100 books like Love from the Pink Palace

By Jill Nalder,

Here are 100 books that Love from the Pink Palace fans have personally recommended if you like Love from the Pink Palace. 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 The Glamour Boys: The Secret Story of the Rebels who Fought for Britain to Defeat Hitler

David C. Dawson Author Of A Death in Berlin

From my list on historical gay heroes.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve read a lot of books that feature gay characters. These characters often partition into two main groups: angsty men who are victims of oppression or illness, or camp stereotypes who provide the light relief. I prefer to read about heroes who happen to be gay. That’s why I started writing novels. My recent books are historical novels inspired by real gay heroes. The feedback I get from readers indicates that there are a lot of people who want the same as I do.

David's book list on historical gay heroes

David C. Dawson Why did David love this book?

The untold true story of how a group of gay MPs lobbied the British government to stop its policy of appeasing Hitler in the run up to WWII. It’s a book about patriotic heroes who are criminals in their own land because of their sexuality. It moved me deeply and inspired my own fictional thriller set in Berlin in 1933.

By Chris Bryant,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Glamour Boys as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A STORY OF UNSUNG BRAVERY AT A DEFINING MOMENT IN BRITAIN'S HISTORY

'Superb' Stephen Fry
'Thrillingly told' Dan Jones
'Fascinating' Neil MacGregor
'Astonishing' Peter Frankopan

We like to think we know the story of how Britain went to war with Germany in 1939, but there is one chapter that has never been told. In the early 1930s, a group of young, queer British MPs visited Berlin on a series of trips that would change the course of the Second World War.

Having witnessed the Nazis' brutality first-hand, these men were some of the first to warn Britain about Hitler, repeatedly…


Book cover of Alan Turing: The Enigma

C.A. Farlow Author Of A Quantum Singularity: Book Three in The Nexus Series

From my list on mixing science, fiction, and adventure.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in farm country of central Indiana. But spent my summers on an island in northern Ontario with my grandparents. My grandfather was a self-taught naturalist and shared his love and fascination of the world around us with me. I went on to become a geologist and traveled the globe exploring for natural resources. My love of nature and science is the foundation for the science fiction I write. Whether a proven theory, a fantastical hypothesis, or true science fiction, it’s all based on science fact. It allows everyone to learn about a world built in science fiction which one day may exist in science fact.

C.A.'s book list on mixing science, fiction, and adventure

C.A. Farlow Why did C.A. love this book?

This is a book that is at once a biography, a testament to human genius in the face of imminent danger, and a story of human injustice. Alan Turing had an idea about a ‘universal machine’. A machine, when built at Bletchley Park, allowed the Allies in World War II to crack the German Enigma ciphers. This universal machine laid the foundations for modern computing and all the amazing advances we enjoy today. But at a price for Turing, he fought inner demons about his homosexuality and eventually paid the ultimate price.

I marveled at his genius, cheered his cryptographic successes with each cipher cracked, shouted against the tragedy of his arrest, cried at his untimely death. A death at his own hand at the age of 41. The world lost a genius due to a society’s labelling of homosexuality as a crime.

We still live in this world of…

By Andrew Hodges,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked Alan Turing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The official book behind the Academy Award-winning film The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the British mathematician Alan Turing (1912-1954) saved the Allies from the Nazis, invented the computer and artificial intelligence, and anticipated gay liberation by decades--all before his suicide at age forty-one. This New York Times-bestselling biography of the founder of computer science, with a new preface by the author that addresses Turing's royal pardon in 2013, is the definitive account of an extraordinary mind and life. Capturing both the inner…


Book cover of The Song of Achilles

Kaitlin Bevis Author Of Persephone

From my list on mythology retellings of Helen of Troy's many faces.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by stories of myth, magic, and ancient cultures. I grew up devouring everything I could get my hands on, but it seemed like voices were missing in so many myths and legends. Persephone isn’t even the main character in her own myth. Aphrodite, Helen, and countless other women were painted with the same depthless brush. I wanted to know their stories, and as I grew older, I realized I wanted to tell them. The authors of the books in this list are kindred spirits. Countless hours of research and reading went into these stories, and their love for the subject shines through the text. 

Kaitlin's book list on mythology retellings of Helen of Troy's many faces

Kaitlin Bevis Why did Kaitlin love this book?

Ever since reading this book, I *can’t* think of the original version of the Iliad without referencing his haunting retelling from Patroclus’ perspective. Miller did such an incredible job putting me in the story and making the characters so real that I actively missed them when I put the book down.

It doesn’t hurt that it has some of the most beautiful poetic language I’ve encountered in story form. Helen is more of a background character playing her classic role, but I was still fascinated because Miller plays on the demigod aspect of both Helen and Achilles in a way that makes them steal any scene they’re in. There’s a quiet power to them that transcends the page.    

By Madeline Miller,

Why should I read it?

33 authors picked The Song of Achilles as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

**OVER 1.5 MILLION COPIES SOLD**
**A 10th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL EDITION, FEATURING A NEW FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR**

WINNER OF THE ORANGE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
THE INTERNATIONAL SENSATION
A SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

'Captivating' DONNA TARTT
'I loved it' J K ROWLING
'Ravishingly vivid' EMMA DONOGHUE

Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. Despite their differences, Achilles befriends the shamed prince, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine, their bond blossoms…


Book cover of The Line of Beauty

David C. Dawson Author Of A Death in Berlin

From my list on historical gay heroes.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve read a lot of books that feature gay characters. These characters often partition into two main groups: angsty men who are victims of oppression or illness, or camp stereotypes who provide the light relief. I prefer to read about heroes who happen to be gay. That’s why I started writing novels. My recent books are historical novels inspired by real gay heroes. The feedback I get from readers indicates that there are a lot of people who want the same as I do.

David's book list on historical gay heroes

David C. Dawson Why did David love this book?

This book affected me very deeply because it’s set in the 80s and 90s when I was in my twenties and thirties. It describes with astonishing accuracy the political cruelty that abounded at that time. For me, the real hero of the book is Leo. He’s not only gay but also Black which makes him a double target for the prejudice of the time. The way he tackles it head on in the book is breathtaking.

By Alan Hollinghurst,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Line of Beauty as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the summer of 1983, 20-year-old Nick Guest moves into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the Feddens: Tory MP Gerald, his wealthy wife Rachel, and their two children, Toby - whom Nick had idolized at Oxford - and Catherine, always standing at a critical angle to the family and its assumptions and ambitions.

As the Thatcher boom-years unfold, Nick, an innocent in the worlds of politics and money, finds his life altered by the rising fortunes of the glamorous family he is entangled with. Two vividly contrasting love-affairs, with a young black clerk and a Lebanese…


Book cover of Modern Nature

Abi Curtis Author Of The Headland

From my list on speculative fiction with soul.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a Professor of Creative Writing at York St John’s University in York, UK. I’ve been published as a poet, novelist, and nonfiction writer. My list reflects perhaps some eclectic tastes, but what unites these books is a fascination with engaging with the world in a way that de-centers the human, and I have done this throughout my writing career. I love the natural world, growing plants, and watching the seasons change. I am also curious about time and memory and how we perceive these. I am drawn towards science fiction, but more the speculative end of that spectrum, where writers explore otherness and possible worlds. 

Abi's book list on speculative fiction with soul

Abi Curtis Why did Abi love this book?

After I first visited the extraordinary coastal landscape of Dungeness, I sought out this book. This is a nature journal. Artist and director Derek Jarman lived in Dungeness on the Kent coast (UK) in an old fisherman’s cottage painted black with striking yellow windows.

In the late 1980s, he wrote a journal in the salt breezes and shadows of two nuclear power stations. This journal charted his cultivation of the cottage’s salvaged garden, his battle with AIDS, and his reflections on the culture at the time.

What drew me into this book is its beautifully engaging voice and its sensitivity to the changing seasons. The garden itself, which I have visited several times, has no fences or boundaries, and this blends into the landscape. This lack of distinction and separation typifies Jarman’s generous artistic spirit.

By Derek Jarman,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Derek Jarman tells the story of his discovery that he is HIV+ and, in a series of flashbacks, looks at his life - his difficult relationship with his father, his discovery of his homosexuality and the dramatic exposure of his first homosexual relationship, his university days and his coming out at art school in the company of contemporaries such as David Hockney and Patrick Proctor. He goes on to describe his early work as a stage designer , his affair with Robert Mapplethorpe and his early encouragement of David Lynch. The cast list also includes Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Kenneth…


Book cover of How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS

Nancy Tomes Author Of The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life

From my list on get you ready for the next big pandemic.

Why am I passionate about this?

My passion for this topic dates back to my childhood and being impressed by the scary diseases and unhygienic toilets that were part of my family lore. I grew up to be a historian of medicine, which allowed me to indulge my interest in deadly diseases—at a safe historical distance! That curiosity led me to write the Gospel of Germs, a history of popular understandings of the germ theory of disease. Post-COVID, I am thinking about how to get ready for the next big pandemic that climate change and globalization will likely throw at us: will it be bird flu, dengue, mpox, or some new COVID variant?

Nancy's book list on get you ready for the next big pandemic

Nancy Tomes Why did Nancy love this book?

Of the many riveting books written about the other “big one” of the 20th century—the AIDs pandemic, still ongoing—I especially love France’s account because it combines the power of a personal memoir with a “you are there” description of the plague’s unfolding in the United States.

I also like how France shows the positives in an otherwise tragic story. When faced with a deadly new disease, grassroots activists waged brilliant fights to get attention to its dangers and, in the process, changed American science for the good.

By David France,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked How to Survive a Plague as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of The Green Carnation Prize for LGBTQ literature

Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT non-fiction

Shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize 2017

'This superbly written chronicle will stand as a towering work in its field' Sunday Times

'Inspiring, uplifting and necessary reading' - Steve Silberman author of Neurotribes, Financial Times

How to Survive a Plague by David France is the riveting, powerful and profoundly moving story of the AIDS epidemic and the grass-roots movement of activists, many of them facing their own life-or-death struggles, who grabbed the reins of scientific research to help develop the drugs that…


Book cover of Forget Burial: HIV Kinship, Disability, and Queer/Trans Narratives of Care

Marika Cifor Author Of Viral Cultures: Activist Archiving in the Age of AIDS

From my list on how to have sex in an epidemic.

Why am I passionate about this?

Amidst COVID-19, HIV/AIDS is a touchpoint for journalists, scholars, writers, and a public who seek a usable past in understanding the present and making an uncertain future less so. The challenge of how to love, live, and survive amidst pandemics isn't new, I play here on the title of one of the first safer sex books, How to Have Sex in an Epidemic. As someone who studies how activists document their work and how they bring those materials to life today, I'm both fascinated and troubled by pandemic comparisons. These books offer crucial stories and productive tools to think with as we navigate questions of how to survive, and maybe even thrive amidst intersecting pandemics. 

Marika's book list on how to have sex in an epidemic

Marika Cifor Why did Marika love this book?

Marty Fink’s book is one of the best examples of recent and groundbreaking scholarship on HIV/AIDS.

Fink examines HIV/AIDS histories through critical disability studies discourse to show in a compelling and very readable way how queer and trans people in the 1980s and early 1990s came together to take care of each other when faced with stark and far-reaching state violence.

This book has deep contemporary relevance showing how multifaceted HIV care-giving narratives continue to inform how individuals and our wider society makes sense of gender, disability, and kinship.

Such work is essential in this political moment where we are seeing ever-more challenges to bodily self-determination, for women, queer and, especially for trans people. 

By Marty Fink,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Finalist for the LGBTQ Nonfiction Award from Lambda Literary

Queers and trans people in the 1980s and early ‘90s were dying of AIDS and the government failed to care. Lovers, strangers, artists, and community activists came together take care of each other in the face of state violence. In revisiting these histories alongside ongoing queer and trans movements, this book uncovers how early HIV care-giving narratives actually shape how we continue to understand our genders and our disabilities. The queer and trans care-giving kinships that formed in response to HIV continue to inspire how we have sex and build chosen…


Book cover of Arkansas

Clark T. Carlton Author Of A Bitch for God

From my list on full of intimate self-revelations.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been drawn to artists who expose their lives in a way that makes you feel you know them. The best of them have a raw honesty that shows their flaws, their wounds and struggles and hopefully the lessons they learned. Nobody likes bragging, but we’re captivated by accounts that echo our own secrets, embarrassments, and darker emotions, especially if told with a sense of humor. For decades, I’ve been addicted to the confessional lyrics of Joni Mitchell and have always been drawn to the unguarded openness of certain memoirs and the roman-à-clef or thinly disguised autobiography. In showing us their vulnerabilities, these authors have been heroic.  

Clark's book list on full of intimate self-revelations

Clark T. Carlton Why did Clark love this book?

If I have to pick one of David’s books, it’s Arkansas - Three Novellas.

The first of them, Saturn Street, came out of the time he volunteered at Project Angel Food, a nonprofit where I worked as a chef. David described us chefs as “fussy” (we were) in his intimate account of a driver who delivers meals to a client homebound with AIDS, a man the driver falls in love with. David also alludes to one of my favorite episodes of Star Trek.  

In The Term-Paper Artist, we get an even more confessional novella in which a writer by the name of David Leavitt trades the writing of term papers for the sexual favors of attractive college boys. Whether a true story or a fictionalized one, it doesn’t get more emotionally honest than this and it’s a novella as funny as it is outrageous. 

By David Leavitt,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Here are three novellas of escape and exile, touching and funny and at times calculatedly outrageous. In "Saturn Street," a disaffected L.A. screenwriter delivers lunches to homebound AIDS patients, only to find himself falling in love with one of them. In "The Wooden Anniversary," Nathan and Celia - familiar characters from Leavitt's story collections - reunite after a five-year separation. And in "The Term-Paper Artist," a writer named David Leavitt, hiding out at his father's house in the aftermath of a publishing scandal, experiences literary rejuvenation when he agrees to write term papers for UCLA undergraduates in exchange for sex.


Book cover of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays

Winter Miller Author Of Not a Cat: A Memoir

From my list on memoirs by very sexy writers.

Why am I passionate about this?

Raised by activist feminist parents and schooled by Quakers, I am surprisingly amusing. Eartha Kitt once held my left hand for five minutes. I work primarily as a playwright; Not a Cat is my first children’s book! Now when I show up at a little kid’s birthday instead of bringing a play I wrote, I can give the tot age-appropriate reading material. For me, reading a memoir is this intimate exchange with a writer where they’ve shared everything, and I’ve revealed nothing. What’s better than a good story beautifully curated? Okay, a cookie, but that’s it. I hope my book reaches all the kids out there who are told: be less this and more that

Winter's book list on memoirs by very sexy writers

Winter Miller Why did Winter love this book?

Of the very, very many books about writing and reading, Alexander Chee’s book of essays is among the best. His prose is honest and soul-baring and his descriptions are the kind you wish you’d thought of. The collection is basically a coming-of-age story divided into anecdotal episodes—as an exchange student wanting love in Mexico, working at a famous gay bookstore in San Francisco while AIDS decimated his community, and time in academia. Chee has an affection for his readers and students that is engaging. He’s also a great Twitter presence and like Jacob, also a looker. At a Christmas party we both attended, we discovered we are Leos, so, we’re basically bonded for life. 

By Alexander Chee,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked How to Write an Autobiographical Novel as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Shortlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay

Named a Best Book of 2018 by TIME, Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Wired, Esquire, Buzzfeed, Paste, Bitch, Bustle, The Chicago Review of Books and iBooks

As a novelist, Alexander Chee has been described as 'masterful' by Roxane Gay, 'incendiary' by the New York Times, and 'brilliant' by the Washington Post. With How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, his first collection of nonfiction, he secures his place as one of the finest essayists of his generation.

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is the author's exploration of the entangling of…


Book cover of Simple Justice

Gregory Ashe Author Of The Same Breath

From my list on gay mysteries (from a gay mystery writer).

Why am I passionate about this?

As a writer of gay mystery, I try to read as widely as I can—both to learn from writers who have gone before me and for the pleasure of the books themselves. I’m always thrilled when I find writers like the ones I’ve shared in this list: people who think deeply and carefully about the complexities (and, occasionally, the agonies) of being a gay man, while, at the same time, weaving in the suspense and puzzles inherent in mysteries.

Gregory's book list on gay mysteries (from a gay mystery writer)

Gregory Ashe Why did Gregory love this book?

Benjamin Justice is a broken man—a former prize-winning journalist whose career (and life) has been shattered by the death of his lover and a scandal surrounding his best-known writing. Recruited by his former boss to assist an up-and-coming journalist, Ben finds himself investigating a murder that occurred outside a gay bar. The series is tightly written and casts a dark glamor across gay life in ’90s California.

By John Morgan Wilson,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

It’s 1994, an election year when violent crime is rampant, voters want action, and politicians smell blood. When a Latino teenager confesses to the murder of a pretty-boy cokehead outside a gay bar in L.A., the cops consider the case closed. But Benjamin Justice, a disgraced former reporter for the Los Angeles Times, sees something in the jailed boy others don’t. His former editor, Harry Brofsky, now toiling at the rival Los Angeles Sun, pries Justice from his alcoholic seclusion to help neophyte reporter Alexandra Templeton dig deeper into the story. But why would a seemingly decent kid confess to…


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