Booksology 
First, in January, I read this month’s book club book, The Lilac People by Milo Todd. This historical novel was a chilling look at how queer and transgender people continued to be persecuted by the Allies after the war. He subsequently published a non-fiction book on the same topic. The Intermediaries by Brandi Silas is about Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld and how he continued to lobby for transgender and queer rights even as the Nazis came to power.
I also managed to finish reading Baldwin: A Love Story by Nicholas Boggs. I’m embarrassed to say that I read James Baldwin’s book before I even picked it up, but I’m going to rectify that soon. I can’t decide whether to start with his fiction (probably “Giovanni’s Room”) or his non-fiction (probably “The Fire Next Time”).
I have a feeling that The Hollow Half by Sarah Aziza will be one of my top reads this year. This is a beautiful and heartbreaking queer memoir about the Palestinian diaspora, treatment for anorexia, and how intergenerational trauma manifests itself in the body. I have never read a book that incorporates quotations like this one does. There were a few times I had to stop and stare at the wall after a line hit me particularly hard.
The nonfiction train continued with Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line by Elizabeth Lovatt, a history of London’s lesbian lines in the 80s and 90s. It’s also part memoir and part lesbian history in general, connecting the issues the callers were dealing with with how they impact queer people today.
In February, I’ll be reading Hermaphrodite Logic: A History of Intersex Liberation by Jules Joan Gleeson and All the Parts We Exile by Rosa Nozari, a memoir by a queer Muslim daughter of Iranian immigrants.
In the meantime, I’m planning to read Keyyang’s manga “Let’s throw away the suit too.”
