Books for Pride Month
By 49thShelf
Queer Progress
How did a social movement evolve from a small group of young radicals to the incorporation of LGBTQ communities into full citizenship on the model of Canadian multiculturalism?
Tim McCaskell contextualizes his work in gay, queer, and AIDS activism in Toronto from 1974 to 2014 within the shift from the Keynesian welfare state of the 1970s to the neoliberal economy of the new millennium. A shift that saw sexuality —once tightly regulated by conservative institutions—become an economic driver o …

A Two-Spirit Journey
A compelling, harrowing, but ultimately uplifting story of resilience and self-discovery.
"A Two-Spirit Journey" is Ma-Nee Chacaby’s extraordinary account of her life as an Ojibwa-Cree lesbian. From her early, often harrowing memories of life and abuse in a remote Ojibwa community riven by poverty and alcoholism, Chacaby’s story is one of enduring and ultimately overcoming the social, economic, and health legacies of colonialism.
As a child, Chacaby learned spiritual and cultural traditions f …

Any Other Way
Toronto is home to multiple and thriving queer communities that reflect the dynamism of a global city. Any Other Way is an eclectic and richly illustrated local history that reveals how these individuals and community networks have transformed Toronto from a place of churches and conservative mores into a city that has consistently led the way in queer activism, not just in Canada but internationally.
From the earliest pioneersto the parades, pride and politics of the contemporary era, Any Other …

Unfinished Dollhouse
No mother is prepared for the moment when a child comes out to her as a person whose physical gender is out-of-keeping with his emotional and psychological gender-identity. In Michelle Alfano's intimate memoir, she recounts her experience as the mother of a transgender child.
The central metaphor of The Unfinished Dollhouse tells the story: on Frankie's fourth birthday, her parents Michelle and Rob purchased a kit to create a beautiful dollhouse. Michelle imagined building the home, buying the …

A Queer Love Story
A Queer Love Story presents the first fifteen years of letters between Jane Rule – novelist and the first widely recognized “public lesbian” in North America – and Rick Bébout, journalist and editor with the Toronto-based Body Politic, an important incubator of LGBT thought and activism. Rule lived in a remote rural community on Galiano Island in British Columbia but wrote a column for the magazine. Bébout resided in and was devoted to Toronto’s gay village. At turns poignant, scinti …

Love Is Love
Overweight and unhappy at home, Emmy gets sexually involved with a popular classmate so that people will think that she is worth liking. When she realizes that he is just using her, she decides to leave her home in Winnipeg to stay with her uncle's family in Vancouver. Emmy has always been intimidated by her perfect cousin Paige and Paige's cool friends, so she is surprised to find that the coolest of them is transgender. Emmy is instantly attracted to Jude (who used to be Judy), and starts hang …

Rough Patch
A YA novel about Keira, a figure skater just entering high school who's intrigued about kissing both boys and girls.
In this compelling novel for young adults, Keira is a quirky but shy teen entering her first year of high school; she navigates her growing interest in kissing both girls and boys, while not alienating her BFF, boy-crazy Sita. As the two acclimate to their unfamiliar surroundings, they manage to find new lunchmates and make lists of the cutest boys in school. But Keira is caught "i …

What the Mouth Wants
The redefinition of family values as seen from the eyes of a polyamorous, queer Italian Canadian obsessed with food. This mouthwatering, intimate, and sensual memoir traces Monica Meneghetti's unique life journey through her relationship with food, family and love. As the youngest child of a traditional Italian-Catholic immigrant family, Monica learns the intimacy of the dinner table and the ritual of meals, along with the requirements of conformity both at the table and in life. Monica is thirt …