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Dear John,

Happy Pride! We are thrilled to celebrate alongside you and honor the queer community through this edition of the Feminist Culture Club and beyond. We hope you embrace these recommendations as a way to mark Pride and as a way to choose joy. Because while times can feel hard amidst rising attacks against LGBTQ+ rights as well as those of all women and girls, joy can be a powerful form of resistance. From creative fiction to memoir to travelogue, our recommendations will carry you across genres and share the unique voices and stories that represent just a small fraction of the queer experience.
What to read: Non-fiction and fiction to celebrate pride
A Long Way from Douala ([link removed]) by Max Lobe
A Long Way from Douala follows a young man in Cameroon as he searches for his older brother with his neighborhood friend. The series of vignettes touch on several important themes, including sexuality and grief, while maintaining a sense of humor and joy.

Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in America ([link removed]) by Krista Burton
Moby Dyke is a humorous travelogue that follows the author, Krista Burton, as she travels across the United States in search of lesbian bars. Throughout her journey, she investigates the disappearance of lesbian bars in the US and addresses questions like how and why this has happened and what the decline means for the queer community.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo ([link removed]) by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a historical fiction novel that follows the life of a Hollywood icon, Evelyn Hugo. At 79, Evelyn chooses a journalist to write her biography. Evelyn tells the story of her rise to fame and her love affair with fellow actress Celia St. James. The book explores themes of sexuality, repression, and living a life in the spotlight.

I’m a Fool to Want You ([link removed]) by Camila Sosa Villada
I'm a Fool to Want You is a collection of nine stories that depicts a range of characters, including nuns, dogs, rental girlfriends for gay men, rugby players, and more. Described as “one of the most powerful and original voices in contemporary literature”, Sosa Villada is also the author of Bad Girls and winner of the Grand Prix de l’Héroïne Madame Figaro, and she has been translated into over 20 languages.

Gender Trouble ([link removed]) by Judith Butler
Gender Trouble is a revolutionary text that questions what gender is and why we consider it as binary. According to Butler, gender is a performance that we put on each day. Unlike sex, gender is not biological. This was an important text in illustrating how gender functions as a social construct.

Taiwan Travelogue ([link removed]) by Shuang-Zi Yang
Taiwan Travelogue is a love story featuring two women who find each other when one visits Taiwan and seeks an interpreter. The novel is a beautiful illustration of Taiwan, exploring its history and culture, while also highlighting the impact of colonialism. Taiwan Travelogue was awarded Taiwan’s highest literary honor, the Golden Tripod Award, and the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature.

Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line ([link removed]) by Elizabeth Lovatt
Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line is a recent, genre-bending release that’s part memoir and part creative nonfiction. In this novel, Lovatt delves into her own queer experience as well as the everyday lives of queer women, centered around her discovery of an old logbook that covers calls to a lesbian helpline – the Lesbian Line – in the 1990s.
What to watch: D.E.B.S.
D.E.B.S. ([link removed]) is a comedy film about a secret military academy for girls after high school. One of the girls in the secret military called D.E.B.S. (Discipline Energy Beauty Strength) falls in love with the enemy they are chasing. The movie explores themes of societal expectations of heteronormativity, shaming of gay women, who we consider heroes and villains, and how to take back your power and narrative as an out lesbian. This was released in 2004 and became a cult classic in queer communities. There are very few lesbian films in existence and D.E.B.S. is seen as one of the movies that paved the way for more queer films.

For additional recommendations, we invite you to refer to last year’s Pride recommendations ([link removed]) , which include books, movies and TV shows, music, and podcast picks.
To learn about the intersection of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and LGBTQ+ rights, explore our ERA factsheet ([link removed]) .

If you have feedback, ideas, or suggestions for future Feminist Culture Club features, please let us know ([link removed]) . Thank you for continuing to support our work.

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