Welcome to the first ever (as far as I know!) poll of The Avocado’s favorite LGBT+ books! Over the next few weeks, the most astute readers anywhere on the internet (that’s you!) will be submitting their ballots, culminating at the end of June with the publication of a master list of our favorite queer reads. Here are the ground rules:
- Submit an unranked ballot of exactly 10 books (defined broadly, of course – fiction and non-fiction, comics, manga, plays, etc. all count).
- It will make my life much easier if lists are submitted in a consistent format of “[Title], [Author(s)], [Year(s)].”
- Please use your best judgment in determining what is and is not LGBT+ content – books that were/are primarily cishet-focused but include gay characters/storylines, or contain their queerness primarily as subtext (aka most of the history of the written word) can certainly count if you want them to! Feel free to discuss with your fellow voters in the comments.
- Following on (3) above, obvious joke ballots will not be counted. If I perceive a ballot as a joke ballot, I will comment as such and give the voter an opportunity to respond.
- Do not mock others’ picks. These ballots may be extremely personal to people, and in many cases heavily tied to identity and self-actualization. This poll is intended to be fun for everyone, but if your idea of fun is mocking, I’m not interested!
- Have fun! This is meant to be a list of your favorite LGBT+ books, there are no objective criteria.
- BONUS PROMPT: Do you have any favorite LGBT+ or LGBT-friendly bookstores, libraries, or comic shops? Include them in your comment! I’ll compile a master list of these for the results post.
The deadline for submitting votes is 11:59 PM ET on Saturday, June 24.