The best LGBTQ+ books of 2022, according to Lambda Literary

The Lambda Literary Foundation has announced the winners of its annual Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys."

The 24 LGBTQ+ award winners were chosen out of 120 finalists across categories like lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender fiction, poetry and nonfiction. Although the event has moved online, interim co-executive directors Cleopatra Acquaye and Maxwell Scales told us they’re as excited as ever about it. They've found moving things online “allows for more accessibility, creating room for people with various needs to be able to attend, but also opening the ceremony up for more people to join us from around the country and the world.” It’s also given them the opportunity to think about hybrid models for future Lammy awards, regardless of quarantine conditions. That way, as many people as possible can join, Acquaye told us, highlighting those who may be “isolated or in rural areas.”

The Lammys are especially significant this year — a recent study from the American Library Association found that half of the 10 most challenged and banned books in the U.S. were chosen for their LGBTQ content.

“At the end of the day, it’s a party,” Acquaye said. “It’s a time to celebrate and get loud about what we’ve accomplished, to grieve the artists that we’ve lost and to look cute while doing it.”

Below are the 24 winners of the 2022 Lambda Literary awards.

‘We Want What We Want’ by Alix Ohlin

‘Borealis’ by Aisha Sabatini Sloan

‘Gumbo Ya Ya’ by Aurielle Marie

‘100 Boyfriends’ by Brontez Purnell

‘Punch Me Up to the Gods: A Memoir’ by Brian Broome

‘Punks: New & Selected Poems’ by John Keene

‘Excellent Sons: A Love Story in Three Acts’ by Larry Benjamin

‘Skye Falling’ by Mia McKenzie

‘The One You Want to Marry (And Other Identities I've Had): A Memoir’ by Sophie Santos

‘Last Days’ by Tamiko Beyer

‘The Headmistress’ by Milena McKay

‘Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought,’ edited by Briona Simone Jones

‘Calvin’ by JR and Vanessa Ford

‘Stone Fruit’ by Lee Lai

‘Mrs. Harrison’ by R. Eric Thomas

‘Big Joe’ by Samuel R. Delany

‘The Savage Kind’ by John Copenhaver

‘Let the Record Show’ by Sarah Schulman

‘No Gods, No Monsters’ by Cadwell Turnbull

‘Vice Patrol: Cops, Courts, and the Struggle over Urban Gay Life before Stonewall’ by Anna Lvovsky

‘The Heartbreak Bakery’ by A. R. Capetta

‘Summer Fun’ by Jeanne Thornton

‘Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness’ by Da'Shaun Harrison

‘Crossbones on My Life’ by Mason J

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