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Book Awards: Lambda Literary Awards
Various book awards and links to the books in our collection. Happy reading!
Lambda Literary Awards (LAMMYs)
For over 30 years, Lambda Literary has championed LGBTQ books and authors. No other organization in the world serves LGBTQ writers and readers more comprehensively than Lambda Literary. We believe that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer literature is fundamental to the preservation of our culture, and that LGBTQ lives are affirmed when our stories are written, published, and read.
2022 Adult Award Recipients* (This is just a portion of the categories awarded)
100 Boyfriends by
Winner of the 2022 Lambda Literary Award in Gay Fiction. A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Longlisted for the 2022 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award and the 2021 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize. One of Buzzfeed's Best LGBTQ+ Books of 2021, NBC's 10 Most Notable LGBTQ Books of 2021, and Pink News' Best LGBTQ Books of 2021. "This hurricane of delirious, lonely, lewd tales is a taxonomy and grand unified theory of the boyfriend, in every tense." --Parul Sehgal, The New York Times "I loved this book--raunchy, irreverent, deliberate, sexy, angry, and tender, in its own way." --Roxane Gay An irrerverent, sensitive, and inimitable look at gay dysfunction through the eyes of a cult hero Transgressive, foulmouthed, and brutally funny, Brontez Purnell's 100 Boyfriends is a revelatory spiral into the imperfect lives of queer men desperately fighting the urge to self-sabotage. As they tiptoe through minefields of romantic, substance-fueled misadventure--from dirty warehouses and gentrified bars in Oakland to desolate farm towns in Alabama--Purnell's characters strive for belonging in a world that dismisses them for being Black, broke, and queer. In spite of it--or perhaps because of it--they shine. Armed with a deadpan wit, Purnell finds humor in even the darkest of nadirs with the peerless zeal, insight, and horniness of a gay punk messiah. Together, the slice-of-life tales that writhe within 100 Boyfriends are an inimitable tour of an unexposed queer underbelly. Holding them together is the vision of an iconoclastic storyteller, as fearless as he is human.
ISBN: 9780374538989Publication Date: 2021-02-02
We Want What We Want by
n the mordantly funny "Money, Geography, Youth," Vanessa arrives home from a gap year volunteering in Ghana to find that her father is engaged to her childhood best friend. Unable to reconcile the girl she went to dances with in the eighth grade and the woman in her father's bed, Vanessa turns to a different old friendship for her own, unique diversion.
In the subversive "The Brooks Brothers Guru," Amanda drives to upstate New York to rescue her gawky cousin from a cult, only to discover clean-cut, well-dressed men living in a beautiful home, discussing the classics, and drinking sophisticated cocktails, moving her to wonder what freedoms she might willingly trade away for a life of such elegant comfort.
And in "The Universal Particular," Tamar welcomes her husband's young stepcousin into their home, imagining they are saving this young woman from Somalia by way of Stockholm, only to find their cool suburban life of potlucks and air-conditioning knocked askew in ways they cannot quite understand.
Populated with imperfect families, burned potential, and inescapable old flames, the thirteen stories in We Want What We Want are, each one, diamond-sharp—sparkling with pain, humor, and beauty.
ISBN: 9781487004897Publication Date: 2021
Summer Fun by
Winner of the 2022 Lammy Award for Transgender Fiction From acclaimed author Jeanne Thornton, an epic, singular look at fandom, creativity, longing, and trans identity. Gala, a young trans woman, works at a hostel in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. She is obsessed with the Get Happies, the quintessential 1960s Californian band, helmed by its resident genius, B----. Gala needs to know: Why did the band stop making music? Why did they never release their rumored album, Summer Fun? And so she writes letters to B---- that shed light not only on the Get Happies, but paint an extraordinary portrait of Gala. The parallel narratives of B---- and Gala form a dialogue about creation--of music, identity, self, culture, and counterculture. Summer Fun is a brilliant and magical work of trans literature that marks Thornton as one of our most exciting and original novelists.
ISBN: 9781641292382Publication Date: 2021-07-27
Skye Falling by
GOOD MORNING AMERICA BUZZ PICK * A woman who's used to going solo discovers that there's one relationship she can't run away from in this "hilarious, electric" (The New York Times) novel, a probing examination of the complexities of family, queerness, race, and community LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD WINNER* ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Boston Globe, Autostraddle, Shondaland * "A new kind of love story, the best kind."--Ashley C. Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Somebody's Daughter When she was twenty-six and broke, Skye didn't think twice before selling her eggs and happily pocketing the cash. Now approaching forty, Skye still moves through life entirely--and unrepentantly--on her own terms, living out of a suitcase and avoiding all manner of serious relationships. Maybe her junior high classmates weren't wrong when they voted her "Most Likely to Be Single" instead of "Most Ride-or-Die Homie," but at least she's always been free to do as she pleases. Then a twelve-year-old girl tracks Skye down during one of her brief visits to her hometown of Philadelphia and informs Skye that she's "her egg." Skye's life is thrown into sharp relief and she decides that it might be time to actually try to have a meaningful relationship with another human being. Spoiler alert: It's not easy. Things get even more complicated when Skye realizes that the woman she tried and failed to pick up the other day is the girl's aunt, and now it's awkward. All the while, her brother is trying to get in touch, her mother is being bewilderingly kind, and the West Philly pool halls and hoagie shops of her youth have been replaced by hipster cafés. With its endearingly prickly narrator and a cast of characters willing to both challenge her and catch her when she falls, this novel is a clever, moving portrait of a woman and the relationships she thought she could live without.
ISBN: 9781984801609Publication Date: 2021-06-22
2022 Children's/YA Award Recipients
Calvin by
In this joyful and impactful picture book, a transgender boy prepares for the first day of school and introduces himself to his family and friends for the first time. Calvin has always been a boy, even if the world sees him as a girl. He knows who he is in his heart and in his mind but he hasn't yet told his family. Finally, he can wait no longer: "I'm not a girl," he tells his family. "I'm a boy--a boy in my heart and in my brain." Quick to support him, his loving family takes Calvin shopping for the swim trunks he's always wanted and back-to-school clothes and a new haircut that helps him look and feel like the boy he's always known himself to be. As the first day of school approaches, he's nervous and the "what-ifs" gather up inside him. But as his friends and teachers rally around him and he tells them his name, all his "what-ifs" begin to melt away. Inspired by the authors' own transgender child and accompanied by warm and triumphant illustrations, this authentic and personal text promotes kindness and empathy, offering a poignant and inclusive back-to-school message: all should feel safe, respected, and welcomed.
ISBN: 9780593108673Publication Date: 2021-11-09
The Heartbreak Bakery by
A Lambda Literary Award Winner Teenage baker Syd sends ripples of heartbreak through Austin's queer community when a batch of post-being-dumped brownies turns out to be magical--and makes everyone who eats them break up. "What's done is done." Unless, of course, it was done by my brownies. Then it's getting undone. Syd (no pronouns, please) has always dealt with big, hard-to-talk-about things by baking. Being dumped is no different, except now Syd is baking at the Proud Muffin, a queer bakery and community space in Austin. And everyone who eats Syd's breakup brownies . . . breaks up. Even Vin and Alec, who own the Proud Muffin. And their breakup might take the bakery down with it. Being dumped is one thing; causing ripples of queer heartbreak through the community is another. But the cute bike delivery person, Harley (he or they, check the pronoun pin, it's probably on the messenger bag), believes Syd about the magic baking. And Harley believes Syd's magical baking can fix things, too--one recipe at a time.
ISBN: 9781536216530Publication Date: 2021-10-12
