Smells Like Queer Literary Spirit

This year, Aesop Queer Library is partnering with the American Civil Liberties Union.

• The company has partnered with the ACLU for four years, specifically highlighting their efforts to defend American rights, including freedom of speech and expression.
• This year’s Queer Library’s Body of Work theme aims to explore “how queer bodies can question assumptions, make stories that are often overlooked or ignored more visible, and function as joyful acts of resistance.”

Authors whose books will be featured include Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, Torrey Peters, Sean Hewitt, Ocean Vuong, Brandon Taylor, Pedro Lemebel, Alejandro Barrera, Christine Arnett, and more.

Aesop also partners with Penguin Random House. Alyssa Taylor, brand marketing director at Penguin Random House, said: “By featuring a wide range of LGBTQIA2S+ voices across genres and formats, we hope to invite more readers into the fullness, complexity, joy and resilience of the queer experience.”

You can access the Aesop Queer Library’s pop-up reading room. this Weekends June 26th to June 28th, Los Angeles (Aesop Kinney and Silver Lake), New York (Park Slope), San Francisco (Fillmore), Miami (Design District), Austin (Domain NORTHSIDE), Houston (Montrose), Dallas (NorthPark), DC (Georgetown), Chicago (Lincoln Park), Hoboken, Portland (NW) 23rd), Seattle (Capitol Hill), and Philadelphia (Walnut Street).

• The main stores, where most of Aesop’s products are replaced by books, are located in Los Angeles (Larchmont) and New York (Nolita).
• If you’re in Chicago this weekend for the American Library Association conference, Lincoln Park is just a short cab or Elle ride away.

Since its founding, Aesop Queer Library has distributed over 115,000 LGBTQIA2S+ books around the world.