In Fairest, Meredith Talusan reveals the nuances in the decisions we all make to meet our needs for belonging to ourselves and others.

What a strange book to stumble across in such a moment of existential anxiety when it seems so many people believe knowing all the dangers Orwell warned us about could inoculate us from them.

Ultimately a plea for a more compassionate world, Joynt’s efforts acknowledge the way the technology of a  racialized power structure grinds up objectified individuals in its machinery, but also reveals the complexity in how even those who so-called benefit from that automation are also harmed.

Historic depictions like Queer (and the movie Capote I rewatched two weeks ago)  can be useful in recognizing how far we’ve come toward liberation.

As I watch my body reach for my phone over and over before I remember I’m not doing that anymore, and like a gift basket from The Universe, Dean Spade’s Love in a F*cked Up World arrives in my hands. 

The change I want to see in the world must happen inside of myself first.

What I really needed was a break. A break from trying to get it right, a break from striving, a break from the ridiculousness of the 21st century, a bestie to not brightside my shitty fucking day. 

Piepzna-Samarasinha’s thought-provoking work can help us to excavate any rugged (toxic) individualism we may have adopted, and rebuild our brains with collective care in mind. 

Anyone who has been rode hard and put away wet by the patriarchy will resonate with Carol Odell’s page-turner now available on preorder from bookshop.org. (Girl, Groomed by Carol Odell, LICSW) 

For those among us gasping for air these past few weeks, Undrowned, Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs  is a perfect companion to this moment. If you have not yet heard of it, please add to cart. Preferably from an indie bookstore.

Orange’s assembly of Native characters in present day Oakland looking for themselves and one another in an undeniably absurd world paints the picture of our unreckoned truth. 

I’m adding “NECESSARY” to the badges this paperback wears on its cover. 

Between Queers, this book is a necessary cathartic cry with a friend who gets it. Comforting. Loving. A cool drink of water or a cup of hot tea. Being seen. 

While the question is not directly asked in the text, multiple disappointments and betrayals are on display, and I pictured Orlando entertaining a question many trans people have asked themselves: “If this implicit gender performance I’ve been providing does not serve my happiness, why not just be myself?”

If ever you’re feeling lonely, there is Ghassan Zeineddine’s Dearborn. This collection of short stories is woven together into an inter-generational visit with beloveds. The author took me to Dearborn, Michigan to catch up with people who I’ve never met, but yet, know so well. I recommend the trip.

In her book Coming Out As Dalit, A Memoir of Surviving India’s Caste System, Yashica Dutt portrays the truth of what is at stake to those who occupy certain identities:  elements of a person’s humanity that can be painted over with false statements of value by systems of oppression.

As I read it again, this time aloud, I realize more about what I have always loved: how Carver wrote about ordinary people, how he left negative space on the page to allow the reader into the story for their own romp, and how these qualities reflect a deep affiliation and trust in humanity. 

In What It Takes To Heal, Prentis Hemphill joins the renaissance chorus of voices who are singing us out of the dark ages of pathologizing the impacts of trauma, that age-old and expiring practice of making an individual wrong/bad for having perfectly reasonable responses to the oppressive systems they are tangled with.

Young, confused queers, sympathetic incels, BDSM polyamorists, asexual lesbian-porn directors, empowered exiled teenagers, psychiatrists riddled by their own humanity, non-verbal autistic children and their maxxed-out parents, as well as one dying grandmother take the mic in Frumkin’s work.