Books

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR (NPR, The Washington Post, Lit Hub, The Telegraph, Goodreads, Tor.com, them, and more)

A FINALIST for the LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD and GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD

“A deeply strange and haunting novel in the best possible way…An impressive and exciting debut novel that may leave you thinking about your own relationships in a new light.” ―NPR

“Shocking…Achingly poetic…Sharp and beautiful as coral polyps…Armfield exercises an exquisite―even sadistic―sense of suspense." ―Ron Charles, The Washington Post

Leah is changed. A marine biologist, she left for a routine expedition months earlier, only this time her submarine sank to the sea floor. When she finally surfaces and returns home, her wife Miri knows that something is wrong. Barely eating and lost in her thoughts, Leah rotates between rooms in their apartment, running the taps morning and night. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded, Leah has carried part of it with her, onto dry land and into their home. As Miri searches for answers, desperate to understand what happened below the water, she must face the possibility that the woman she loves is slipping from her grasp.

By turns elegiac and furious, wry and heartbreaking, Our Wives Under the Sea is an exploration of the unknowable depths within each of us, and the love that compels us nevertheless toward one another.

A nerdy gay teenager jumps headfirst into the bro-y world of high school baseball in this semi-autobiographical LGBTQ+ graphic novel by Eisner-nominated author Jonah Newman!

2025 Eisner Award Nominee, Best Publication for Teens 
2025 CBC Teacher Favorites Winner
2025 CBC Librarian Favorites Winner

Ninth-grader Jonah is not a jock. On the contrary, he loves history class and nerdy movies, and his athletic ineptitude verges on tragic. So, what’s he doing signing up for the baseball team? Could it have something to do with the cute shortstop, Elliot?

For the rest of high school, Jonah faces challenges on and off the baseball field, from heteronormative social pressure to thrilling romance. Realizing who his real friends are, he figures out what really matters and finally recognizes and embraces his gay identity.

Based on debut author-illustrator Jonah Newman’s coming-of-age experiences, Out of Left Field is a big-hearted and funny YA graphic novel about learning to be yourself.

“Brilliantly written and illustrated high school story that deftly showcases the triumphs and regrets of friendship and finding oneself. A remarkable debut!” —Dav Pilkey, #1 bestselling graphic novelist

“First base, first boyfriends, and believing in yourself—Out of Left Field is a charming tour of the mistakes and triumphs of coming out in high school.” —Ngozi Ukazu, award-winning creator of Check, Please!

It isn’t always lonely at the top.

Noah Blue’s finally got her foot in the door. After clawing her way to the top of the charts with her webcomic, she’s garnered enough attention to earn a full-time position at a comic company re-launching their cult classic comic: Queen Leisah.

Queen Leisah is predicted to be an instant bestseller with movie deals already in the making. Things are falling into place. There’s nowhere to go but up…as soon as she gets one person out of her way.

Sage Montgomery has always been the best artist in every building she’s stepped foot in. Raw talent’s gotten her webcomic to the top of the charts every month for the past eight years. She’s been the best for as long as she can remember. Sure, her career has plateaued but that can be fixed with a big, mainstream comic.

She was promised full creative control over Leisah. Instead, she got a shared credit with the one artist who’s been breathing down her neck since college. The one artist who has a fighting chance of being better than her. Sage and Noah have to work as a team — or, at least appear to work as a team. They thought the hardest part of the relaunch would be drawing together. But that’s easy in comparison to resisting their feelings for each other.

By: D'Lane R. Compton (Editor), Amy L. Stone (Editor), 2024, Paperback

Celebrates diverse queer experiences on society’s margins

Outskirts addresses the diverse and intricate aspects of the queer experience on the periphery of the social world. From the Korean spa to the Carnival krewe to new sexual identities, this volume asks important questions about the atypical places, spaces, and identities that are an important part of LGBTQ life in the United States. By bringing together scholars specializing in the less visible facets of queer culture, the book offers valuable insights that contribute to a deeper understanding of queer perspectives and their impact on the discipline of sociology. The volume challenges researchers to focus on diversity and complexity of the queer experience in the fringe to inform larger sociological questions and contribute to the field of sociology. Most simply put: what is it that we learn from studying at the margins?

The essays in Outskirts focus on the influence of place, both physical and virtual, within institutional settings and in situations of placelessness. This attention to non-normative spaces and identities enriches the collective knowledge of LGBTQ experiences and offers a compelling narrative that pushes the boundaries of sociological inquiry and highlights the importance of queer voices on the fringes of society.

By: Greg Paprocki (Illustrator), 2024, Board Book

Read with your toddler from A to Z about the LGBTQ+ community in the board book P is for Pride while supporting diverse families with kindness and love.

Greg Paprocki’s P is for Pride introduces toddlers to the alphabet by pairing each letter with a word associated with the LGBTQ+ community and supporters in an age-appropriate way. Learn how to be inclusive with words like Courage, Equality, Gay, Nonbinary, Rainbow flag, and Hug, Kindness, and Love in scenes showcased with Paprocki’s classically retro mid-century art style that’s proven to be a hit with both toddlers and adults.

Pain Before the Rainbow: a biomythographical anthology by Jack Cooperis a collection of stories anchored by Anthony's Sin. The anthology includes poetry, essays, and eloquent explorations of life and love.

Cooper describes his work as Biomythography, which means weaving together myth, history, and biography in epic narrative form, a style of composition that represents all the ways in which we perceive the truth.

He says that Biomythography is not our truth told simply and in a mundane way, but a writing down of our meanings of identity, with the materials of our lives. He asserts that we are the culmination of it all; experiences are painted with imagery, perception, and mostly emotions. Details that become true in the telling.

This gripping book chronicles the life of a man who was acutely aware of being gay as a boy in an unaccepting world-a time before the rainbow. Cooper presents an eloquent narrative through a series of stories that engage the reader's mind and heart in this skillfully composed exploration of identity and compelling perspective through the lens of a man who lives and loves outside the lines of the oppressive heterosexual boxes that society and religion drew and that condition boys to think and act according to a preset definition of masculinity.

Cooper brilliantly navigates the shame and secrecy, tragedy, and trauma, as well as strength and courage, that grow out of living one's truth in a disapproving and often hurtful world.

The occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has been one of the world’s most widely reported yet least understood human rights crises for over four decades. In this oral history collection, men and women from Palestine―including a fisherman, a settlement administrator, and a marathon runner―describe in their own words how their lives have been shaped by the historic crisis. Other narrators include:

ABEER, a young journalist from Gaza City who launched her career by covering bombing raids on the Gaza Strip.

IBTISAM, the director of a multi-faith children’s center in the West Bank whose dream of starting a similar center in Gaza has so far been hindered by border closures.

GHASSAN, an Arab-Christian physics professor and activist from Bethlehem who co-founded the International Solidarity Movement. For more than six decades, Israel and Palestine have been the global focal point of intractable conflict, one that has led to one of the world’s most widely reported yet least understood human rights crises. In their own words, men and women from West Bank and Gaza describe how their lives have been shaped by the conflict. Here are stories that humanize the oft-ignored violations of human rights that occur daily in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Download the corresponding lesson plans on the Voice of Witness website.

A sharp analysis of the struggle for Palestine gets an update following the events of October 7, 2023.

Palestine, Israel, and U.S. Empire is an essential book for the current moment. Taking a firm anti-Zionist perspective on the history of Palestine and Israel, it traces the movements of resistance from British colonialism to the fight back in Gaza and the West Bank today.

From the division of the Middle East by Western powers and the Zionist settler movement, to the founding of Israel and its role as a watchdog for US interests, to present day conflicts and the prospects for a just resolution-this narrative is firmly rooted in the politics of Palestinian liberation. Here is a necessary contribution to the heroic efforts of the Palestinian people to achieve justice in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. This book contains a complete index and a timeline of developments in the history of Palestine.

“A riotous novel about a farewell party that celebrates all of life’s emotions—big and small—while marking the arrival of an exciting new voice in fiction.” —Steven Rowley, New York Times bestselling author of The Celebrants

For readers of Less and The Wedding People—a rollicking, big-hearted story of long-lost love, friendship, and a life well-lived, set at a Florida retirement resort for queer women, on the last day of resident Hannah Cardin’s life.

It’s 2067 and Florida is partially underwater, but even that can’t bring down the residents of Palm Meridian Retirement Resort, a utopian home for queer women who want to revel in their twilight years. Inside, Hula-Hoopers shimmy across the grass, fiercely competitive book clubs nearly come to blows, and the roller-ski team races up and down the winding paths. Everywhere you look, these women are living large.

Hannah Cardin has spent ten happy years under these tropical, technicolor skies, but after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis, she has decided that tomorrow morning she will close her eyes for the very last time. Tonight, however, Hannah and her raucous band of friends are throwing one hell of an end-of-life party. And with less than twenty-four hours left, Hannah is holding out for one final, impossible thing…

Amongst the guest list is Sophie, the love of Hannah’s life. They haven’t spoken since their devastating breakup over forty years ago, but today, Hannah is hoping for the chance to give her greatest love one last try.

As Hannah anxiously awaits Sophie’s arrival, her mind casts back over the highs and lows of her kaleidoscopic life. But when a shocking secret from the past is revealed, Hannah must reconsider if she can say goodbye after all.

Spanning the course of a single day and seventy-odd years, and bursting with irresistible hope, humor, and wisdom, this one-of-a-kind novel celebrates the unexpected moments that make us feel the most alive.

"Pantomime is a fantastical, richly drawn, poignant take on a classic coming-of-age story . . . a vibrant tale told with surety and grace" — Leigh Bardugo

From the USA Today-bestselling author of Dragonfall comes a fantasy trilogy about a circus aerialist's quest to escape his past and decipher the magical prophecy that will shape his future

In a land of lost wonders, the past is stirring once more . . .

Micah runs away from a debutante’s life at home and joins the circus, harboring two secrets–one: he was born between male and female, and two: he may have powers last seen in mysterious beings from an almost-forgotten age.

Micah discovers the joy of flight as an aerialist, courting his trapeze partner, Aenea, and confiding in the mysterious white clown, Drystan. He finally feels free. But the circus has a dark side, and Micah’s past isn’t done with him.

Meanwhile, the strange 'ghost' of a woman with damselfly wings whispers to Micah that only he can help magic return to the realm, and he fears she may be right…

Micah has much to learn, and he must do it quickly—before his past and future collide, with catastrophic consequences.

Pantomime is a gorgeous and inventive fantasy with queer elements, inspired by Victorian Scotland. L.R. Lam weaves a coming-of-age tale, stirrings of first love, and prophetic whispers into this unforgettable first installment of the Micah Grey series.

A charming picture book about unconditional love from New York Times bestselling author Chasten Buttigieg, perfect for families who love each other the whole year through.

Jojo and Rosie's papa has been away on a trip, and they can't wait to welcome him home! They make signs, they pick flowers, and with Daddy's help, they bake a cake and pack the car with absolutely everything Papa might have missed while he was away.

When Papa's plane arrives, they give him a huge hug—but when they bring him to the car, they realize there's one small problem: Where will Papa sit?

Delightfully illustrated by Dan Taylor, this charming story filled with love celebrates dads and familial bonds. Chasten Buttigieg shines a beautiful light on the humorous musings of toddlers and a parent’s unconditional love for their child.

This acclaimed post-apocalyptic novel of hope and terror from an award-winning author "pairs well with 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale" and includes a foreword by N. K. Jemisin (John Green, New York Times).

When global climate change and economic crises lead to social chaos in the early 2020s, California becomes full of dangers, from pervasive water shortage to masses of vagabonds who will do anything to live to see another day. Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from the surrounding anarchy. In a society where any vulnerability is a risk, she suffers from hyperempathy, a debilitating sensitivity to others' emotions.

Precocious and clear-eyed, Lauren must make her voice heard in order to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community stubbornly ignores. But what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: the birth of a new faith . . . and a startling vision of human destiny.

The acclaimed graphic novel adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s groundbreaking dystopian novel, Parable of the Sower, is a don't-miss classic that resonates today more than ever. As The Washington Post noted: "A 1993 dystopian novel imagined the world in 2024. It’s eerily accurate."

This Hugo Award Winner for Best Graphic Story or Comic is the follow-up to Kindred, a #1 New York Times bestseller.

In this graphic-novel adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower by Damian Duffy and John Jennings, the award-winning team behind Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, the author portrays a searing vision of America’s future.

In the year 2024, the country is marred by unattended environmental and economic crises that lead to social chaos. Lauren Olamina, a preacher’s daughter living in Los Angeles, is protected from danger by the walls of her gated community.

In a night of fire and death, what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: a startling vision of human destiny . . . and the birth of a new faith.

“Alarmingly prescient and relevant. This accessible adaptation is poised to introduce Butler’s dystopian tale to a new generation of readers.” —Publishers Weekly

“The graphic novel is faithful to Butler, yet still fresh in its world building.” —USA Today

Includes an introduction by SFWA Grand Master Nalo Hopkinson

Originally published in 1998, this shockingly prescient novel's timely message of hope and resistance in the face of fanaticism is more relevant than ever.

In 2032, Lauren Olamina has survived the destruction of her home and family, and realized her vision of a peaceful community in northern California based on her newly founded faith, Earthseed. The fledgling community provides refuge for outcasts facing persecution after the election of an ultra-conservative president who vows to "make America great again." In an increasingly divided and dangerous nation, Lauren's subversive colony--a minority religious faction led by a young black woman--becomes a target for President Jarret's reign of terror and oppression.

Years later, Asha Vere reads the journals of a mother she never knew, Lauren Olamina. As she searches for answers about her own past, she also struggles to reconcile with the legacy of a mother caught between her duty to her chosen family and her calling to lead humankind into a better future.