1. Their Dogs Came with Them – Helena Maria Viramontes
2. Roommates – Erin Leigh
3. The Giver – Lois Lowry
4. Passionate Vegetarian – Crescent Dragonwagon
5. The Long Goodbye – Raymond Chandler
6. Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote
7. The Trick is to Keep Breathing – Janice Galloway
8. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
9. The Voyage Out – Virginia Woolf
10. The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene
11. A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains – Isabella L. Bird
12. Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
13. The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence
14. Millions of Cats – Wanda Gag
15. Cider with Rosie – Laurie Lee
16. Coming Up for Air – George Orwell
17. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
18. The Book About Blanche and Marie – Per Olov Enquist
19. Sexing the Cherry – Jeanette Winterson
20. The Descent of Man – Charles Darwin
21. The Ladies’ Paradise (Les Rougon-Macquart) – Emile Zola
22. The Leatherstocking Tales – James Fenimore Cooper
23. Letters of Two Brides – Honore de Balzac
24. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson
25. Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
26. An Abundance of Katherines – John Green
27. Pompeii – Robert Harris
28. Two Caravans – Marina Lewycka
29. Merged – Andrea Speed
30. Farewell, My Subaru – Doug Fine
the trick is to keep breathing is a really really straight book about a really depressed scottish lady! BUT i’m a little upset you found out about my pen name, crescent dragonwagon.
such a solid, subtle name stef
i mean it helped with my lesbian erotica career significantly
not to mention my goth cookbook collection
:DDDDDDD
This explains all of the Muppets references in that book!
31. The Book of the City of Ladies – Christine De Pizan
omg ily
I feel like I’m missing the joke(?) about The Giver.
a person who prefers to “give” when having sex
is that still too vague?
I admit to never having known what Tipping the Velvet meant. :p Thanks, Google.
rachel comes through!
These make a lot more sense if you haven’t actually read the books, I think!
I don’t get the one about The Giver either but that’s maybe because I actually know the book.
Also, my mom totally gave me that vegetarian cookbook by Crescent Dragonwagon for my birthday not long after I came out.
sounds like somebody is more of a receiver
I don’t know stef after all she just said she didn’t get it
I just feel like maybe rainbows are the result of Passionate Vegetarian and Fingersmith colliding
Rubyfruit Jungle – Rita Mae Brown !!
…but… Zooey is a boy….and also Frank’s brother….. =/
****Franny’s brother…
i know but the title sounds like some gay ladiesss
Fair… I commented before the title change… O.O
ummm Pride and Prejudice???? How??
what gay people experience cupcake!
Gay pride, anti-gay prejudice?
Also: http://www.katejchristie.com/gay_pride_prejudice.html
So back in high school before I came out, but def after my parents knew I was a big ol gay, my dad came in my room and saw that book on my dreser. Having never read it and based on the title alone said, “This is why your mother thinks youre a homoesexual.” and walked out. So according to my father for reasons I still don’t completely understand, pride and prejudice belongs on this list.
Well that’s a mystery.
What people seem to be missing is that these books are on the list for the titles alone, not their actual content. “The Giver” is on there because we sometimes describe partners as “givers” or “receivers.” “Pride and Prejudice” is on there because of the concepts of gay “pride” and “prejudice” against queer people.
THANK YOU
also i think the brilliance of this list is that so many of these books ARE books we know and love, books that are in fact so popular and well-known that we’ve never really analyzed their title, but then when you see them here like that you’re like Oh Shit, An Abundance of Katherines!
Guilty:I actually bought “Franny and Zooey” because I thought it kind of sounded like a tale of two girls,like in a gay way?
It’s not.
But still.
That scene in the restaurant has stuck with me a long, long time.
THIS IS SO GOOD
I almost died at the inclusion of the passionate vegetarian, which I am! And which I owned way back when everyone thought I was a hippie and not queer and something by a lady named Crescent Dragonwagon!?!? would be appealing. Honestly, I was a terrible cook and nothing was good. I will refrain from blaming it on the cookbook.
Exactly what about The Color Purple ISN’T gay?
“30 Book Titles That Sound As Gay As “Tipping The Velvet” But Mostly Aren’t”
emphasis added. she’s not saying anything about how gay the novel itself is or isn’t. the “mostly aren’t” is just to clarify that there’s not a magical gay reading for books on the list like pride and prejudice. (tho like, probably there actually is.)
I hope there is, honestly.
I can forgive Franny and Zooey its non-gayness, because I love it so much! For no good reason, except that it meant a lot to me during my prime teenage existential crisis years.
I used to work in a bookshop and totally bought Fingersmith off a catalogue, sight unseen, because it sounded gay as fuck. That’s how I found Sarah Waters!!
Once I was reading Tipping the Velvet (as an e-book) in front of my grandmother, and when she asked what I was reading, I had to try and describe the plot without mentioning a) the title or b) the lesbian thing. That was fun.
I know, it’s only marginally related, but the title reminded me of it, so there we go.
How about Tracy Chevalier’s “The Lady and the Unicorn”?
Whenever I’m browsing books at Goodwill I always pick out “could’ve been queer” books based on their titles. This post is just like that!
These are all perfect.
Now I can’t stop thinking about how much more I’d like Pride and Prejudice if it was actually about queer women.
*Sees “Farewell, My Subaru”* :O *Thinks of Dana Fairbanks* >.<
:'(