HOW QUEER BOOKSHOPS CHANGED THE WORLD, worthy thesis defended with passion

HOW QUEER BOOKSHOPS CHANGED THE WORLD
A.J. WEST
Oneworld Publications (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Non-Fiction For the week ending June 30, 2026

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: For over a century, LGBTQ+ bookshops have been the unsung heroes of queer liberation

Home not only to books but chaotic community noticeboards, vicious rescue cats and countless meet cutes, queer bookshops have always been more than just bookshops, offering friendship, solidarity and sanctuary.

Traveling the world—Shakespeare and Company in Paris, Gay’s the Word in London, the Oscar Wilde Bookshop in New York—A. J. West explores the remarkable history of these bookstores. Tracing their evolution from under-the-counter operations to beloved out-and-proud institutions, West reveals how the queer bookshop stood at the vanguard of LGBTQ+ rights, offering support and vital information through the AIDS crisis and bringing the fight to Section 28 and book bans.

A powerful testament not only to bookshops but to the courage of queer booksellers, from Sylvia Beach hiding books from the Nazis in laundry baskets to Craig Rodwell facing off against the police at the Stonewall riots, A. J. West celebrates the shops and booksellers that brought queer literature and lives into the mainstream.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I'd give it a perfect rating if I hadn't felt so put-upon with the opening chapters speed-lining queer history.

It was my emotional reaction. I'm not wrong; I literally cannot be wrong about my feelings.

It's necessary to put not-queer, or new to their history queer, readers in the picture of what these trailblazing heroically brave people did and what they risked for us all to have access to queer stories. It is breathtaking, and eye-opening, and quite honestly shaming for those of us not willing or able to stand up against Authority for the good of all.

It is more clear to me than ever before that the urgent project of the authoritarians trying to ban queer books, the tech scum trying to make all knowledge available only on their say-so and the seeker's ability to pay any vig "They" choose to demand, and the ruling class's desire to keep you as stupid as possible intertwine like snakes on Medusa's head. The underknown prophet of this future we now live in, Sinclair Lewis, wrote: "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying the cross."

Look around you...that was prophecy, not fiction.

Author AJ writes about the past in this book. It could, one day soon, feel like an elegy for les jadis if you and I are not very careful and very intentional in our actions in November 2026. It's fragile, this thing called Liberty, and it's always been very, very unpopular with with the ruling class. We-the-people have already seen how much control "They" want after women's bodily autonomy was stripped away from them in the US. Revoltingly it was enabled by a quisling woman. All of these struggles, legal battles, and societal shifts are under long-term and well-funded attack. How I wish more people had listened when Hilary Clinton spoke that truth.

Author AJ details the harms this determined regressive minority causes with seeming impunity in his chapters on the role of AIDS amelioration and drag-queen story hour bannings. Restraining the flow of often life-saving information to those in desperate need of it, and excluding people "They" don't like such as gender-nonconforming people, are terrible actions on their face. The true evil doesn't announce itself. It unfolds as Author AJ shows us consequences.


The best kind of non-fiction writing tells you a story that evokes emotional responses from the reader. I've seldom been more emotional in my response to a true story that does not involve a murder. Author AJ deserves all the kudos there are for bringing a storyteller's constructive attention to this crisis in our body politic.

THE BETRAYAL OF THOMAS TRUE, good plot, better idea, decent execution

THE BETRAYAL OF THOMAS TRUE
A.J. WEST
Orenda Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$26.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: It is the year 1710, and Thomas True has arrived on old London Bridge with a dangerous secret. One night, lost amongst the squalor of London's hidden back streets, he finds himself drawn into the outrageous underworld of the molly houses.

Meanwhile, carpenter Gabriel Griffin struggles to hide his double life as Lotty, the molly's silent guard. When the queen of all 'he-harlots', Mother Clap, confides in him about a deadly threat, he realises his friends are facing imminent execution.

To the horror of all mollies, there is a rat amongst them, betraying their secrets to a pair of murderous Justices, hell-bent on punishing sinners with the noose.

Can Gabriel unmask the traitor before it's too late? Can he save hapless Thomas from peril, and their own impossible love?

Set amidst the hidden world of Georgian London’s gay scene, The Betrayal of Thomas True is a brutal and devastating thriller, where love must overcome evil, and the only true sin is betrayal…

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I came out of my seat when I read "...love must overcome evil, and the only true sin is betrayal..." in the book's synopsis. It could not have been more directly aimed at my sweet spot, and timed more exactly as needed.

I still think that. I'm not one bit taking away from the author's acumen or clarity of vision. I only wish I'd had more...fun. It's a good plot, it's executed competently, but there is a lack of that indefinable *something* in the characterizations that gets me to invest in them and their plight.

After thinking and thinking about this issue, after probing my experience of the read for a solid while, I've come to the only logical conclusion. I was introduced to the stakes before I'd invested in the people. I knew what was going on but did not yet care that it was going to happen to these men. This same issue arose for me in the Shardlake historical mysteries.

I'm delighted by the evocative insults...discover them yourselves, they are priceless nuggets of invective...and engrossed in the setting of London's "molly houses" as reconstructed here. Honestly, having been immersed in this story's world, I think I'd know how to comport myself unobtrusively in this arcane, hidden world's manners and speech.

Because the stakes, the heinous betrayal of men like me by one of our own to the vile, revolting scum enforcing their distorted "morality" on pain of death, were instantly relatable to me, I found myself unwilling to put the book down. I think it was a single five-hour session that finished it off for me. That's pretty good going for three-hundred-ish pages! And blessings on the publisher for opening the proceedings with a Dramatis Personae list of real and molly-names!

I hope that makes clear the real pleasure of the story for me. I did not just slog through the pages. I finished the book because it was not one I could imagine leaving unfinished. That's praise indeed from a seasoned old campaigner like me. I think anyone who would like to see just what it costs to live your own truth in a way that satisfies your human need to give and receive love, amid a world full of messages threatening you with harm up to and including death for doing it, would like it.

History buffs eagerly flagged down to come into this authorial spiderweb of facts and research gems. Gay men over fifty sought especially vigorously...you'll see why. Believe me...learning the dreadful fate of our kind in a time only slightly less hateful than now will energize your resistance.