Else & Ilse | LGBTIQ+ adventurers

When we were young, we only (mainly?) had books with straight characters. We didn't see any representation of LGBTQ+ characters. Luckily, we see an increasing number of queer books these days— for adults ,   for younger readers,  and  for kids . And although we aren't that young anymore, we occasionally enjoy reading a YA book. Here are three books we enjoyed: Amy Feltman's Willa & Hesper (2019) is not a typical love story. Studying Creative Writing, Willa and Hesper meet at Columbia and quickly fall in love with each other. But their love is not meant to be and soon, they break up dramatically. To mend their broken hearts, both leave on trips to find their roots: Willa goes on a trip for young Jews to Germany and visits places of the Holocaust. Hesper and her family visit her grandfather's family in Tbilisi, Georgia, and she begins to uncover her family's hidden history. What If It's Us (2018) by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera brings us romance, friends...

Most of us are having a hard time with the second round of lockdowns in many parts of the world. So we started to collect ideas for lockdown activities (thanks to everyone who answered our call on Instagram!) and share them with you. Here they are (and please feel free to add ideas in the comments): Go Outdoors! It's getting cold outside (at least in the northern hemisphere), but when the sun is shining (or you have proper clothes), outdoor activities are the best! We (re)discovered  our love for being outdoors during our first lockdown and try to maintain it. You might not feel like leaving your warm living room, you might be exhausted afterwards, but we always feel so satisfied after a good hike or bike tour. If you live somewhere warm (or aren't like Else who is always freezing), we recommend canoeing! Get Creative! If you can't get yourself to go outside, start crafting something. We love painting and knitting, but you could also draw, crochet, sew, cross-stitch, or ma...

These last few months, we had more than enough time for indoor activities. So we decided that we want to explore queer books, movies, and TV shows, preferably with a diverse crew and cast. And although many are (too) white for our taste, we also came across fantastic books, movies, and TV shows that include BIPoC artists. Today, we want to share one movie, one book, and one TV show with you that we particularly love. Moonlight  (2016), an all-black cast movie, was the first movie we watched during our lockdown. This coming-of-age drama follows Chiron through his childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, also mirrored in the release poster that merges the faces of the three actors playing Chiron into a single face. Chiron grows up with an addicted mother who calls him a 'faggot,' but finds a supportive father figure in Juan, an Afro-Cuban drug-dealer. In the course of the movie, he struggles with his identity and with his sexuality. We started reading Girl, Woman, Other (201...

As a bookseller, Ilse is always curious when books are published that don't serve the mainstream. Living in a world where—sadly—many children’s books still show their protagonists in stereotypical roles, we love that an increasing number of books prove that nowadays, people are thinking more outside the box. Above all, we love the trend to publish books about strong and independent girls or princesses who don't just wait for a prince to rescue them. The girls in these books are tough and ambitious and don't rely on the help of male friends (princes) to help them achieve their goals. Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls by Francesca Cavallo and Elena Favilli, for example, illustrates the stories of important and strong women in history who became famous for achieving their goals and being opinionated. But we don't want to say that there should be books like that only for girls. There is an equally great book for younger boys called Stories for Boys Who Dare to Be Diff...

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 an...