This June, we’re going beyond the bestseller lists with books we keep pressing into people’s hands because we can’t stop thinking about them.
“Hurricane Envy” by Sara Jaffe
Portland writer Jaffe’s collection of short stories finds her characters caught in liminal moments.
Jaffe deftly captures the palpable tension when all options feel like a compromise. Her characters grapple with a globalized world where they can no longer act on their values with moral purity. Some of her stories are just a few short pages and feel like poetry floating off the page. Others are slice-of-life portrayals of characters on the threshold of something new.
Readers will chortle at the absurdity of an uptight grocer, immerse themselves in a fever dream of a party and feel unnerved about a missing cat. Themes of queer family, music in a technologized world and what it means to be American weave throughout her gorgeous prose. Read it slowly so you catch every word.
“Hothead Paisan” by Diane DiMassa
You’ve probably read Alison Bechdel, but have you read DiMassa? Add her to your list of giants from the dyke community of the ’90s.
From 1991 to 1998, DiMassa created a quarterly comic called “Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist” that captured lesbian rage at the turn of the century. Along with her then-girlfriend Stacy Sheehan, DiMassa established Giant Ass Publishing, which distributed the comic out of New Haven, Conn.
Hothead is a “flaming mouthpiece” who is overcaffeinated and eager to start fights with whoever dares cross her. Accompanied by her best friend, Roz, who provides a frequent yet firm reality check and her beloved cat, Chicken, she combats a society hellbent on making her small.
DiMassa considered Hothead a fictionalized version of herself that offered catharsis for the oppressive world she encountered every day. This newly released anthology is essential reading that still feels relevant in 2026.
“Femmephilia” by Sophie Lewis
Literally translated, femmephilia means the love of all things femme. And that’s exactly what Lewis does in this newly published collection of essays spanning topics from girlbosses to the myth of Daphne and Apollo.
She argues for the necessity of a politicized femme-ness and asserts that femme identities are a powerful antidote for the misogyny and transphobia we face today. Lewis holds that our society has pitted the feminine in opposition to the feminist, but that it is actually the alchemy of the two that will birth liberation.
“How Queer Bookshops Changed the World” by A.J. West. Charlie’s Queer Books in Fremont is part of a long lineage of queer bookstores, as former BBC journalist West shows in this vital chronicle of some of history’s most treasured shops around the world, shedding light on the trailblazers who made space for LGBTQ+ folks on the shelves and in the streets.
The individuals behind these shops emerge as unlikely heroes who risked their safety and livelihoods at pivotal moments in history, turning their stores into sites of genuine resistance.
They include Sylvia Beach, founder of the original Shakespeare and Company in Paris, who hid books from the Nazis, and Craig Rodwell of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in Greenwich Village, who faced off against police at the Stonewall riots. Their courage and success are inspiring as we face a record number of book bans and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.
Isn’t It Obvious by Rachel Runya Katz
Local author Rachel Runya Katz has a gift for showing how different aspects of our lives affect each other across race, faith, and sexuality. In this fantastic reimagining of the movie “You’ve Got Mail,” Yael is a high school librarian who starts a podcast reviewing books on school reading lists. She hires Kevin, a remote freelance audio editor, having no idea that Kevin is the same man she recently called out for sneaking out of her roommate’s bedroom after a one-night stand. As their anonymous work relationship grows over email, they clash in real life when he unexpectedly volunteers at her school’s queer book club. The novel’s teenage characters – Elle’s high school students – demonstrate the importance of LGBTQ spaces in school as a safe place to ask questions, find community, and expand their worldview through books.
By Charlie Hunts, owner of Charlie’s Queer Books, and Eliza Summerlin, Teen Services librarian at The Seattle Public Library
Part of this column was originally published in part in the Seattle Times as part of our monthly column, and is reprinted here with permission.