LGBTQ+ History Month Recommendations

Recommendations1st February 2026

The start of February marks the return of LGBTQ+ History Month in the UK! Today we're recommending some of our favourite historical narratives by LGBTQ+ authors with both fiction and non-fiction making it to the list. Scroll down to read more or visit the bookshop to see the list on display!

The Song of Achilles cover

The Song of Achilles

Published: 21st Sep '17

Format: Paperback

Price: £9.99

The New Life cover

The New Life

Based on the lives of John Addington Symonds and Havelock Ellis, Tom Crewe’s debut novel summons up the atmosphere of Victorian London only to expose its contradictions and hypocrasies surrounding love, sex and sexuality. Crewe’s scene-writing is artful and compact, and surprisingly spicy; but it’s the book’s dialogue, which reflects its specific context meticulously while also casting a glancing, hopeful eye to the future, that makes the most pressing emotive claims.

Marc

Learn more about this title

Published: 11th Jan '24

Format: Paperback

Price: £9.99

Tipping The Velvet cover

Tipping The Velvet

Nan Astley, the refreshingly chaotic protagonist of Sarah Waters' debut novel, walks away from her life as an oyster girl to join a drag king act in Victorian London. Tipping the Velvet is a subversive (and sexy!) testament to queer people's ability to carve out spaces of authenticity and joy in the face of a culture that tries to erase them; it is also a rich, twisting bildungsroman that foregrounds the unsung historical intersections between queerness and class liberation.

Amos

Learn more about this title

Published: 16th May '24

Format: Paperback

Price: £10.99

The Sweetness of Water cover

The Sweetness of Water

Published: 31st Mar '22

Format: Paperback

Price: £10.99

The Color Purple cover

The Color Purple

Published: 31st Aug '17

Format: Paperback

Price: £10.99

The Confessions of Frannie Langton cover

The Confessions of Frannie Langton

Published: 1st Aug '19

Format: Paperback

Price: £9.99

A Short History of Queer Parenting cover

A Short History of Queer Parenting

Published: 2nd Oct '25

Format: Paperback

Price: £8.99

Strange Relations cover

Strange Relations

Published: 5th Jun '25

Format: Paperback

Price: £10.99

Queer as Folklore cover

Queer as Folklore

Published: 18th Nov '25

Format: Paperback

Price: £10.99

A Bookshop of One’s Own cover

A Bookshop of One’s Own

It's all too easy to romanticise bookselling, but in this heartfelt and inspiring record of Silver Moon Women's Bookshop's existence Cholmeley lays bare the harsh realities of retail, particularly as a lesbian-owned business in Thatcher's Britain dealing with misogyny and homophobia daily. It's a personal yet all-encompassing history that drives home the importance of bookshops as safe community spaces, as information centres, and as meeting places of ideas.

Zoe

Learn more about this title

Published: 13th Feb '25

Format: Paperback

Price: £10.99