Pride Month LGBTQ+ Books and Resources

June bursts with colour and celebration as communities around the world come together to observe Pride Month, commemorating the ongoing journey toward LGBTQ+ equality. Here in the UK, we celebrate Pride by reflecting on the powerful history of the movement, from the 1969 Stonewall Riots to the first UK Gay Pride Rally in 1972.

Pride events serve as powerful reminders of past struggles, platforms for visibility, representation and for fostering an inclusive society. Happy Pride from all of us at Inspire!

We've put together a range of resources to support you and the people around you - discover LGBTQ+ stories, wellbeing support and family resources at your local library. 

Hand in Hand with Love by Simon Avery - Hand in Hand with Love is an outstanding anthology which celebrates queer poetry from Sappho and the Ancient Greeks to Edna St. Vincent Millay and the modernists. Dr Simon Avery skillfully traces the development of poetry, in all its forms, that gives voice to queer lives, loves and friendships.

Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man is no less full of love, though heartbreakingly it covers the story of George, an English professor, trying to cope after the death of his love, Jim. 

Orlando by Virginia Woolf - Read Orlando and you will be thrilled by its gender-swapping protagonist and a breakneck journey through 400 years of history. It’s no surprise that this wildly imaginative and comic novel was an immediate success and that it’s celebrated today as both a feminist and queer classic.

Call Me by Your Name by Andre Aciman is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blooms between 17-year-old Elio and his father's house guest Oliver during a restless summer on the Italian Riviera. The experience marks them for a lifetime. 

Carol by Patricia Highsmith - Originally published as The Price of Salt and adapted into a film in 2015, Patricia Highsmith's 1952 novel tells the story of shop assistant Therese's relationship with Carol, who is in her thirties and going through a difficult divorce. Set against a backdrop of '50s New York, its a moving, atmospheric love story.

Penguin Classic Zami: a new spelling of my name by Audre Lorde - An autobiographical novel, Lorde writes of her life as a Black and legally blind child in 1930s Harlem, as she stumbles through teenage pain and loneliness on to happiness in friendship, work and sex, always changing, always strong.

Ignore All Previous Instructions by Ada Hoffmann is a queer sci-fi novel about censorship and human creativity in an AI-dominated world. Set on Jupiter's moon, Callisto, it follows an autistic script editor who must risk her rigidly controlled, corporate life to help her trans ex-boyfriend in the black market.

Beloved Disciples by Mario Elias - In a sun-bleached Caribbean town, Simón is haunted by the ghost of his lover Albi, by the weight of family, and by a faith that no longer comforts. Once bound together by whispered prayers and saltwater kisses, Simón and Albi carved a secret world from the shadows. But when Albi dies unexpectedly, that world begins to unravel.

George Falls Through Time by Ryan Collett - newly laid off George's internet bill is in his ex-boyfriend's name. He's got a spider-infested apartment, and two of the six dogs he's walking in London have just escaped. It's pure undiluted stress that sends him into a spiral, all the way to the year 1300.

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid is a historical novel set in the 1980s that follows astronomy professor Joan Goodwin. When NASA opens its astronaut program to women, Joan applies and enters training. She battles workplace sexism and personal sacrifice, eventually finding forbidden romance with a fellow astronaut, Vanessa Ford.

It’s Never Going to Happen by Sarah G. Levine - Gemma is barely keeping her head above water. Between running a lobster fishing business, staying sober, and keeping an eye on her reckless younger sister, she doesn’t need her best friend Eric meddling with the business behind her back. Especially when that buyer is Forage and Trawl, a fancy new restaurant with an intense and demanding head chef, Kay Grammar. 

You can find more reading recommendations on our online catalogue.