New in May: Vivek Shraya, Ali Smith, John Waters, and John Glynn

Author: Edit Team

May 9, 2019

May is here, and we’re back with more new LGBTQ books for your reading list!

This month, we’re looking forward to John Waters‘ memoir, Mr. Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). “No one,” the publisher notes, “knows more about everything—especially everything rude, clever, and offensively compelling—than John Waters,” whether it’s

how to fail upward in Hollywood; how to develop musical taste from Nervous Norvus to Maria Callas; how to build a home so ugly and trendy that no one but you would dare live in it; more important, how to tell someone you love them without emotional risk; and yes, how to cheat death itself.

Another memoir out this month–perfect for those warm almost-summer days–is John Glynn’s debut, Out East: Memoir of a Montauk Summer (Grand Central Publishing), a “gripping portrait of life in a Montauk summer house, […] of first love, identity and self-discovery among a group of friends who became family.”

May also brings Vivek Shraya and Ness Lee’s graphic novel Death Threat (Arsenal Pulp Press):

In the fall of 2017, the acclaimed writer and musician Vivek Shraya began receiving vivid and disturbing transphobic hate mail from a stranger. Celebrated artist Ness Lee brings these letters and Shraya’s responses to them to startling life in Death Threat, a comic book that, by its existence, becomes a compelling act of resistance.

Also out this month is Lindsey Drager’s new novel, The Archive of Alternate Endings (Dzanc Books), which “track[s] the evolution of Hansel and Gretel at seventy-five-year intervals that correspond with earth’s visits by Halley’s Comet” […] “through a relay of speculative pieces that oscillate between eco-fiction and psychological horror.”

Award-winning author Ali Smith‘s new novel Spring (Pantheon) is a lyrical exploration of our currently fraught political moment and our riotous collective past.

What unites Katherine Mansfield, Charlie Chaplin, Shakespeare, Rilke, Beethoven, Brexit, the present, the past, the north, the south, the east, the west, a man mourning lost times, a woman trapped in modern times?

Spring. The great connective.

With an eye to the migrancy of story over time and riffing on Pericles, one of Shakespeare’s most resistant and rollicking works, Ali Smith tell the impossible tale of an impossible time. In a time of walls and lockdown, Smith opens the door.

The time we’re living in is changing nature. Will it change the nature of story?

In Casey McQuiston’s new novel, Red, White & Royal Blue (St. Martin’s Griffin), when Alex Claremont-Diaz’s mother becomes President, he is “promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal”: “handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House.” But then a public relations-friendship with the Prince of Wales begins to go much deeper, turning into “a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations.”

As always, if we missed an author or book, or if you have a book coming out next month, please email us.

Life of David Hockney by Catherine Cusset

Fiction

Cash and the Sorority Girl by Ashley Bartlett, Bold Strokes Books
Correspondents by Tim Murphy, Grove Atlantic
Counting for Thunder by Phillip Irwin Cooper, Bold Strokes Books
The Falls of the Wyona by David Brendan Hopes, Red Hen Press
Life of David Hockney by Catherine Cusset, Other Press
The Nap-Away Motel by Nadja Lubiw-Hazard, Palimpsest Press
Nirvana Is Here by Aaron Hamburger, Three Rooms Press
Profound and Perfect Things by Maribel Garcia, She Writes Press
Spring by Ali Smith, Pantheon
Strangers and Cousins by Leah Hager Cohen, Riverhead
Shut Up You’re Pretty by Téa Mutonji, Arsenal Pulp Press
Two Wings to Fly Away by Penny Mickelbury, Bywater
You Will Be Safe Here by Damian Barr, Bloomsbury Publishing

Nonfiction

The Book of Pride: LGBTQ Heroes Who Changed the World by Mason Funk, HarperOne
CAMP: Notes on Fashion by Andrew Bolton, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Healing/Heeling by Sassafras Lowrey, PoMo Freakshow
PRIDE: Fifty Years of Parades and Protests from the Photo Archives of the New York Times by The New York Times, Abrams Image
Pride: Photographs After Stonewall by Fred W. McDarrah, OR Books
Queer Intentions: A (Personal) Journey Through LGBTQ + Culture by Amelia Abraham, Picador
Queer X Design: 50 Years of Signs, Symbols, Banners, Logos, and Graphic Art of LGBTQ by Andy Campbell, Black Dog & Leventhal
The Queeriodic Table: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Culture by Jake Basford, Summersdale
Transgressive: A Trans Woman on Gender, Feminism, and Politics by Rachel Anne Williams, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
We Are Everywhere: Protest, Power, and Pride in the History of Queer Liberation by Matthew Riemer & Leighton Brown, Ten Speed Press
We Are Not Avatars: Essays, Memoirs, Manifestos by John Barton, Palimpsest Press

LGBT Studies

LGBTQ+ Librarianship in the 21st Century: Emerging Directions of Advocacy and Community Engagement in Diverse Information Environments by Bharat Mehra, Emerald Publishing Ltd.
Life Isn’t Binary: On Being Both, Beyond, and In-Between by Alex Iantaffi & Meg-John Barker, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
The Outside Thing: Modernist Lesbian Romance by Hannah Roche, Columbia University Press
Pier Groups: Art and Sex Along the New York Waterfront by Jonathan Weinberg, Penn State University Press
Queer as Camp: Essays on Summer, Style, and Sexuality edited by Kenneth B. Kidd & Derritt Mason, Fordham University Press
Queer Voices: Poetry, Prose, and Pride, edited by John Medeiros, Andrea Jenkins & Lisa Marie Brimmer, Minnesota Historical Society Press
Reality TV and Queer Identities: Sexuality, Authenticity, Celebrity by Michael Lovelock, Palgrave Macmillan
A Reflective Guide to Gender Identity Counselling by Madison-Amy Webb, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Vulnerable Constitutions: Queerness, Disability, and the Remaking of American Manhood by Cynthia Barounis, Temple University Press
Work!: A Queer History of Modeling by Elspeth H. Brown, Duke University Press

Young Adult and Children’s Literature

All the Worlds Between Us by Morgan Lee Miller, Bold Strokes Books
Birthday by Meredith Russo, Flatiron Books
Brave Face: A Memoir by Shaun David Hutchinson, Simon Pulse
Girl Squad by Kim Hoover, Bella Books
Her Royal Highness by Rachel Hawkins, G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers
How It Feels to Float by Helena Fox, Dial
Hurricane Season by Nicole Melleby, Algonquin Young Readers
I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver, Push
In the Silences by Rachel Gold, Bella Books
It Feels Good to Be Yourself: A Book About Gender Identity by Theresa Thorn & Noah Grigni, Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Jacob’s Room to Choose by Sarah Hoffman, Ian Hoffman & Chris Case, Magination Press
Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens by Tanya Boteju, Simon Pulse
Rainbow: A First Book of Pride by Michael Genhart PhD & Anne Passchier, Magination Press
The Stonewall Riots: Coming Out in the Streets by Gayle E. Pitman, Abrams Books for Young Readers
Tinfoil Crowns by Erin Jones, Flux
Trans Mission: My Quest to a Beard by Alex Bertie, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
We Contain Multitudes by Sarah Henstra, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Zenobia July by Lisa Bunker, Viking Books for Young Readers

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Romance

Alone by E. J. Noyes, Bella Books
Falling by Kris Bryant, Bold Strokes Books
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston, St. Martin’s Griffin
Secrets in a Small Town by Nicole Stiling, Bold Strokes Books
Stormy Seas by Ali Vali, Bold Strokes Books
The Road to Madison by Elle Spencer, Bold Strokes Books

Graphic Novels/Illustrated Books

Death Threat by Vivek Shraya & Ness Lee, Arsenal Pulp Press
Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Comic Book by Leighton Gray & Vernon Shaw, Oni Press
Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe, Lion Forge
Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me by Mariko Tamaki & Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, First Second
The Legend of Korra: Ruins of the Empire Part One by Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko, Michelle Wong & Vivian Ng, Dark Horse Books
Meat & Bone by Kat Verhoeven, Conundrum Press
Waves by Ingrid Chabbert & Carole Maurel, Archaia