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Queer Books!

We love to read! As a bookseller, Ilse tries to have a broad insight and reads almost everything: crime thrillers, science fiction, romance, children's books, cookbooks, travel literature, social criticism—you name it. Both of us particularly enjoy social criticism books, stories about everyday life, books about queer experiences of life, intense stories, and travel literature. Else also reads fantasy novels and Stephen King since her childhood/youth and a diverse range of literature with her book club in Cologne. In addition, we recently joined a feminist book club online.

Yet, we often struggle to find good queer books, so here are a few of our favorite ones:

One of our favorite books is Less by Andrew Sean Greer. Less was published in 2017 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2018. At the center of the story is Arthur Less, a gay writer, who travels the world to evade his former lover's wedding. The beautifully written story is charming, thoughtful, and funny and takes us to many amazing places. We couldn't stop reading once we started and it is the book Else always recommends.

Disobedience (2006) by Naomi Alderman follows the life of  Ronit, a successful business woman who lives in New York and is forced to come back to where she came from: Hendon, London. The reason for her inevitable confrontation with her own past is the death of her father, a successful rabbi in an Orthodox Jewish community. Of course, the independent woman is a thorn in the flesh of the strict religious community. Ronit meets her family and people from her past, among them Esti, her former childhood friend—or maybe a little bit more than that. Esti is now married to Dovid, but the feeling that both women had when they were teenagers seems to still be there. A sad and at the same time funny story about faith, love, and sacrifices. Ilse just couldn't take this book out of her hands.

Last, we would like to recommend A Little Life (2015) by Hanya Yanagihara. We were a bit hesitant to mention this book at all. Else read it with her book club and many didn't finish it—Else didn't sleep very well while reading it. The story is set in New York City and mainly focuses on Jude and his three friends, from their time in college to adulthood. It's a wonderful story about friendship and love, but also about (childhood) trauma, (child) abuse, rape, disability, self-harm, and co-dependency. And although we believe that it is important to raise these issues, some descriptions are way too graphic. Nevertheless, this book is a fantastic read if you can deal with graphic violence.

 We have just started Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985), a semi-autobiographical story and the author's first novel. We'll let you know what we think!

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Location: Cologne, Germany

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