Books About Queer Resistance for the 2026 Read Harder Challenge

This 736-page history chronicles ACT UP, one of the most prominent and effective queer activist groups in U.S. history. Through interviews with hundreds of ACT UP members, Schulman shares lessons learned through this radical organization that are applicable to organizers today. It also follows the AIDS activist group that grew out of ACT UP. As a review from new york times “This is not a pious definitive history. This is a tactician’s bible,” he says.

I wanted to offer books in several different formats to show you how to approach this challenge. our work is everywhere An oral history depicting queer and trans activism in comic book form. Fellow Book Rioter Laura Shackton says, “Reading this beautiful collection of oral histories and interviews feels like sitting down with a bunch of radical queer and trans artists, healers, and activists and listening to them talk about what inspires, angers, and energizes them.”

When you look up books on queer history, you often get all the results about the United States. But queer resistance movements have occurred and continue to occur all over the world. This is the memoir of Ngāhuia Te Awekoutuku, a prominent Māori lesbian activist and academic. The film depicts her journey from growing up as a working-class girl from Pa to becoming a founding member of Nga Tamatoa and the Women’s and Gay Liberation Movement. Her experience of being refused entry to the United States in 1972 because she was a lesbian led to the formation of some of New Zealand’s first gay liberation groups.