100 books like Don't Call Us Dead

By Danez Smith,

Here are 100 books that Don't Call Us Dead fans have personally recommended if you like Don't Call Us Dead. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Today in the Taxi

Tina Cane Author Of Are You Nobody Too?

From my list on not all poets are dead.

Why am I passionate about this?

I learned how to write poetry by reading. Books have always been my main teachers. I try to read all kinds of work because there are so many different kinds of minds to learn from. When I discovered poetry as a teenager, it fascinated me on the level of the line. I spent a lot of time just looking at poems, without necessarily even reading themlet alone understanding them—because the form on the page was a revelation. It amazed me that people were allowed to do that! That I could choose to do that with wordsto explode a sentence across the white space or smash all the words together. 

Tina's book list on not all poets are dead

Tina Cane Why did Tina love this book?

I love prose poems, and they are a great introduction to poetry for those unfamiliar with the genre. I admire Sean Singer's singular sensibility, as he weaves the dailiness of driving a taxi with intimations of jazz, the divine, and insights into the human condition. I find this collection mesmerizing, and return to it over and again.

By Sean Singer,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Today in the Taxi as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Sean Singer's radiant and challenging body of work involves, much like Whitman's, nothing less than the ongoing interrogation of what a poem is. In this way his books are startlingly alive... I love in this work the sense that I am the grateful recipient of Singer's jazzy curation as I move from page to page. Today in the Taxi is threaded through with quotes from Kafka, facts about jazz musicians, musings from various thinkers, from a Cathar fragment to Martin Buber to Arthur Eddington to an anonymous comedian. The taxi is at once a real taxi and the microcosm of…


Book cover of Any God Will Do

Tina Cane Author Of Are You Nobody Too?

From my list on not all poets are dead.

Why am I passionate about this?

I learned how to write poetry by reading. Books have always been my main teachers. I try to read all kinds of work because there are so many different kinds of minds to learn from. When I discovered poetry as a teenager, it fascinated me on the level of the line. I spent a lot of time just looking at poems, without necessarily even reading themlet alone understanding them—because the form on the page was a revelation. It amazed me that people were allowed to do that! That I could choose to do that with wordsto explode a sentence across the white space or smash all the words together. 

Tina's book list on not all poets are dead

Tina Cane Why did Tina love this book?

I think Virginia Konchan is one of the fiercest voices in contemporary poetry. This collection, in particular, harnesses an eloquent fury that is humorous, scathing, vulnerable, and resolute. Each poem crackles in a way that I find fascinating and exhilarating. 

Anyone who has suffered heartbreak will connect with Konchan's vulnerability and trenchant commentary.

By Virginia Konchan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Any God Will Do as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“There are no machine guns, or cameras, here.”

Any God Will Do is a collection that investigates the lines between worldliness and asceticism, belief and delusion, chance and design, desire and its transcendence. Internal and end rhyme structure these pithy and compact poems that are rife with classical, pop culture, and poetic allusions. They culminate in an argument that intimacy and creation through language are not only possible within a capitalist framework, but indeed may be the only ballasts we know.


Book cover of In the Language of My Captor

Tina Cane Author Of Are You Nobody Too?

From my list on not all poets are dead.

Why am I passionate about this?

I learned how to write poetry by reading. Books have always been my main teachers. I try to read all kinds of work because there are so many different kinds of minds to learn from. When I discovered poetry as a teenager, it fascinated me on the level of the line. I spent a lot of time just looking at poems, without necessarily even reading themlet alone understanding them—because the form on the page was a revelation. It amazed me that people were allowed to do that! That I could choose to do that with wordsto explode a sentence across the white space or smash all the words together. 

Tina's book list on not all poets are dead

Tina Cane Why did Tina love this book?

I love this book, because it fuses personal history with American history in the most searing, heartbreaking, and incisive ways.

I taught this book to high school students, alongside the work of James Baldwin, since they both call to account America's founding, its brutality, the moral injury and legacy of slavery, and also the corrosive nature of popular culture. My students were stunned. It woke them up and demanded that they pay attention.

By Shane McCrae,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked In the Language of My Captor as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry (2017)

Acclaimed poet Shane McCrae's latest collection is a book about freedom told through stories of captivity. Historical persona poems and a prose memoir at the center of the book address the illusory freedom of both black and white Americans. In the book's three sequences, McCrae explores the role mass entertainment plays in oppression, he confronts the myth that freedom can be based upon the power to dominate others, and, in poems about the mixed-race child adopted by Jefferson Davis in the last year of the Civil War, he interrogates the infrequently…


Book cover of Lunch Poems

Tina Cane Author Of Are You Nobody Too?

From my list on not all poets are dead.

Why am I passionate about this?

I learned how to write poetry by reading. Books have always been my main teachers. I try to read all kinds of work because there are so many different kinds of minds to learn from. When I discovered poetry as a teenager, it fascinated me on the level of the line. I spent a lot of time just looking at poems, without necessarily even reading themlet alone understanding them—because the form on the page was a revelation. It amazed me that people were allowed to do that! That I could choose to do that with wordsto explode a sentence across the white space or smash all the words together. 

Tina's book list on not all poets are dead

Tina Cane Why did Tina love this book?

Several times now, I have given this slim book of poems to students and encouraged them to carry it in their bags, to read it at random moments throughout the day—instead of, say, looking at their phones. O'Hara's ebullient celebrations of daily life, musings on love, culture, and poetry itself never fail to inspire.

Whether it's a poem about sharing a coke with a beloved or the death of Billie Holiday, O'Hara's work makes me want to stay alert to the possibility of the wonderous, ordinary facts of life on Earth. If I were a doctor, I would prescribe everyone to start their morning with a poem by Frank O'Hara.

By Frank O'Hara,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Lunch Poems as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Important poems by the late New York poet published in The New American Poetry, Evergreen Review, Floating Bear and stranger places. Often this poet, strolling through the noisy splintered glare of a Manhattan noon, has paused at a sample Olivetti to type up thirty or forty lines of ruminations, or pondering more deeply has withdrawn to a darkened ware- or firehouse to limn his computed misunderstandings of the eternal questions of life, coexistence, and depth, while never forgetting to eat lunch, his favorite meal. "O'Hara speaks directly across the decades to our hopes and fears and especially our delights; his…


Book cover of In Case You Forgot

Hari Ziyad Author Of Black Boy Out of Time

From my list on loss and grief from a certified death doula.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a journalist, author and screenwriter, my work has always pondered loss and grief. I think this has something to do with the fact that of my mother’s religion; she was a convert to Hinduism and started conversations about the inevitability of death and how the soul and the body aren’t the same when us children were at a very young age. It probably also has something to do with the constant presence of death within my family and communities as a Black and queer person in a violently anti-Black and queerantagonistic world. I currently volunteer at a hospice, and provide community-building programming to death workers from diverse communities.

Hari's book list on loss and grief from a certified death doula

Hari Ziyad Why did Hari love this book?

This rare Black queer romance novel is a heartfelt exploration of friendship and second chances.

It doesn’t shy away from the complexities of maintaining relationships in the midst of grief, addressing head on one of the most difficult and underexplored aspects of loss. It’s a reminder that our past shapes us, but our present can redefine us, through the refreshing lens of Black queer characters just trying to figure out their lives.

By Frederick Smith, Chaz Lamar,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked In Case You Forgot as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Two newly single, Black, queer, and socially aware men have packed up to start again--in love, career, and life--in the West Hollywood neighborhood of LA.

Zaire James, on the cusp of 30, has decided marriage isn't all it's cracked up to be. Despite friends, family, and coworkers loving Zaire's "perfect" partner, divorce is a necessary step for finding himself and being free. If only it were that easy.

Kenny Kane has made a career of deferring dreams, lowering expectations, and chasing partners not on his level in hopes of finding a love to call his own. However, on the verge…


Book cover of After the Parade

Anne Raeff Author Of Only the River

From my list on looking for and finding refuge.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am the child of refugees from the Holocaust, so displacement and the effects of war and violence have been part of my personal experience. My book, Only the River, is loosely based on my mother’s story. She and her family escaped from Vienna in 1938 and spent the war years in Bolivia, the only country that would give them visas. I am also a high school teacher who works with immigrant students, who have fled violence and poverty. It is my vocation to offer them hospitality and help them find a sense of home here, in an environment that is often hostile. These books bring the stories of the displaced and dispossessed alive. 

Anne's book list on looking for and finding refuge

Anne Raeff Why did Anne love this book?

This book is for all of us who escaped the small-mindedness of the world in which we were raised and about the places that took us in. The book’s hero is Aaron Englund, a gay, bookish, and much-misunderstood boy who grows up in a small town in rural Minnesota. It is about his struggles in that hostile world and the other outsiders he encounters as he tries to figure out who he is. It is about saving oneself and finding one’s place, and it is in some ways a homage to my adopted home, San Francisco. It is also a book about love, about falling in love and falling out of love, and is full of humor and compassion. 

By Lori Ostlund,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked After the Parade as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The debut novel from award-winning author Lori Ostlund—“smart, resonant, and imbued with beauty” (Publishers Weekly) that “provides considerable pleasure and emotional power” (The New York Times Book Review)—about a man who leaves his longtime partner in New Mexico for a tragicomic road trip deep into the mysteries of his own Midwestern childhood.

Sensitive, bighearted, and achingly self-conscious, forty-year-old Aaron Englund long ago escaped the confinements of his Midwestern hometown, but he still feels like an outcast. After twenty years under the Pygmalion-like care of his older partner, Walter, Aaron at last decides it is time to take control of his…


Book cover of I Think Our Son Is Gay 01

Emmarie Bee Author Of A Twist of Fate

From my list on LGBTQ+ manga/graphic novels.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always loved cartoons and anime. I’m also bisexual and non-binary. Growing up, gay representation was hard to come by, so when we did get it, we were always super excited, whether it was good or not so good. Luckily, I’ve gotten to watch the world change and grow more accepting, but sometimes it’s still difficult to find good rep when you don’t know where to look. I try to fill my books with good representation so that my readers can feel seen in a way I didn’t, and I want to spread the word about some great LGBT manga that I love and made an impact on me.

Emmarie's book list on LGBTQ+ manga/graphic novels

Emmarie Bee Why did Emmarie love this book?

I’m always a sucker for something sweet, wholesome, and low-to-no stakes when it comes to my gay manga.

It’s a sweet and wholesome story about a mom who realizes her eldest son is gay, but gives him the space, respect, and privacy to come out in his own time. She also makes a point to defend her son’s sexuality without outing him to others. It made me crack up because I remember being that eldest son - thinking I was slick at hiding my sexuality, when I really wasn’t.

I also love how the mom gives her son the space he needs and respects his privacy. A super mom, for sure!

By Okura,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked I Think Our Son Is Gay 01 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

A doting mother and her two beloved sons, one of whom she thinks is probably gay, go about their daily lives in this hilarious and heartwarming LGBTQIA+-friendly family comedy!

Despite belonging to a family of four, the Aoyama residence is typically home to three, with Dad away for work. Mom Tomoko and her two darling sons, Hiroki and Yuri, go about their everyday lives with little to disturb their gentle routines.

But as Hiroki begins his first year of high school, Tomoko can’t help but wonder if her eldest has fallen for another boy. Though Tomoko is content to cheer…


Book cover of Enduring Love

Anna Motz Author Of If Love Could Kill: The Myths and Truths of Women Who Commit Violence

From my list on understanding the criminal mind.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a forensic and clinical psychologist and have worked years with violent criminals for over 30 years.  I am passionate about understanding how and why ordinary people end up doing extraordinary things and specialise in violent crimes by women. Some of the best descriptions of the inner lives of criminals are found in works of fiction, revealing how people think, feel and react. The novels I chose do this brilliantly, leading the reader into the mind of the characters, evoking compassion as well as shock and horror. The psychiatric memoirs describe the fascinating work of psychotherapy with criminal patients and unravel the mysteries of what draws people to violence, even murder. 

Anna's book list on understanding the criminal mind

Anna Motz Why did Anna love this book?

I first read this book some years ago in one sitting, and have returned to it time and again. I love how it gets right inside the protagonist’s mind, telling the story of erotomania from within his disturbed mind. A chance encounter between two men following a fatal ballooning accident leads to an obsession by Jed, that destroys the life of the man he stalks. I found McKewan’s intricate exploration of obsessive fixation, known as De Cleremabault’s Syndrome both chilling and immersive, like erotomania itself.

By Ian McEwan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Enduring Love as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the Booker Prize winner and bestselling author of Atonement—a brilliant and compassionate novel of love, faith, and suspense, and of how life can change in an instant.

The calm, organized life of science writer Joe Rose is shattered when he sees a man die in a freak hot-air balloon accident. A stranger named Jed Parry joins Rose in helping to bring the balloon to safety, but unknown to Rose, something passes between Parry and himself on that day—something that gives birth to an obsession in Parry so powerful that it will test the limits of Rose's beloved rationalism, threaten…


Book cover of Your Lonely Nights Are Over

Aaron H. Aceves Author Of This Is Why They Hate Us

From my list on books about queer boys written by queer men.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up, I never saw myself fully represented in fiction. I only glimpsed pieces of my younger self reflected in novels about queer or queer-coded characters, and so I made it my life’s mission to give teenage me exactly what he wanted. As a YA author whose queer male readers are not always young adults, the message I get the most is, “I wish I had this as a teen.” While I often feel this way as well, I still know that reading the five books I recommended (as well as my own) at any age is life-affirming for queer men like myself. 

Aaron's book list on books about queer boys written by queer men

Aaron H. Aceves Why did Aaron love this book?

Sass’s first novel, Surrender Your Sons, is a favorite of mine, so it’s no surprise that this book, a queer horror novel reminiscent of Scream, is a riot and an absolute page-turner.

It contains all the best elements of slasher movies and teen comedies alike, and unabashedly gay characters with wit and sharp edges kept me invested all the way until the story’s climactic ending. 

By Adam Sass,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Your Lonely Nights Are Over as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 14, 15, 16, and 17.

What is this book about?

Scream meets Clueless in this YA horror from Adam Sass in which two gay teen BFFs find their friendship tested when a serial killer starts targeting their school’s Queer Club.

Dearie and Cole are inseparable, unlikeable, and (in bad luck for them) totally unbelievable.

From the day they met, Dearie and Cole have been two against the world. But whenever something bad happens at Stone Grove High School, they get blamed. Why? They’re beautiful, flirtatious, dangerously clever queen bees, and they’re always ready to call out their fellow students. But they’ve never faced a bigger threat than surviving senior year,…


Book cover of The Gay Best Friend

KC Carmichael Author Of Boystown Heartbreakers

From my list on lighthearted gay romance books about men in their thirties.

Why am I passionate about this?

On paper, it would be easy to think I’m the wrong person to recommend these books and write my own, which would fit easily onto this list. But as a lover of love and someone who has always enjoyed the company of men, particularly gay men, this is an area I have passion for - seeing hopeful and authentic love stories written for the masses. 

KC's book list on lighthearted gay romance books about men in their thirties

KC Carmichael Why did KC love this book?

This is another book with a very relatable main character. I’ve been in Dom’s shoes, trying to navigate complicated friendships while also dealing with my own life struggles and insecurities.

Being able to connect with the main character so deeply made the payoff at the end incredibly satisfying. And his love interest, Bucky, was truly swoon-worthy. 

By Nicolas DiDomizio,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Gay Best Friend as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

He's always been the token gay best friend. Now, stuck between a warring bride and groom hurtling toward their one perfect day, he's finally ready to focus on something new: himself.

Domenic Marino has become an expert at code-switching between the hypermasculine and ultrafeminine worlds of his two soon-to-be-wed best friends. But this summer-reeling from his own failed engagement and tasked with attending their bachelor and bachelorette parties-he's anxious over having to play both sides.

The pressure is on. The bride wants Dom to keep things clean. The groom wants Dom to "let loose" with the guys. And Dom just…


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