Three Queer Books About Reading, Canons, and What We Pass On

Why these three books belong together

A new guide to queer literature just landed in bookshops. That felt like a good moment to step back. What does it mean to build a reading list? What do books give us — and who decides which ones count? These three works approach those questions differently. One is fresh and practical. Two are older and harder to put down. Together they make a strong case for reading with intention.

Three books, three ways of thinking about literature

The Queer Bookshelf — Layla McCay (2025, Particular Books)

London-based author Layla McCay set out to map queer literature. Not an algorithm. Not a bestseller list. A reader's perspective on what a queer canon might look like. The book covers famous titles and forgotten ones. It also points toward future classics. McCay writes with warmth and real curiosity. She does not preach. She recommends. The structure is practical: organised by theme and mood, not by identity category. That makes it easy to navigate. You can dip in and out. You can follow a thread for an afternoon. There is no Dutch translation yet. The English edition is available through most online retailers and independent bookshops. This is the best starting point if you want to explore queer literature without knowing where to begin. It works equally well as a gift for a friend who reads widely but has not spent much time in this corner of literature.

The Ongoing Moment — Geoff Dyer (2005, Pantheon Books)

Geoff Dyer is not a queer author in any straightforward sense. But this book belongs here. It is an essay collection about photography. It traces how certain images — of hands, of roads, of blind people — return again and again across different photographers and different decades. Dyer argues that photographs are in conversation with each other across time. The same is true of queer writing, though he never says so. His method is generous and digressive. He follows an idea wherever it goes. The result feels less like criticism and more like good conversation. A Dutch translation does not exist. The Pantheon edition is available secondhand and through specialist booksellers. This is for the reader who thinks about form as much as content — and who enjoys criticism that reads like literature.

How to Suppress Women's Writing — Joanna Russ (1983, University of Texas Press)

Joanna Russ was a science fiction writer and a feminist critic. This short book is one of the sharpest things written about how canons are built — and who gets left out. She lists the mechanisms: she didn't really write it, it isn't really art, it isn't really good. The book is almost forty years old. It has not aged badly. Russ writes with controlled anger and dry precision. Every sentence earns its place. The book is not specifically about queer writing, but it is essential reading for anyone thinking about which stories survive and which disappear. Russ herself was a lesbian, and that shapes how she sees the machinery of exclusion. A Dutch translation does not exist. University of Texas Press keeps it in print. It is available through academic booksellers and online. This is a short book that will change how you read — and how you think about what you have not yet read.

What these three books share

McCay, Dyer, and Russ are not in obvious dialogue. One writes a reading guide, one writes about photographs, one writes about erasure. But they circle the same problem. How do we decide what matters? How do stories get passed on — or don't? Reading these three together sharpens the question. McCay shows what a thoughtful reader can build. Russ shows what systematic neglect looks like. Dyer shows how images and ideas echo across time whether we intend it or not.

If you enjoy thinking about what you read and why, all three will reward your time. If you are new to queer literature, start with McCay. If you already have a long reading list, Russ is the book to put at the top. For readers who like their criticism oblique and digressive, Dyer is the one to seek out.

For more context on queer books that deal with the darker and stranger sides of identity, our earlier round-up Three Queer Books About Horror, Identity, and the Body is worth reading alongside these. And if you are drawn to stories where the personal and the political collide in unexpected ways, see also Three Queer Books About Home, Belonging, and Leaving.