Books are the easiest present to get right, and the easiest to make look like you really thought about it. Here are the queer books, bookshop vouchers and subscriptions we’d most like to unwrap this year, from a Getty photography tome to a signed first edition every month.

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• Queer coffee table books
• New sapphic fiction
• Vouchers, memberships and subscriptions

Queer coffee table books

The big, beautiful ones she’ll actually leave out.

Queer Lens

• Paul Martineau and Ryan Linkof (eds)
• The Getty’s huge history of queer photography, from the 19th century to now. Over 300 pages and very heavy.
• Buy here

Dykes

• Emily Lipson
• Lipson’s debut photobook: five years, 50-plus people and 220 pages of dyke style, gaze and identity.
• Buy here

Calling the Shots

• Zorian Clayton, Lydia Caston and Hana Kaluznick
• A queer history of photography drawn from the V&A’s collection. Looks great on a coffee table.
• Buy here

New sapphic fiction

This year’s best sapphic novels, for the girlfriend who reads in the bath.

The Housekeeper

• Rose Tremain
• Daphne du Maurier falls for the housekeeper of a grand Cornish house. A secret love story, and how a classic novel came to be.
• Buy here

Rottenheart

• Kat Dunn
• A sapphic, gender-swapped Hamlet set in the 1890s. Gothic, grief-soaked and full of yearning.
• Buy here

Atmosphere

• Taylor Jenkins Reid
• Two women fall in love in the 1980s NASA space programme. Now in paperback, so an easy stocking filler.
• Buy here

You may also like: 80+ must-read lesbian books

Vouchers, memberships and subscriptions

A present that keeps arriving all year, and supports queer bookshops and spaces while it does.

Signed Queer Literature Club

• Topping & Company
• A signed first edition every month, alternating queer fiction and non-fiction, with a note from the bookseller.
• Buy here

Book subscription

• Paned o Gê
• Wales’ queer bookshop posts a book on the first of every month, on a theme you choose.
• Buy here

Gift voucher

• Gay’s the Word
• The UK’s oldest LGBTQ+ bookshop, in Bloomsbury since 1979. The voucher comes as a card you can write in.
• Buy here

Gift membership

• BFI
• A year of priority booking for BFI Flare, the London Film Festival and BFI Southbank.
• Buy here

Annual subscription

• Tello Films
• A streaming service made for sapphic and queer women, with original series, shorts and films.
• Buy here

Membership

• Queer Britain
• Support the UK’s national LGBTQ+ museum in King’s Cross, with priority booking and members’ events.
• Buy here

Nonchalant VIPs get exclusive discount for Tello Films. Subscribe to become a VIP for full access to all of our articles, and more partner perks.

Want to buy in person? Here are 16 queer bookshops across the UK, and our advent calendars for your girlfriend if you’re starting the countdown early.

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Happy reading,
Nonchalant x

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Nonchalant Magazine

This article was written by one of our creative team writers here at Nonchalant Magazine.