any kind of queer identity. Maggie Nelson effortlessly combines poetics, prose, and theory to create something both breathtaking and wholly original. The title invokes the myth of Jason and the Argonauts, the great ship that is rebuilt piece by piece on its... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Han Kang
[isbn]
Human Acts centers around a young boy who meets a tragic end during the bloody events of the 1980 Gwangju massacre, after staying behind to assist in the grueling task of cataloging the ever-growing dead. This narrative threads connect and expand: a factory worker who's had enough, a homeless alcoholic traumatized by the past, a mother morning the loss of her child, a young ghost trying to come to terms with his violent death, and even... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda
[isbn]
Monstress, Volume 2 continues a yarn woven from mythic threads picked from both the East and West, giving way to something that somehow feels both fresh and ancient. It’s a miraculous gut punch, seamlessly synthesizing horror and beauty in illustrations that brim with both breathtaking violence and the most tender humanity. The huge cast of women populating the matriarchy of the Monstress series are the kind who shatter their archetypes... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Katie O'Neill
[isbn]
The Tea Dragon Society is a little ray of sunshine poured onto paper. It's about those small moments that tie friendships and traditions together, and teaches the reader that some of the best things take time. The characters and their corresponding tea dragons are adorable, fully fleshed out, and diverse, providing much needed portrayals of both queer identity and disability. Even if books written for a younger audience aren't your cup... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Carmen Maria Machado
[isbn]
Her Body and Other Parties is a collection of stories that boast sentient dresses, spirits of surgically removed fat, women with precariously attached limbs, and the metaphysical refashioning of the television serialization of sexual violence. It's a book that brings striking form to female pain and queer desire, and each story is a feast woven together with sentences that are good enough to eat.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Han Kang and Deborah Smith
[isbn]
At its surface, The Vegetarian is about a Korean housewife who has a prophetic dream and decides to become a vegetarian, a simple subversion that brings chaos to her relationships with her family and husband. As you go deeper, you find yourself in a fable about a woman who thinks she's turning into a tree, an absurdity that brings about a slow creeping horror that calls into question the stability of even the most solid social... (read more)
Recommended by Cosima C.
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Junji Ito
[isbn]
Uzumaki is the pinnacle of horror master Junji Ito's work. It's a story about a town slowly consumed by an obsession with spirals, and although it may sound silly, Ito uses this simple premise to create some of the most horrifying images ever made. It will convince you that the scariest medium for horror isn't being held captive while watching moving sounds and images — it's building up the courage to turn the page.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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