River Forest Public Library: Pride Month 2026: Adult Titles

Fiction

John of John (Oprah's Book Club) by Douglas Stuart

John of John
by Douglas Stuart

From the Scottish-American author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo, a novel about a young man returning to his Hebridean island home, where it turns out that he and his father are both gay and both keeping the secret from each other.

We Burned So Bright
by TJ Klune

A heart-wrenching standalone novel by bestselling fantasy author TJ Klune, We Burned So Bright follows an elder gay couple on an end-of-the-world road-trip. Husbands Don and Rodney have lived a good long life. Now, a rogue black hole is coming for Earth and in a month everything and everyone they've ever known will be gone. Suddenly, after 40 years together, Don and Rodney are out of time. They're in a race against the clock to make it from Maine to Washington State to take care of some unfinished business before it's all over.

Sheer
by Vanessa Lawrence

Told over nine charged days, Sheer is the gripping tale of a controversial beauty mogul's insatiable ambition and the slippery ground between empowerment and abuse of power. As a condition of her success, makeup company founder Maxine has had to keep her sexuality a secret.

American Spirits
by Anna Dorn

Thirty-eight-year-old Blue Velour has finally achieved the critical acclaim she's long been chasing. Over the last decade, she's released six studio albums to mixed reviews, landing her somewhere between performance artist and niche legend. But her latest album, Blue's Beard--a cheeky reference to the subreddit fanatically dedicated to her suspected secret relationship with longtime producer Sasha Harlow--has rocket-launched her reputation.

Take Me with You
by Steven Rowley

College professor Jesse del Ruth has been abandoned. Thirty years into their relationship, Jesse witnesses his husband, Norman, get out of bed late one night, walk into their Joshua Tree backyard, step into a strange beam of light and . . . disappear. How could Norman desert him after a lifetime together? Where did he go? And, most confoundingly . . . will he ever return?

Nonfiction

Mighty Real: A History of LGBTQ Music, 1969-2000
by Barry Walters

From the underground dancefloors of the Seventies to the global charts of the Nineties, LGBTQ artists and audiences shaped music's sound, style, and spirit. In Mighty Real, veteran journalist Barry Walters chronicles its LGBTQ history from the Velvet Underground to the 21st century's dawn as he honors the artists who redefined gender, defied tradition, and dared to challenge sexual norms with the help of a record business that wasn't as straight as commonly believed.

Not Your Founding Father: How a Nonbinary Minister Became America's Most Radical Revolutionary
by Nina Sankovitch

A thrilling celebration of a forgotten early American renegade, Not Your Founding Father reconsiders just how radical the American experiment could have been by examining the true story of how 18th-century American preacher Jemima was reborn as a genderless evangelist under the name of "the Public Universal Friend."

So Gay for You: Friendship, Found Family, and the Show That Started It All
by Kate Moennig

A memoir of art, friendship, queerness, and found family by Kate Moennig and Leisha Hailey, stars of TV's The L Word -- including never-before-shared stories and photos from behind the scenes of the show and their personal lives.

One Aladdin Two Lamps
by Jeanette Winterson

Blending memoir and fiction, Jeanette Winterson's latest book is a retelling of One Thousand and One Nights from a queer, feminist point of view.

A Queer History of the United States
by Michael Bronski

The first comprehensive history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender America, from pre-1492 to the present. Intellectually dynamic and endlessly provocative, this is more than a who's who of queer history: it is a narrative that radically challenges how we understand American history. Drawing upon primary documents, literature, and cultural histories, scholar and activist Michael Bronski charts the breadth of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, from 1492 to the present, a testament to how the LGBTQ+ experience has profoundly shaped American culture and history.