Classics all queer people should read

[Anna]

In everyone’s opinion, what are some older classic books that everyone should read? (Does not have to be queer, maybe just some undertones lol)

[August]

Not by any means an exhaustive list, but here are a few!

Rubyfruit Jungle - lesbian pulp filled with humor and queer joy

The Picture of Dorian Gray - one of Oscar Wilde's masterworks, filled with queer undertones, used as evidence in his obscenity trial

Orlando - Virginia Woolf's centuries-spanning, gender-bending love letter to Vita Sackville-West and one of the coolest pieces of early trans fiction out there IMO

Giovanni's Room - gay love and loss in Paris in the mid-twentieth century. Honestly anything by Baldwin qualifies but Giovanni's Room is his queer masterwork

Nightwood - strange, experimental metafiction from the 30s, featuring queer and...sort of proto-trans?...characters

[Anna]

@August thank you so much!! Added them to my to-read list 😄

[Marc]

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Color Purple, Alice Walker
At Swim Two Boys, Jamie O'Neill.

[August]

@Marc oh man I can't believe I forgot The Color Purple, absolutely grave oversight on my part.

[Robert]

At Swim Two Boys was an amazing book.

[Rick]

I’ll second a Rickommendation for Giovanni's Room, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Rubyfruit Jungle and The Picture of Dorian Gray.

I’d also add:
A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White
The Catch Trap by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Sea of Tranquillity by Paul Russell
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel &
Flamer by Mike Curato

[Jutta]

Oh, I read a couple of these books and I even love some of them ... ;-)
I would add absolutely everything by Alison Bechdel, especially “Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama.“
Everything by Sarah Waters, especially “Tipping The Velvet“ and “Fingersmith.“
Fannie Flagg's “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.“
„The Price of Salt“ by Claire Morgan (Patricia Highsmith’s pen name).
And two real lesbican classics: Daphne du Maurier’s “Rebecca“ and J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s Sapphic early pioneer “Carmilla.“
So much for lesbian literature – somebody else, please add more GBTIQ* books! :-)

[Mariano]

Books that are on my list to get to and I've heard great things about

Maurice by E.M. Forster (I love love love the movie it took me 4 watches to understand everything but now that I finally get everything that they're talking about it's such a fun watch so now I'm really looking forward to finally reading the book)

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann (using the term classic loosely here, since the book is only a little over 20 years old, but it's also historical fiction so I'm technically counting it)

[Winter]

Patience & Sarah is a historical novel that was published in 1969 featuring a central sapphic relationship and it includes a happy ending :)