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We've Always Been Queer

The podcast is Books That Burn because the original idea was "books that burn you", discussing fictional depictions of trauma. It's also an intentional reminder of the pile of burning books, you know the photo I mean, the one from WWII. It's a pile of books about queerness, gender, and sexuality. Just in case you don't know, the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science) was headed by Magnus Hirschfeld.  It was a resource for gay, intersex, and transgender people, both of knowledge and medical help. It also helped the community with addiction treatment and contraception. It wasn't perfect and some of the ideas they had seem out of date now, the ones we know about anyway. But they were trying to make queer people's lives better, and they were a community resource at a time when people really needed it. Which is all the time, we always need these accesses. And the Nazis burned the whole library. It took days, they had to drag the books ou...

Early December Reviews (2024)

Greetings

Welcome to the Books That Burn Fortnightly Roundup! Releasing every two weeks (one week early for Patrons).

News and Events

I track upcoming book releases by authors we've previously covered on a shareable google calendar.

Notable December Releases:

  • Something Extraordinary by Alexis Hall

  • Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao

  • Velveteen vs. The Early Adventures by Seanan McGuire

Signal Boost

Here’s this fortnight’s highlighted organization:

Unite Against Book Bans

With more than 200 partner organizations and tens of thousands of individual supporters, Unite Against Book Bans connects, equips, and mobilizes the public to advocate in their communities for the right to read and to defeat attempts at every level of government to censor reading material.

Recent Reviews

A NECESSARY CHAOS by Brent Lambert is Fantasy, with queer character(s), marketed as Adult. Vade and Althus a spies on opposite sides, faking a romance that turns real when they're both ordered to kill the other. Told in Third Person with Dual POVs.

CONSECRATED GROUND by Virginia Black, book 1 of Joan of Crows is Fantasy, with queer character(s), marketed as Adult. Joan returns home to attend her father's funeral, but finds the town beset by vampires and the coven unable to stand up to them. Told in Third Person with Dual POVs.

Reviews forthcoming for Something Fabulous by Alexis Hall and Books And Bone by Veo Corva.

Rereads and Older Reviews

I’m re-reading The Magpie Lord by KJ Charles so that I can read the connected novella Jackdaw.

Current Reads

The anthology Being Ace has a bunch of stories by asexual authors about ace characters.

Songs and Playlists

Sometimes I make book playlists, either chronological or character-vibes. You can find all of those here.

This fortnight’s featured playlist is: Reeve of Veils

In Case You Missed It

This time last year I read The Lamb Will Slaughter The Lion by Margaret Killjoy.

Pluggables and Podcast News

As for the podcast, hopefully you're enjoying our most recent episode. If you'd like to receive episodes early, as well as bonus content, please consider supporting us on Patreon. Patrons receive this newsletter one week early, as well as a list of upcoming podcast episodes and even more planned reviews.

Patrons at any level receive the booklist with our planned episodes for up to three months at a time.

Thanks for reading, the next roundup will be in two weeks!

-Robin

Co-host of Books That Burn

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