Here are 100 books that How Long Has This Been Going On? fans have personally recommended if you like
How Long Has This Been Going On?.
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I love stories so much I majored in English at UVa. Though I showed up in New York with only reading and waitressing skills, Iâve somehow enjoyed the privilege of working in the arts at some of the greatest institutions (Paul Taylor, Cooper Union, ABT). I respond to art, people and especially art-people. Encountering their deep love (and glorious dysfunction) in books enables me to extend the special communion that grows around audiences and artists. This is central to me. It reminds me that beauty is important. It helps me hold on.
This is a big ambitious book with a huge literary and emotional payoff.
Itâs set in Chicago, a town I donât know well during the AIDS epidemic, an experience that has stayed with me. Itâs also set in Paris, a place we all love to read about, in the art world, where I like to linger. I donât always appreciate a multiple timeline structure; here, however, it really enriches the plot, heightens the stakes, and amplifies the theme of love within tragedy.
Every character is well-drawn and makes a lasting impression as you jump into not only a community in crisis, but also a world of visual art, found families, mortality, and memory. Itâs a stunningly sublime story about the experiences and people who forever change us.
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2018 LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER ALA CARNEGIE MEDAL WINNER THE STONEWALL BOOK AWARD WINNER
Soon to Be a Major Television Event, optioned by Amy Poehler
"A page turner . . . An absorbing and emotionally riveting story about what it's like to live during times of crisis." -The New York Times Book Review
A dazzling novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris
In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for anâŠ
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to runâŠ
I'm a queer author based in Montreal. When I came out in the early 1990s, at the age of 21, I remember feeling concerned about my future. Family has always been important to me, but I couldnât imagine what mine would look like as I got older. I knew I wasn't going to have a traditional family like my parents, but I didnât know what else was possible. Thankfully, I found the answer in books⊠As queer people, we must seek out and learn our traditions and history. Weâre not taught them from birth. Finding books that demonstrate and uplift the bonds that queer people share provides a roadmap for those of us seeking community.
There were only three Tales of the City books when I picked up my first copy. There are now nine of them, spanning 40 years.
First written as a newspaper serial, the collected Tales explore the lives and loves of a diverse group of folks living in the same boarding house at 28 Barbary Lane in San Francisco. Among them is landlord Anna Madrigal, an early trans icon, and gay everyman Michael âMouseâ Tolliver, a hopeless romantic looking for love in the Castro.
The book is an easy read with short chapters, lots of dialogue, and zany plot twists. What I love most is how much these characters â some of whom are estranged from their biological families â start to feel like close friends whose lives you get to follow.Â
NAMED AS ONE OF THE BBC'S 100 MOST INSPIRING NOVELS
Now a Netflix series starring Elliot Page and Laura Linney . . .
'It's an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco.' Oscar Wilde
Mary Ann is twenty-five and arrives in San Francisco for an eight-day holiday.
But then her Mood Ring turns blue.
So obviously she decides to stay. It is the 1970s after all.
Fresh out of Cleveland, naive Mary Ann tumbles headlong into a brave new world of pot-growing landladies, cut throat debutantes, spaced-out neighbours and outrageous parties. Finding aâŠ
I'm a queer author based in Montreal. When I came out in the early 1990s, at the age of 21, I remember feeling concerned about my future. Family has always been important to me, but I couldnât imagine what mine would look like as I got older. I knew I wasn't going to have a traditional family like my parents, but I didnât know what else was possible. Thankfully, I found the answer in books⊠As queer people, we must seek out and learn our traditions and history. Weâre not taught them from birth. Finding books that demonstrate and uplift the bonds that queer people share provides a roadmap for those of us seeking community.
Five women find salvation in each other in a beachside hamlet on Uruguayâs eastern coast. With no running water or electricity, the isolated Cabo Polonio becomes their sanctuary, a place where these cantoras (women who "singâ) can exercise their voice â something denied them as queer women under the Uruguayan dictatorship of 1970s and 80s.
The book follows the friends over the span of 35 years as they continue to return to this family home of theirs, sometimes together, sometimes with new lovers. Beautifully written, the book is brimming with heart and is a testament to the power of activism and solidarity.Â
"Cantoras is a stunning lullaby to revolutionâand each woman in this novel sings it with a deep ferocity. Again and again, I was lifted, then gently set down againâeither through tears, rage, or laughter. Days later, I am still inside this song of a story." âJacqueline Woodson, National Book Awardâwinning author
From the highly acclaimed, award-winning author of The Gods of Tango, a revolutionary new novel about five wildly different women who, in the midst of the Uruguayan dictatorship, find one another as lovers, friends, and ultimately, family.
In 1977 Uruguay, a military government crushed political dissent with ruthless force.âŠ
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother hadâŠ
I'm a queer author based in Montreal. When I came out in the early 1990s, at the age of 21, I remember feeling concerned about my future. Family has always been important to me, but I couldnât imagine what mine would look like as I got older. I knew I wasn't going to have a traditional family like my parents, but I didnât know what else was possible. Thankfully, I found the answer in books⊠As queer people, we must seek out and learn our traditions and history. Weâre not taught them from birth. Finding books that demonstrate and uplift the bonds that queer people share provides a roadmap for those of us seeking community.
I always have time for what Kai Cheng Thom has to say. A work of non-fiction, this collection of enlightened essays and prose poems should be required reading for those of us interested in queer liberation.
From her earliest pages, itâs clear that Thom is not afraid to have difficult conversations or ask the tough questions, but she unpacks so many of todayâs important issues with empathy, honesty, insight, and wit. Ultimately, sheâs asking us to look inward and examine how we treat each other as members of the queer community.
What kind of future do we want for ourselves? For those we consider our family? This work remains hopeful and solutions-oriented without being saccharine or unrealistic.
Winner, Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender Variant Literature; American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book
What can we hope for at the end of the world? What can we trust in when community has broken our hearts? What would it mean to pursue justice without violence? How can we love in the absence of faith?
In a heartbreaking yet hopeful collection of personal essays and prose poems, blending the confessional, political, and literary, Kai Cheng Thom dives deep into the questions that haunt social movements today. With the authorâs characteristic eloquence and honesty, I Hope We Choose Love proposesâŠ
I am a former book editor turned writer and a lover of literature in all forms. Young adult literature will forever be my favorite. Though Iâm no longer âyoung,â I have two teenagers who love YA as much as I do and we bond over these stories. Since one prefers contemporary & urban fantasy, and the other likes dystopian & epic fantasy, I read a lot of everything! I particularly enjoy books with characters who triumph over extreme adversity, and if you do too, then you'll like the books on this list.
This review perfectly summed
up this book but neglected to mention it has a spectacular cover, which Iâll
admit was the first thing that drew my eye. The story also features a bi-racial
main character, and since my children are multi-racial, I love seeing this
representation. Because Iâm an unapologetic book nerd, I adored the many
literary references. And I always love a good road trip! All in all, this is
one character-driven YA novel you wonât want to miss.
âThis debut has it all: music, books, aliens, adventure, resistance, queerness, and a bold heroine tying it all together. ââMs. Magazine
Can a girl who risks her life for books and an Ilori who loves pop music work together to save humanity?
When a rebel librarian meets an Ilori commanderâŠ
Two years ago, a misunderstanding between the leaders of Earth and the invading Ilori resulted in the death of one-third of the worldâs population. Today, seventeen-year-old Ellie Baker survives in an Ilori-controlled center in New York City. All art, books and creative expression are illegal, but Ellie breaks the rulesâŠ
I have been writing about LGBTQ+ culture for magazines and newspapers for almost a decade, and am a voracious consumer of queer stories. Queer literature makes our various needs and desires as a community come alive on the page, and helps us to connect with and understand one another. Reading LGBTQ+ books is a way to learn about contemporary queer life, and work out what more we can be doing to help those more marginalised than us.Â
The follow-up to his acclaimed book What Belongs to You, Cleanness is a relatively short but gorgeously executed novel about an American teacher living in Sofia, Bulgaria. It gives snapshots of his relationship, as well as dating app hooks ups â for better or worse. Greenwell is one of the greatest writers of our time, and he turns each sentence beautifully.Â
Longlisted for the Prix Sade 2021 Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize Longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize
A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 A New York Times Critics Top Ten Book of the Year Named a Best Book of the Year by over 30 Publications, including The New Yorker, TIME, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, and the BBC
In the highly anticipated follow-up to his beloved debut, What Belongs to You, Garth Greenwell deepens his exploration of foreignness, obligation, and desire
Sofia, Bulgaria, a landlocked city in southern Europe, stirs with hope and impending upheaval.âŠ
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man sheâŠ
I am a queer transgender woman living in the Appalachian South. When I moved here in 2015 I threw myself into doing community-based LGBTQ history. I co-founded the Southwest Virginia LGBTQ+ History Project, an ongoing queer public history initiative based in Roanoke, Virginia. As a historian and an avid reader, I am fascinated by how queer and trans people think about the past, how we remember and misremember things, and what role historical consciousness plays in informing the present and future.Â
Somewhere in their fourteen-page digression on the 18th-century non-binary American prophet Universal Publick Friend did I realizeâonce againâthat I was nearly done with T Fleischmannâs enchanting book-length essay on transness, time, and art. I have read it three times! As a trans person, I love this book for its meditations on the transitioning body and its sexy tales of intimate encounters. It also offers a critical engagement with the artist Felix Gonzalez-Torresâs work, as well as a memoir of discovery that, like Fleischmann themself, bounces from New York City to rural Tennessee and back again, charting a geography of queer friendship and memory.Â
How do the bodies we inhabit affect our relationship with art? How does art affect our relationship to our bodies? T Fleischmann uses Felix Gonzales-Torres's artworks-piles of candy, stacks of paper, puzzles-as a path through questions of love and loss, violence and rejuvenation, gender and sexuality. From the back porches of Buffalo, to the galleries of New York and L.A., to farmhouses of rural Tennessee, the artworks act as still points, sites for reflection situated in lived experience. Fleischmann combines serious engagement with warmth and clarity of prose, reveling in the experiences and pleasures of art and the body, identityâŠ
I am a contemporary romance writer, mom, queer, dog-lover, and coffee enthusiast. I have a deep love of the genre, particularly sparkly and swoony, sapphic romcoms, with a borderline obsession with happily-ever-afters. Knowing I will always have a happy ending while smiling through pages gives me the comforting hug I sometimes need. My goal is to spread queer joy in my writing and provide a safe, celebratory, and affirming space for my readers to escape reality.
Iâve heard people say this book is âmagical,â and that description is spot on.
I cannot get over how cute this book was! A sprinkle of magic, found family, finding yourself, and amazing descriptions of the city. This book gave me so many sparkly feels. I begged for the two characters to get together and rooted for the MC from page one. The plot was phenomenally creative, genuinely like nothing I had ever read within contemporary romance.
I finished this book faster than any other book of the year.Â
For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don't exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can't imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there's certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.
But then, there's this gorgeous girl on the train.
Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edgesâŠ
Iâm a queer, nonbinary, Muslim, immigrant writer who has been reading their whole life and writing for part of it. I learned to write by readingâby devouring all kinds of books across different genres and paying attention to how words create feelings, worlds, and chronologies. I also learned to live by readingâI didnât grow up with models of how to live a life that was true to my identities and so I read everything I could find about experiences that were adjacent to my own. The emergence of queer Muslim literature has been exciting to follow, and I try to read everything in the field.
I love the way Bushra Rehman writes about immigrant New York in the 80s â in vignettes that thread together to convey a sense of time, place, and geography.
All her characters are portrayed sensitively and complexly: from the main protagonist Razia coming into her queerness, to Pakistani aunties with their own histories and trauma, to friends who grow further apart.
I love how much this story is about women as the cornerstones of community.Â
Razia Mirza grows up amid the wild grape vines and backyard sunflowers of Corona, Queens, with her best friend, Saima, by her side. When a family rift drives the girls apart, Razia's heart is broken. She finds solace in Taslima, a new girl in her close knit Pakistani-American community. They embark on a series of small rebellions: listening to scandalous music, wearing mini skirts, and cutting school to explore the city.
When Razia is accepted to Stuyvesant, a prestigious high school in Manhattan, the gulf between the person she is and the daughter her parents want her to be, widens.âŠ
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the worldâs most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the bookâŠ
Iâve been making up magical worlds ever since childhood, when I populated the creekbanks and vacant lots in my hometown with ghosts, fae, Land of Oz residents, and other creatures from my imagination. Fantasy and forbidden love have always been my two main allures in reading, and different varieties of sexuality and gender identity also fascinated me once I became more aware of such issues in college, through books as well as my anthropology classes. I was recently pleased to learn thereâs at least one cool label for me as wellâdemisexualâand nowadays I love populating my fantasy novels with queer characters. Everyone deserves adventures in the otherworld!
Iâm a sucker for a cool historical setting and also for romance with a social-status difference as a main obstacle, and this novel delivers on both! In 1920s-era New York City, amid Prohibition and jazz and snazzy fashionsâand, in this version of things, an underworld of secret magicâwealthy Arthur meets working-class Rory, and the sparks begin. Both of the men are utterly endearing (another feature Iâm soft on) and bring different paranormal powers to the problem of a lethal magical relic on its way to New York. There are two more books in the series, so if you fall for this pair, hurray! Thereâs more to read.
"Allie Therin built a world that came alive and flew off the pages." âGay Book Reviews
To save Manhattan, theyâll have to save each other firstâŠ
New York, 1925
Arthur Kenzieâs lifeâs work is protecting the world from the supernatural relics that could destroy it. When an amulet with the power to control the tides is shipped to New York, he must intercept it before it can be used to devastating effects. This time, in order to succeed, he needs a powerful psychometricâŠand the only one available has sworn off his abilities altogether.
