Fans pick 100 books like Where We Go from Here

I listened to this book never knowing what would come next. The life of a college student finding themselves hit home to me. I’ve searched for who I was for years and could identify with Felix in that way. I felt as if I was on a roller coaster, the emotions with such highs and lows that quickly made me root for Felix.

I may have to buy a physical copy so I can highlight some of the passages that spoke to me. In short, this book is about love. Finding love, sharing love, and loving oneself. I know at times, I have a hard time doing any of those things. Felix made me think if he could make it, so could I. This is definitely one for the permanent bookcase. 

This is a coming-of-age novel set in 1950s San Francisco. As teenagers my best friend and I shared a mutual hyperfixation with the Cold War. It beautifully explores that era, from the Space Race to the McCarthyism that targeted both queer Americans and Chinese Americans. My best friend now lives in San Francisco, and when I last went to visit her I treated myself to going on a little walking tour of some of the places mentioned in the novel, all around Chinatown and Russian Hill.

The desire Lily feels towards her butch friend is beautiful and stirring, and the excitement she feels at exploring the underground gay scene is absolutely infectious. 

When I was growing up, there was zero queer Iranian representation to inspire me or guide me.

I felt quite literally invisible in the world, and my own mission has been to flood the world with queer Iranian stories to fill this void. Thankfully, a number of other authors are now doing the same, including Sara Farizan, Arvin Ahmadi, and Adib Khorram.

I chose the sequel to Adib’s masterful Darius the Great Deserves Better because I love how it leans into intergenerational family dynamics, which are a particular passion of mine (and of most immigrants who must work to unite the disparate parts of our histories).

My novel received a Stonewall Honor, which was one of the great thrills of my life. But the winner of the Stonewall Award that year was The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta, and let me tell you, this is the book you want to lose to, the book you want to laugh to and cry to and cling to.

I’ve read it multiple times. Written in brilliant poetic verse, it’s a celebration of Blackness and queerness and all the complex emotions that make us human. I love it and cherish it, and you will too. 

A few years ago we at Gertrude lit journal decided to answer the question that kept coming our way: What are some great books written by queer people with narratives that center on queer people? Before the pandemic made a mess of things, we ran GERTIE, a book club that chose two fabulous queer books every quarter. This was our very first book selection, and—like with many firsts, perhaps—it holds a special place.

The Angel of History takes place during one night in the waiting room of a San Francisco psyche ward when visits by the Devil and 14 Saints reveal the life of Jacob, a Yemen-born poet who was born in an Egyptian whorehouse. Yes, you read that right. 

This is a classic of Australian literature, and for very good reason. Set during the AIDS epidemic in Australia in the late 1970s through to the early 90s, this memoir plunges us into the author’s life. We begin during his high school days—when he first notices his attraction to boys and starts sneaking out of the house to find ways to explore his sexuality—and follow him all the way through to his inevitably tragic death. It is a truly heartbreaking story, but incredibly life-affirming. An absolute must-read.

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.

One of the qualities of mystery fiction that continues to draw me to the genre is the complex interplay between past and present. Nava’s 8th Rios novel utilizes separate narrative lines that resonate and then, like a parallel perspective drawing, converge in a powerful emotional twist. The first line is the story of Bill Ryan, a young gay man who, after being cast out of his home in Illinois, flees to 1970s San Francisco to discover himself and the gay community. The second line is Rios’s recovery from alcoholism and his investigation of Ryan’s suspicious death during the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Ryan and Rios serve as foils: Ryan is a man losing the war with his self-loathing. Rios, in contrast, is winning his war.

This luminous novel, written by former professional Joffrey Ballet dancer, Meg Howrey, follows the life of a dancer, beginning in NYC’s West Village in the 1980s.

It is a beautifully written rumination on not only dance but ambition, family, and secrets as well. Meg and I met for the first time when my daughter had just started on her pre-professional path, and her writing about dance is unmatched.

This memoir by the artist David Wojnarowicz deeply impacted me when I was a young queer man just setting off to make his way in the world in the early ‘90s. It’s a look at America during the AIDS crisis, and also delves into the author’s rage and lust and creativity and hope for a better world. The prose is electric, confrontational, and not at all concerned with decorum or coddling delicate sensibilities. It’s a raw and honest deep dive into the heart and soul of an artist living life on the edge of a society actively antagonistic to his existence and is a testament to art as a mechanism of survival. I can only hope to write something this invigorating one day. Bonus points for existing.