30(+) Pubs I Am Excited For In 2026

It’s this time of the year. The year is still fresh (though in this world of hundreds of ongoing horrors it feels already like ten months have passed), and all the lists of most anticipated books are getting published. So here is mine. Or at least a version of it. My personal overview list by now includes already 186 titles, and it will grow as the year goes on and more books are announced. Of course, these are not all books I will pick up in the end, but they are all books which habe piqued my interest in one way or another (and as always I hope my library picks up a lot of these). For my shortened list below, I focused on titles which already have more information and a cover out (which excluded, for now, Tanaïs’ Stellar Smoke and Keletso Mopai’s We Belong to the Trees). I also tried to find a balance of different themes, regions, languages etc. I left out a few very well know writers from this list just because I did not want to go overboard. For monthly overviews of upcoming publications where I go all out, please check out my Instagram stories and highlights. But for now, here you find 30(+2) titles coming out in English this year, and brief list of some German language publications.

Fiction & Poetry

‘Pemi Aguda: One Leg on Earth

Aguda’s short story collection, Ghostroots, introduced her as an incredible storyteller. I am very interested in seeing how she applies her craft in the long form.

“The lonely daughter of a distant mother, Yosoye arrives in Lagos ready to change her life. Weeks after she begins an internship at a fancy architectural firm, she discovers she is pregnant. Yosoye is joyful—a new life brings the hope of connection and companionship.

But an inexplicable force is haunting the pregnant women of Lagos. As construction speeds ahead on the firm’s glossy new development on land reclaimed from the ocean, stories of the uncanny deaths in the city’s open waters reach a fever pitch. Yosoye finds herself stalked by a presence she can neither ignore nor appease—without risking her unborn baby and her precarious hopes for the future.”

Violet Allen: Plastic, Prism, Void: Part One

The premises of this novel just sounds like the perfect blend of weird and fun—and it is published by Little Puss Press, a small press run by marvelous trans writers (Emily Zhou, Casey Plett, Cat Fitzpatrick).

“Acrasia is in the ultimate long-distance relationship: with Opus Zhao, a man from another universe. She was a trans girl who was also an intergalactic moth-goddess. He was a trans guy who piloted a giant robotic tiger. They hated each other, then fell in love, then their universes moved apart. Now, years later, he’s turned up in her dimension again. What won’t she do to keep him there? 

Combining Sailor Moon, Sex and the City, and House of Leaves, this riotous enemies-to-lovers romantasy roars off the page in the genre-exploding, galaxy-spanning, quick-quipping retro nostalgia futuristic thrill ride of a lifetime. Give in, succumb (you know you want to) to the unstoppable world of Plastic, Prism, Void.”

Jose Ando (transl. by Kalau Almony): Jackson Alone

This is included solely due to the plot. I am excited to get to know an new-to-me writer and translator.

“Nobody at the corporate offices of Athletius Japan knows much about the massage therapist Jackson—but rumors abound. He used to work as a model. He likes to party. He’s mixed race—half-Japanese, half-somewhere-in-Africa-n. He might be gay. Fueling the gossip is the sudden appearance of a violent pornographic video featuring a man who looks a lot like Jackson.

When Jackson serendipitously meets three other queer mixed-race guys, he learns he’s not the only one being targeted. Together they concoct a plan: find out who’s responsible and, in the meantime, switch identities and play tricks on people—a boyfriend, a boss—who’ve wronged them, exploiting the fact that nobody can seem to tell them apart.”

Moniquill Blackgoose: To Ride A Rising Storm

Absolutely loved the first book in this series. It has been a minute that a fantasy series captured me like this one did—with its dragons, anti-colonial fights, indigenous worldview, and queer and poly relationships. I can’t wait to find out what happens next.

“Anequs has not only survived her first year at Kuiper’s Academy but exceeded her professors’ admittedly low expectations—and passed all her courses with honors. Now she and her dragon, Kasaqua, are headed home for the summer, along with Theod, the only other native student at the Academy.

But what should have been a relaxing break takes a darker turn. Thanks to Anequs’s notoriety, there is an Anglish presence on Masquapaug for the first time ever: a presence that Anequs hates. Anequs will always fight for what she believes in, however, and what she believes in is her people’s right to self-govern and live as they have for generations, without the restrictive yoke of Anglish rules and social customs. And fight she will—even if it means lighting a spark that may flare into civil war.”

Woody Brown: Upward Bound

Woody Brown is a nonspeaking autistic writer and I am interested to engage more with his perspective and how he renders it in fiction.

Upward Bound is not a place anyone dreams of spending their days. The dreary adult daycare center for Los Angeles’s disabled community is, for many of its clients and staff, a place of last resort. This includes Carlos, a young aide who lost his mother as a boy and now works there alongside his beloved sister, Mariana; Jorge, the gentle nonspeaking giant whom Carlos seeks to befriend (and prevent from escaping); Tom, a beautiful young man with cerebral palsy who pines for Ann, the summer lifeguard at the center’s pool who feels out of her depth. Then there’s Dave, Upward Bound’s director, who came to L.A. to pursue an acting career but now channels his passion into staging an overly ambitious holiday show starring the center’s irrepressible clients. Framing these intertwined narratives—and connecting them in surprising, shattering ways—is the riveting and sometimes ironic testimony of Walter, a recent community college graduate who, after a family tragedy, must return to the company of his disabled peers.

Meena Kandasamy: Fieldwork as a Sex Object

If there is one writer I would be interested in tackling the themes described in the blurb, it’s writer, poet, translator, activist Meena Kandasamy. Also, this is her first novel in seven years, which also is exciting in itself.

“Amrita Chaturvedi goes by Amy. Amy identifies as a communist on Twitter (her bio omits a cameo on reality TV and millionaire daddy who runs the show at Delhi High Court).

When a deepfake porno of her ‘forwarded many times’ by WhatsApp aunties goes viral, the truth finally catches up. On her birthday, Amy, and allies – a Dalit, a consenting adult code-named the Child Solider, and white trustafarian India – battle a stoning in the digital town square that could cancel even Kim Kardashian.

Her executioners? An unhinged cartel of virgins styling themselves after V for Vendetta – except these anonymous keyboard warriors are on a merciless crusade to eradicate desi jezebels and Make India Hindu Again.”

Malavika Kannan: Unprecedented Times

The plot just sounds like a riot. (And I find it intriguing how COVID shows up in fiction.)

“Which comes first: experience or narrative? Rishi thinks she knows the answer as she arrives on campus for her first year at Stanford. A burnt-out youth climate activist, Rishi used to want to save the world, but now she just wants to have gay sex. Her plan is set—she’s going to leave behind the strict trappings of her Indian American childhood in Florida, study literature, experiment with love, and write all about it. Within a few months, she makes her first best friend, falls in love with her situationship, and promptly gets her heart broken.

What is not a part of Rishi’s plan, however, is the onset of the COVID pandemic. As the outside world becomes a terrifying place, she increasingly finds solace in the friendships she’s made. Instead of virtual college, Rishi and her classmates join a farm collective and grapple with America’s political situation and growing disillusionment—along with sexual tension and responsibility. It’s only when those relationships start fracturing under the stress of careless decisions, unrequited crushes, jealousies, and, yes, unprecedented times, that Rishi begins to question her own story.”

Bassem Khandaqji (transl. by Addie Leak): A Mask the Color of the Sky

There are again a few books by Palestinian authors coming out in 2026 which I have on my radar, and this here sounds, in particular, very interesting in the way it seems to think through its major themes.

“Nur, a young Palestinian refugee from a camp near Ramallah, is often mistaken for an Ashkenazi Jew. Fluent in Hebrew and with a degree in archaeology, he dreams of freedom beyond the fences of the camp—and of writing a novel about Mary Magdalene based on the Gnostic Gospels. When he discovers an Israeli ID card in the pocket of a secondhand coat, he assumes a false identity and is hired for an archaeological dig near Megiddo. Passing as an Israeli, he moves through a world previously off-limits, gaining insight into the lives and beliefs of those he’s been taught to see as enemies. 

But as Nur’s borrowed identity deepens, so does the rift within: between Nur, the Palestinian, and “Ur,” the Israeli. By exploring this internal conflict, unfolding alongside friendships and love affairs, Bassem Khandaqji offers a meditation on the personal toll of occupation and the elusive desire to belong somewhere—fully, honestly, and without fear.”

Julián Delgado Lopera: Pretend You’re Dead and I Carry You: A Novel

Loved Julián Delgado Lopera’s debut novel Fiebre Tropical and also the wonderful ¡Cuéntamelo! Oral Histories by LGBT Immigrants. I love how deeply invested they are in marginalized queer histories and this new novel also promises to offer some glimpses of this.

“Cloistered in a dreary Bogotá apartment, Ignacio’s light has dimmed, leaving his teenage daughter, Valentina, to raise herself in the wake of her mother Alma’s death. Lonely and love-starved, Valentina aches to discover the details of her mother’s drowning, and for her father to snap out of his depression. But Ignacio can’t. He spends listless afternoons smoking cigarettes in long blonde wigs, telenovelas humming in the background, haunted not only by matrimonial guilt, but by memories of a young man he once loved and betrayed.

From Ignacio’s tragic past emerges the luminous queen of Bogotá’s queer underground, Mamadora Eléctrica, the wise travesti who he first met under the silvery lights of Club Aquario when he was just a shy country boy. With Alma gone, Mamadora steps in as a mother figure to Valentina the way she once did for the girl’s father. But as an expert in Travesti Lore, she fears the worst: that Ignacio’s self-destruction may have unleashed a curse on them all.”

Bsrat Mezghebe: I Hope You Find What You’re Looking For: A Novel

Maaza Mengiste already praised this one.

“The year is 1991. Eritrea is on the verge of liberation from Ethiopian rule and in Washington, D.C.’s tight-knit Eritrean community, change is in the air. Thirteen-year-old Lydia and her family are grappling with what peace after decades of war might mean for their future, just as they welcome Berekhet—a distant cousin newly arrived from Ethiopia to attend medical school in the States. With him comes a barrage of new ideas Lydia must confront for the first time, about the stories of nationhood and family she was raised on.

Meanwhile her mother, Elsa, a former rebel fighter, and the family matriarch, Mama Zewdi, must grapple with regrets long buried in the time their country has been at war. Elsa’s path from Eritrea to D.C. was paved with courage and loss, and figures from her past on the front lines of battle begin to resurface. Mama Zewdi, who runs a successful injera business out of her apartment, finds herself reexamining her place in their little family for the first time, while Lydia, emboldened by Berekhet, becomes committed to uncovering the secrets of her and her mother’s past—including the truth about her father, who was martyred in the war.”

Sólrún Michelsen (transl. by Marita Thomsen): On the Other Side is March

This is translated from Faroese and this in combination with the really interesting themes put the novel high on my priority list.

“Her kids are grown and out of the house and she’s faced with a time that, for years, she always seemed to be looking toward—a time when she wasn’t needed by somebody or something. But now, with her mother’s declining health, she finds herself revisiting childhood scenes, family hymns, and folk songs—revealing a lifetime of love, duty, awe, and regret. She tends to her mother amid the stark rhythms of Faroese life, waiting for a new nursing home that never arrives, and confronts the reality of being part of the “army of women” who inherit care. In her grief and private goodbye to her mother, however, is also a gorgeous meditation about life, as translator Marita Thomsen says in her preface, “in its ragged mundane glory.”

A lyrical portrait of caretaking and the invisible labor of motherhood, On the Other Side Is March is a tribute to caretakers across generational lines, as well as the the rich oral traditions of singing and storytelling that kept the Faroese language alive centuries before its standard written form.”

Téa Mutonji: My Person

Another writer whose previous short story collection (here: Shut Up You’re Pretty) makes me looking forward to their long form fiction. Also: always here for portrayals of (complicated) friendship.

“Best friends of over twenty years, Tania and Margot are preparing to host their monthly Sunday Loaf dinner party, when Tania tells Margot this isn’t working for her anymore—they’ve been entangled for too long, she wants to “unknow” her. But how do you extricate yourself from someone whose family owns the apartment you live in, who has taken you in as their own, even claims you as their “person”?

As Tania attempts to live her life loudly on the outskirts of Margot’s bubble, Margot’s past betrayals become increasingly clear. But she means well, doesn’t she? They had felt like sisters from the start. Or had Tania just been blind to Margot’s antics? Set in the framework of a tense will-they-won’t-they break-up, Tania and Margot get entangled in a rigorous revision of history, their once delicate dance intensifying toward a frantic finale that neither person sees coming.

A taut, piercing exploration of race and privilege, codependency, and the ways in which world-defining friendships can be both beautifully and excruciatingly life altering, My Person is an addicting, astutely observed novel from an astonishing new talent.”

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha: The Way Disabled People Love Each Other

There will possibly never be a time in which I am not excited for a new book by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, both their essays and their poetry is life giving.

“Lambda Award-winning poet, memoirist, and disability justice movement worker Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha returns with their long-awaited fifth collection of poems, written over five years of pandemic lockdown, during which time they lost a cherished friend and comrade and met their estranged parents’ end of life.

The Way Disabled People Love Each Other is a fierce crip reckoning with all the ways disabled people love each other, in all our complexity. A book that will speak to any kind of griever, but particularly disabled BIPOC queer trans ones sitting with the endless mass grief and possibility of this time, and those with violent family from whom we still yearn to claw out beauty from the trauma rubble. It’s a road map for survivors looking for something that’s neither a happy Hollywood ending nor a transformative justice fairy tale – not the healing we wished for, but the healing we find anyway.”

Yuliana Ortiz Ruano (transl. by Madeleine Arenivar): Carnaval Fever

This was already published in the US at the end of 2025 but I only came across the book browsing the website of one of my favorite publishers, Tilted/ Axis, checking out their 2026 publications. So this is out in the UK later this year and knowing that Tilted/ Axis with their great curation has chosen to publish it is enough for me to look more into it.

“Sheltered within her grandmother’s fiercely protective household, Ainhoa blossoms under the guidance of her constellation of aunts—women who become her teachers, guardians, and spiritual anchors. Through Ainhoa’s keen observant eyes, readers experience how music and dance – particularly during the explosive energy of Carnaval – don’t merely entertain but form the very heartbeat of existence, a pulsing testament to Afro-Ecuadorian identity and resistance.

Yet beneath this tapestry of warmth and celebration, Carnaval Fever fearlessly confronts the shadows: crushing economic hardship, the heartbreak of migration, and the ever-present threat of male violence hovering at the community’s edges. At its luminous core, however, this novel stands as a defiant celebration of women’s resilience, collective power, and the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood that sustain communities through generations.”

Bobuq Sayed: No God But Us

Bought my first book from Hajar Press last year (Mohamed Tonsey: You Must Believe in Spring) and they seem to put out really compelling books.

“When Delbar’s double life is outed to his mother, he flees his Afghan American community and takes refuge with his aunt in Istanbul. There he meets another Afghan, Mansur, who has made his own sacrifices to leave his family in Iran and migrate to Turkey.

At an NGO supporting queer and trans refugees, Delbar and Mansur find comfort in each other and the company of new friends. But Turkish state repression is escalating, and as their pathways to security diverge, the fault lines between them become impossible to ignore.”

Jade Song: I Love You Don’t Die

I am still thinking regularly about Jade Song’s debut novel Chlorine.

“For as far back as she can remember, Vicky has been fascinated and obsessed with death as the only inevitable thing in life. From living above a Chinatown funeral parlor to working at a celebrity start-up for bespoke urns, she has surrounded herself with death—in her home, in her work, and in her ever-growing collection of zhizha, paper creations meant to be burned for the dead, adorning the walls of her apartment. Yet, though living in Manhattan and working her dream job is all she ever wanted, she still struggles to have meaningful connections—or find any meaning at all—in her life. Too often she spends the day in bed, only drawn out from time to time by her best (and only) friend, Jen.

That changes when a dating app leads her into a throuple with an artist and a labor organizer, who offer exactly the kind of love she needs. For some time, it’s perfect, but no one understands better than Vicky that all things must end. As doubts grow over the love in her life, her friendship with Jen, and her professional success, the oddly comforting abstraction of death starts becoming something else altogether. With everything beginning to feel hollow and temporary, Vicky must decide how to keep moving forward. To try and hold on to what she has, or to once again do what she does best: destroy.”

Agnieszka Szpila (transl. by Scotia Gilroy): Hexes of the Deadwood Forest: A Novel

This just sounds like my specific flavor of weird and over-the-top.

“Anna Frenza hates the tyrannical tree huggers and the idiotic eco-warriors—after all, she’s the CEO of Poland’s biggest oil company. But then she finds herself in a trance, sleepwalking into the woods and making love to a tree, manically—all caught on camera. Her career ends and, in the fallout, she discovers her husband’s disturbing secret. Her mind splinters until she is no longer Anna Frenza, CEO. Now—whether by delusion or possession of spirit—she lives in the Duchy of Nysa, a medieval province ruled by the Catholic Church.

From her psychiatric bed, Anna falls in with Mathilde Spalt, leader of the Earthen Ones—a congregation of women who live in the woods and reject all patriarchy, instead engaging in ecstatic, sensuous worship of Mother Earth. Through Mathilde, Anna learns to love the forest, preaching and practicing the emancipatory rituals of the Earthen Ones . . . until the Church decides to fell the forest and all the women within it.

Bold and entirely unexpected, Hexes of the Deadwood Forest is a collective rebellion and a collective orgasm, the death knell to the elevation of the erect. Take hold of your seat; patriarchy is coming to an end.”

Tlotlo Tsamaase: House of Margins

Tlotlo Tsamaase’s debut novel, the speculative fiction novel Womb City, did a lot of really interesting things, so, of course, I am interested to see how they approach suspense fiction and a somewhat haunted house story. I expect a riveting story and social commentary.

“Before her disappearance, Anaya was a brilliant writer: a rising star. Invited to a prestigious writing residency at Günter Huis, an eerie colonial mansion on the slopes of Devil’s Peak, Anaya was supposed to craft the next great African literary masterpiece—and so were four other young, emerging writers, all competing for the grand prize. But Anaya never made it home.

When a sensationalized true crime podcast about Anaya emerges, claiming to reveal everything that happened at Günter Huis, her sister Ranewa is both skeptical and furious. But with each surreal episode, Ranewa begins to piece together a truth worse than she ever could have imagined…”

Non Fiction

Jordan Arobateau: Time Also Will Make It Interesting: Selected Journals

Very thankful for the diaries or in-depth biographies of queer and trans people we have been getting over the past years and I am excited to add this to my collection. (Also it is published by Nightboat Books and edited by Cameron Awkward-Rich, that also makes this a very promising publication.)

“Best known for his erotic lesbian fiction, Red Jordan Arobateau was also a prolific painter who maintained and self-published a journal for roughly twenty years, documenting his experiences at the “abject bottom” of life in the U.S. Edited and introduced by poet and scholar Cameron Awkward-Rich with a foreword by Michelle Tea, and paintings by Arobateau, Time Also Will Make It Interesting captures Arobateau’s life as a young dyke in the criminalized cultures of 1950s-60s gay bars of Chicago and New York; his transition from dyke to trans man in late 1990s San Francisco; and his return to painting and an unfolding spirituality within that rapidly gentrifying city.

Queerly messy, ornery, and stuffed with Arobateau’s wisdom, this volume is what he might have called, “a novel combined with a journal—da novel/journal! Taking all the liberty in the world! A domain where verse can be inserted, dreams recorded, my everyday political rants printed out, combined with my forté—fiction! All under one binding & title!””

Margaret Busby: Part of the Story: Writings from Half a Century

Daughters of Africa and New Daughters of Africa were such seminal anthologies which will be forever be deeply connected to Margaret Busby’s name. Really interested to dive deeper into her life and work.

“Margaret Busby has been at the heart of cultural life in the UK for over 50 years. From becoming Britain’s youngest and first Black woman publisher when she founded publishing house Allison & Busby, to editing the ground-breaking international anthologies Daughters of Africa and New Daughters of Africa, her many achievements are testament to her dedication to championing the lives and stories of others, particularly those throughout the world who have been marginalised by the mainstream.

With little attention previously given to her own skills as a writer, Part of the Story is a unique opportunity to enjoy her own remarkable literary output. It brings together her writings on people, places, politics and publishing, and provides a rich insight into the many elements that have contributed to shaping her life, from her childhood in Ghana to the Black writers, intellectuals, artists and activists she has worked with, befriended, supported and championed for over half a century.”

Jenny Chamarette: Q is for garden: Tending the histories of queer cultivation

Many of my interests coming together. I am also enjoying what Manchester University Press is putting out.

“When Jenny Chamarette faced a devastating health crisis, they found themselves unmoored from the rules of gender, sexuality and productivity. In a small South London garden, Jenny began to imagine another way of living: porous, unruly, rooted in the lessons of soil and plant life. Gardens, like identities, are usually bounded – but what if those limits can be re-drawn?

Blending memoir and cultural criticism, this book asks whether the categories we inherit – colonial, patriarchal, conventions of sexuality and gender – still serve us, or whether they confine us. From illness and recovery to queer love and ecological wonder, Q is for Garden invites readers to reimagine how we inhabit land, culture and each other.

An eloquent work of nature writing and queer thought, Q is for Garden digs into the rich history of queer gardeners, botanists, artists and agriculturalists. It offers a hopeful vision of belonging, if we are curious enough to unearth it.”

Zinzi Clemmons: Freedom: Essays

It’s been years since I read Zinzi Clemmons novel What We Lose, which also looked both at the US and South Africa. I am interested to see how Clemmons tackles some related themes now a few years later in the form of essays.

“Weaving personal reflections with piercing insight and expansive vision across nine brilliant essays, Clemmons explores the complexities of the elusive concept of freedom. As the daughter of a South African mother and a Trinidadian-America father, she recounts growing up in the largely white, affluent town of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania—and her frequent travels to Johannesburg, where the lofty promise of freedom was all around her. Coming of age amidst the euphoria of South Africa’s first all-race elections, she grapples with the legacy of Nelson Mandela and the shattered hope in the wake of the Obama era. Clemmons critiques the entrenched inequalities that haunt both countries, from the tragic loss of her childhood friend Robbie to the violence that often befalls women who have the audacity to be free.”

Jennifer Croft: Notes on Postcards: A Memoir

Just last year I started to think more about the postcard as a form of writing, so this comes just at the right point of time for me.

“Postcards have accompanied Jennifer Croft throughout her life, providing comfort, beauty, humor, and inspiration. When she left her hometown for the first time, she used them to stay in touch with her grandmother. As a translator travelling the world, she bought and mailed them to remain connected to the growing list of countries she called home. She fell in love with her husband while shopping for postcards at a flea market.

In this poetic memoir, Croft takes a closer look at her trusty companions, sharing her collection with the reader and documenting the lifespan of a form of communication that permanently altered the way we see and inhabit the world. Parallel to the story of postcards runs Croft’s own history of familial and romantic love and its culmination in her desire for a child. As she experiences pregnancy, then several devastating family losses, and eventually the birth of twins, she’s forced to rethink everything she thought she knew as a translator and traveler about communication, distance, and desire.”

Ainehi Edoro: Forest Imaginaries: How African Novels Think

Ainehi Edoro, among many things the founder of the great literary side Brittle Paper, thinking about the motive of forests in African novels? Yes, thanks!

“Ainehi Edoro argues that forests in African fiction are laboratories for unmaking and remaking the world, where writers break apart familiar forms to test alternate forms of life, knowledge, and power. Instead of treating the forest as a backdrop, these writers imagine it as a living structure: a space where politics, history, myth, violence, technology, the magical, and creativity animate fictional worlds. Spanning indigenous African narratives and contemporary science fiction, Forest Imaginaries traces the lineage of forest worlds in African literature: Chinua Achebe’s evil forest, the cosmic forest in Wọle Ṣóyínká’s mythic imagination, Thomas Mofolo’s forest of imperial dreams, Amos Tutuola’s endless fractal forest, and Nnedi Okorafor’s aquatic forest of new ecological futures. This book rethinks African literary history by showing how African writers draw on the forest—and the wealth of Indigenous ideas about time, space, and storytelling it conjures—to transform the novel’s aesthetic, political, and philosophical horizons.”

Layla McCay: The Queer Bookshelf: A Reader’s Guide

I love queer books and I love books about queer books. Really interested to see which books make an appearance her and how they are contextualized.

“We have always been here, and so have our stories. Queer writers and writing about LGBTQ+ people have existed since the dawn of writing itself, from Ancient Mesopotamia through to the Victorians right up to to the present day, where we are currently experiencing a vibrant new era of queer writing.

The Queer Bookshelf is your ultimate guide to this rich history. Alongside the author’s own love affair with queer books, this book is packed with recommendations from prominent queer authors, booksellers, and readers and is an entertaining journey through the evolution of queer literature to discover the most important, fascinating, and fun queer classics from around the world.

Literary classics, pulp fiction, war writing, crime thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, young adult books: all have a queer history and future. The Queer Bookshelf lights the way, making it the perfect companion for anyone beginning or continuing their queer reading journey.”

Jessica den Outer: The Forest Fights Back: A Global Movement for the Rights of Nature

Living through this climate catastrophe and so many ecological disasters, I am deeply interested in all different approaches tackling questions around these problems. Of course, the rights framework is only one of many, but I think something complex to think about.

“As the world grapples with the escalating climate crisis, ecosystems are collapsing, and the planet’s future hangs in the balance. For centuries, our legal systems have treated nature as something to be owned and exploited, but a bold new movement is challenging this paradigm.

In The Forest Fights Back, Jessica den Outer explores a groundbreaking global movement—Rights of Nature—taking on the legal system to recognise the rights of rivers, forests, and mountains to exist, flourish, and sustain their ecological balance. From the fight for the Whanganui River in New Zealand to the battle for Spain’s Mar Menor lagoon, den Outer highlights the campaigns led by grassroots communities, telling stories of determination and legal ingenuity.

This movement goes beyond law – it represents a cultural shift that could reshape how we live, think, co-exist and advocate for nature.”

(Another book on the topic with probably a different take and thus a fascinating companion read also comes out in 2026: Lisa Siraganian: The Problem of Personhood: Giving Rights to Trees, Corporations and Robots)

Anjali Prashar-Savoie: Club Commons: Moving Bodies To Grow Movements In Queer Nightlife & Beyond

Witnessing the collapse of different queer spaces (in particular, with this political climate), surely an important read.

“As queer nightlife moves from the margins to the mainstream, what have we lost – and what can we still gain? Part cultural history, part manifesto, Club‬‭ Commons: Moving Bodies to Grow Movements‬ ‭in Queer Nightlife & Beyond explores the power of the dancefloor. A call to protect what we’ve built, and reimagine what’s still possible.”

(Another book coming out this year which might make a good companion read: Rachel Karp: The Lesbian Bar Chronicles: The Living History and Hopeful Future of America’s Dyke Dives and Sapphic Spaces)

Namwali Serpell: On Morrison

It’s a good time for readers loving Morrison. Last year we got Morrison at Random, this year there is a book of her essays, and then, of course, this book by Namwali Serpell. As a huge fan of Serpell’s writing (her novel The Old Drift is one of my all-time favorites), I am really curious to find out how she reads Morrison.

“Toni Morrison, Nobel Laureate and one of our most beloved writers, has inspired generations of readers. But her artistic genius is often overshadowed by her monumental public persona, perhaps because, as Namwali Serpell puts it, “she is our only truly canonical black female writer—and her work is highly complex.” In On Morrison, Serpell brings her unique experience as both an award-winning writer and a professor who teaches a course on Morrison to illuminate her masterful experiments with literary form.

This is Morrison as you’ve never encountered her before, a journey through her oeuvre—her fiction and criticism, as well as her lesser-known dramatic works and poetry—with contextual guidance and original close readings. At once accessible and uncompromisingly rigorous, On Morrison is a primer not only on how to read one of the most significant American authors of all time but also on how to read great works of literature in general. This dialogue on the page between two black women artist-readers is stylish, edifying, and thrilling in its scope and intelligence.”

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein: The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie

Loved Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s first book which made me excited about physics. In that book I loved the way they wove together physics, cultural analysis and political examinations; the new one promises to continue this approach.

“In her highly acclaimed debut, distinguished cosmologist and particle physicist Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein shared with her audience an abiding sense of wonder at the cosmos, while imagining a world without the entrenched injustice that plagues her field. Now, in The Edge of Space-Time, she embraces that cosmic wonder, taking readers on a mind-altering journey to the boundaries of the universe, inviting us to spend time at the edge of what we know about space-time and about ourselves.

Guided by her conviction that for humanity to go forward we must know our cosmic past and drawing on poetry and popular culture—from Langston Hughes, Queen Latifah, and Lewis Carroll, to Big K.R.I.T., Sun Ra, and Star Trek—Prescod-Weinstein renders accessible some of the most abstract concepts of theoretical physics to tell fascinating stories about the history and fundamental nature of our universe. Here we meet the quantum cat that is both dead and alive, learn the difference between dark matter and dark energy, explore the inner workings of black holes, and investigate the possibility of a unified theory of quantum gravity, following our guide out to the far reaches of the cosmic event horizon and down to the tiniest (and queerest) neutrino. Along the way, she calls on us to resist colonial approaches to space exploration and instead imagine a better path forward in our pursuit of humanity’s undeniable connection with the stars.”

Hugh Ryan: My Bad: A Personal History of the Queer Nineties and Beyond

Hugh Ryan might be my favorite queer historian (When Brooklyn Was Queer, The Women’s House of Detention), so I would buy whatever he writes.

“The 1990s were a decade of transformation. Globalization reshaped geopolitics, and the rise of the World Wide Web revolutionized technology forever. As society shifted from the analog to the digital at the turn of the century, LGBTQ life profoundly changed too. Increased visibility arrived, but at a heavy cost.

In his most personal book yet, historian Hugh Ryan guides us through a pivotal decade for queer people and its aftershocks—from new breakthroughs in activism, to the early days of AOL chat rooms, and the eventual backlash to progress. Through the prism of his own experiences, Ryan maps how queer life transitioned from private to public in the late ’90s and early aughts, reshaping the challenges and possibilities LGBTQ people navigated in the new millennium. On a Greyhound bus headed to Burning Man and the glittery dance floors of clubs in Manhattan and Berlin, a timeless and all-too-common story emerges: how a young queer person chooses silence to protect himself—only to spend another beautiful, complicated decade undoing his shame.”

German Language Publications

Marlon Brand, Bianca-Maria Braunshofer, Jasmina El-Bouamraoul, Tobi Schiller: Und Jetzt Queer! Lesen jenseits der Norm, Katherina Braschel: Heim holen, Fatima Daas (übersetzt von Sina de Malafosse): Spiel das Spiel, Miriam Davoudvandi: Das können wir uns nicht leisten, Jessica Mawuena Lawson: Kekeli, Lisa-Viktoria Niederberger: Lahea, Nila (übersetzt von Asal Dardan): Auf den Straßen Teherans, Yasemin Önder: Anti Müller, Sharon Dodua Otoo: So, in etwa, ist es geschehen: Novelle, Clara Umbach: Pizza Orlando, Eva von Redecker: Dieser Drang nach Härte, Daniel Stähr: Die neuen Propheten: Wie Ökonomen unsere Zukunft verspielen