Reading Liberally Book Club

By Caro de Robertis

Genre: Non-Fiction/Oral History

De Robertis creates a collective coming-of-age story based on hundreds of hours of interviews, offering rare snapshots of ordinary life: kids growing up, navigating family issues and finding community, coming out and changing how they identify over the years, building movements and weathering the AIDS crisis, and sharing wisdom for future generations. A must read text that defines generations of voices that have been lost or ignored, all given clarity by the talented and compassionate pen of de Roberts.

By Torrey Peters

Genre: Fiction/Short Stories

A collection of stories, centering around the central Stag Dance that finds a group of restless lumberjacks working an illegal job in winter planning a dance where some will attend dressed a women, the the night devolves into a messy chaos about gender, transition, and what sex actually is. Included are three smaller stories, all focused around similar themes, between a group of people living though a gender apocalypse after a particular bad breakup, secret romance at a Quaker school, and a party at Vegas where nothing actually stays in Vegas. A must read.

By Caitlin Starling

Genre: Horror/Fantasy

Aymar Castle has been under siege for six months. Food is running low and there has been no sign of rescue. But just as the survivors consider deliberately thinning their number, the castle stores are replenished. The sick are healed. And the divine figures of the Constant Lady and her Saints have arrived, despite the barricaded gates, offering succor in return for adoration. Starling offers a wink and a nod to our modern era, while also creeping down your spine, as a paranoid nun tries to unravel the truth and a scared serving girl struggles to get out of it all alive.