I found myself laughing hysterically, then sobbing uncontrollably just moments later.” -The Boston Globe This literary milestone continues to resonate with its message about being true to yourself and, against the odds, living happily ever after. With her startling beauty and crackling wit, Molly finds that women are drawn to her wherever she goes-and she refuses to apologize for loving them back. In bawdy, moving prose, Rita Mae Brown tells the story of Molly Bolt, the adoptive daughter of a dirt-poor Southern couple who boldly forges her own path in America. Winner of the Lambda Literary Pioneer Award | Winner of the Lee Lynch Classic Book AwardĪ landmark coming-of-age novel that launched the career of one of this country’s most distinctive voices, Rubyfruit Jungle remains a transformative work more than forty years after its original publication. If you don’t yet know Molly Bolt-or Rita Mae Brown, who created her-I urge you to read and thank them both.”-Gloria Steinem These are not all recent releases, but they are biased towards books that have come out in the last decade or two.“The rare work of fiction that has changed real life. To simplify, I decided to leave out the “classics” of lesbian literature: The Well of Loneliness, The Color Purple, Rubyfruit Jungle, and other books published in the early days of queer lit. This is in no way a complete list of every bi and lesbian literary fiction book out there. Instead, I want to offer some book recommendations that will likely appeal to you if you read books that are marketed as “literary fiction.” I’m not interested in getting a perfect definition. It’s often seen as complex and “well-written”-but all of these qualities are subjective.

It may deal with “big ideas” and concentrate more on questions than on action. What makes a book literary fiction? Well, usually it is more character-driven than plot-driven. One of the genres I gravitate towards is bi and lesbian literary fiction-which is a tricky thing to describe. There are sapphic books in every genre: science fiction, fantasy, mystery, nonfiction, etc. Although I like the occasional romance novel, the truth is that it makes up very little of my reading life. When I say that I read mostly bi and lesbian literature, people often assume that means F/F romance.

The rubyfruit jungle