Celebrate WorldPride with These 15 LGBTQIA+ Audiobooks

Celebrate WorldPride with These 15 LGBTQIA+ Audiobooks

WorldPride Sydney is upon us, friends. And whether or not you’re attending the event this year, there are loads of ways you can be celebrating pride now, and always. One of the best ways to do that is to support LGBTQIA+ voices by investing in their work. You can do that by getting yourself a copy of one of these rich and inspiring audiobooks that have been written and curated by LGBTQ+ creators.

All synopses and images have been shared by Audible.

LGBTQ+ audiobooks to get around

The Greatest Menace by Patrick Abboud, Simon Cunich

LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks.

Tucked away amongst snow-covered mountains is a tiny Australian town with a dark secret. Journalist Patrick Abboud hears whispers that it was once home to the world’s only ‘gay prison’. A prison that specifically incarcerated gay men. His investigation into what happened inside reveals the full story for the first time. This queer true-crime journey takes you from underground nightclubs to hidden sex haunts, to remote parts of New Zealand and England. You’ll find yourself entangled in a police cover up, a case of wrongful conviction and a human experiment that didn’t go to plan. At the centre of it all was a covert government operation to eradicate ‘the greatest menace to society’: homosexuality.

Over the Top by Jonathan Van Ness

lgbtq audiobooks
LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks.

Who gave Jonathan Van Ness permission to be the radiant human he is today? No one, honey.

The truth is, it hasn’t always been gorgeous for this beacon of positivity and joy.

Before he stole our hearts as the grooming and self-care expert on Netflix’s hit show Queer Eye, Jonathan was growing up in a small Midwestern town that didn’t understand why he was so…over the top. From choreographed carpet figure skating routines to the unavoidable fact that he was Just. So. Gay., Jonathan was an easy target and endured years of judgment, ridicule and trauma – yet none of it crushed his uniquely effervescent spirit.

Over the Top uncovers the pain and passion it took to end up becoming the model of self-love and acceptance that Jonathan is today. In this revelatory, raw and rambunctious memoir, Jonathan shares never-before-told secrets and reveals sides of himself that the public has never seen. JVN fans may think they know the man behind the stiletto heels, the crop tops, and the iconic sayings, but there’s much more to him than meets the Queer Eye.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll come away knowing that no matter how broken or lost you may be, you’re a Kelly Clarkson song, you’re strong, and you’ve got this.

Big Love: Reclaiming Myself, My People, My Country by Brooke Blurton

lgbtq audiobooks
LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks.

From the moment Brooke Blurton appeared on Australian television, she dazzled audiences with her authenticity, self-knowledge, generosity and honesty. As a proud young Noongar-Yamatji woman, Brooke’s connection to her culture and country is deep, and as an openly queer woman, she knows that love is simply love. Most of all Brooke knows the importance of family, and the uplifting power of unconditional connection.

But behind the public persona Brooke presents to the world is a story of epic proportions and awe-inspiring resilience—she had to grow up fast from a very young age, surviving an extremely challenging childhood and youth, and overcoming the shocking legacy of intergenerational trauma, abuse and homelessness. She’s also had to defy labels and perceptions about who she is, and her worth, all her life.

But through it all, Brooke didn’t just survive, she found her voice and thrived, and in this raw, heartbreaking, often funny and ultimately life-affirming memoir, Brooke lays her journey bare about how she refused to allow the past to define her and reclaimed her own identity—and realised the power of love, for herself, for her family, and her community.

Ten Steps to Nanette by Hannah Gadsby

queer audiobooks
LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks.

The memoir from Australia’s much-loved comedian, Hannah Gadsby, whose stand-up show and self-described swan-song, Nanette, played to sold-out houses in Australia, the UK and the US. Its launch on Netflix, and subsequent Emmy and Peabody wins, took Nanette (and Hannah) to the world.

‘There is nothing stronger than a broken woman who has rebuilt herself,’ Hannah Gadsby, Nanette.

Multi-award-winning Hannah Gadsby transformed comedy with her show Nanette, even as she declared that she was quitting stand-up. Now, she takes us through the defining moments in her life that led to the creation of Nanette and her powerful decision to tell the truth – no matter the cost.

Gadsby’s unique stand-up special Nanette was a viral success that left audiences captivated by her blistering honesty and her ability to create both tension and laughter in a single moment. But while her worldwide fame might have looked like an overnight sensation, her path from open mic to the global stage was hard-fought and anything but linear.

Ten Steps to Nanette traces Gadsby’s growth as a queer person from Tasmania – where homosexuality was illegal until 1997 – to her ever-evolving relationship with comedy, to her struggle with adult diagnoses of autism and ADHD and finally to the backbone of Nanette – the renouncement of self-deprecation, the rejection of misogyny and the moral significance of truth-telling.

Equal parts harrowing and hilarious, Ten Steps to Nanette continues Gadsby’s tradition of confounding expectations and norms, properly introducing us to one of the most explosive, formative voices of our time.

Caught in the Act: A Memoir by Courtney Act by Shane Jenek

LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks.
LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks.

Boy, girl, artist, advocate. Courtney is more than the sum of her parts.

Meet Shane Jenek. Raised in the Brisbane suburbs by loving parents, Shane realises from a young age that he’s not like all the other boys. He finds his tribe at a performing arts agency, where he discovers his passion for song, dance and performance. Shane makes a promise to himself – to find a bigger stage.

Meet Courtney Act. Born in Sydney around the turn of the millennium, Courtney makes her name in the gay bars of Oxford Street and then on Australian Idol. Over 10 years later, she makes star turns on RuPaul’s Drag Race and Celebrity Big Brother UK, bringing her unique take on drag and gender to the world.

Behind this rise to national and global fame is a story of searching for and finding one’s self.

The Boy from the Mish by Gary Lonesborough

LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks to read.
LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks.

A funny and heartwarming coming-of-age story, set in a rural Australian community, about 17-year-old Jackson finding the courage to explore who he is, even if it scares him. Compelling, honest and beautifully written, The Boy from the Mish is about first love, identity and the superpower of self-belief.

Gary Lonesborough is a Yuin man, who grew up on the Far South Coast of NSW as part of a large and proud Aboriginal family. Growing up a massive Kylie Minogue and North Queensland Cowboys fan, Gary was always writing as a child and continued his creative journey when he moved to Sydney to study at film school. Gary has experience working in Aboriginal health, the disability sector (including experience working in the Youth Justice System) and the film industry. He was Bega Valley Shire Council Young Citizen of the Year, won the Patrick White Young Indigenous Writers’ Award and has received a Copyright Agency First Nations Fellowship.

Growing up Queer in Australia, Compiled by Benjamin Law

LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks to read.
LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks.

Compiled by celebrated author and journalist Benjamin Law, Growing Up Queer in Australia assembles voices from across the spectrum of LGBTIQA+ identity. Spanning diverse places, eras, genders, ethnicities and experiences, these are the stories of growing up queer in Australia.

For better or worse, sooner or later, life conspires to reveal you to yourself, and this is growing up. With contributions from David Marr, Fiona Wright, Nayuka Gorrie, Steve Dow, Holly Throsby, Sally Rugg, Tony Ayres, Nic Holas, Rebecca Shaw, Kerryn Phelps and many more.

The Reckoning by Magda Szubanski

LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks.

In this extraordinary memoir, Magda Szubanski describes her journey of self-discovery from a suburban childhood, haunted by the demons of her father’s espionage activities in wartime Poland and by her secret awareness of her sexuality, to the complex dramas of adulthood and her need to find out the truth about herself and her family.

With courage and compassion, she addresses her own frailties and fears and asks the big questions about life, about the shadows we inherit and the gifts we pass on.

M to WTF by Samantha Allen

LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks to read.
LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks.

In this poignant audio piece, Samantha Allen takes listeners along for the wild ride of her own transition: The good, the bad, but mostly, the funny. Because once she began this life-changing journey in earnest, Samantha realized that while the emotional trials of gender dysphoria and self-discovery could be harrowing, there were so many laugh-out-loud moments along this winding road.

Think about it: While her 20- and 30-something peers were settling into the people they were going to be for the rest of their lives, Samantha was going through puberty all over again, taking the whole womanhood thing step by glamorous step – from learning the differences between men’s and women’s public restrooms to figuring out how to take off a bra without taking her shirt off first. Recognizing these moments of humour brought her joy in times she needed it most – and sharing them, she learned, could be revelatory.

Naturally Tan by Tan France

LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks to read.
LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks.

In this heartfelt, funny, touching memoir, Tan France, star of Netflix’s Emmy award-winning Queer Eye, tells his origin story for the first time. With his trademark wit, humour and radical compassion, Tan reveals what it was like to grow up gay in a traditional South Asian family, as one of the few people of colour in South Yorkshire. He illuminates his winding journey of coming of age, finding his voice (and style!) and happily marrying the love of his life – a Mormon cowboy from Salt Lake City.

Humorous and poignant personal essays are peppered with style advice, funny lists and the truisms that Tan has accumulated in his journey from South Yorkshire to Netflix.

About a Girl by Rebekah Robertson

LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks to read.
LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks.

In 2000, Rebekah Robertson gave birth to twin boys, George and Harry. But as they grew older, their preferences began to show, and by the age of three, it was clear Georgie was drawn to anything that was pretty or had a skirt that could swirl.

Before long Georgie began to insist that she was a girl and became distressed that she had to hide who she really was when she started school. Soon the bullying started, and she would come home in floods of tears, begging her mother to help her.

Rebekah and her husband, conflicted about how to proceed and overwhelmed by fear, united in their determination to help her live freely and fearlessly. To ensure Georgie had access to medical support they sought permission for her to begin puberty-blocking medication. Their case, Re: Jamie, was the start of the long road to justice for transgender children in Australia and became the basis of the 2013 landmark decision to remove the Family Court’s jurisdiction.

Memorial by Bryan Washington

LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks.

Benson and Mike are two young guys who live together in Houston. Mike is a Japanese American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson’s a Black daycare teacher, and they’ve been together for a few years – good years – but now they’re not sure why they’re still a couple. There’s the sex, sure and the meals Mike cooks for Benson, and, well, they love each other.

But when Mike finds out his estranged father is dying in Osaka just as his acerbic Japanese mother, Mitsuko, arrives in Texas for a visit, Mike picks up and flies across the world to say goodbye. In Japan he undergoes an extraordinary transformation, discovering the truth about his family and his past. Back home, Mitsuko and Benson are stuck living together as unconventional roommates, an absurd domestic situation that ends up meaning more to each of them than they ever could have predicted. Without Mike’s immediate pull, Benson begins to push outwards, realising he might just know what he wants out of life and have the goods to get it.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks.

Brookhants School for Girls: infamous site of a series of tragic deaths more than a hundred years ago. Soon to be the subject of a controversial horror movie about the rumoured ‘Brookhants curse’: in the early 1900s, Brookhants students Flo and Clara fell madly in love, brought together by their obsession for a scandalous memoir. A few months later they were found dead in the woods, after a horrific wasp attack, the book lying next to their intertwined bodies. Three more grisly deaths followed before the school was forced to close. Now, the school’s doors are open once more. But as the crew of glamorous young actresses assemble to start filming, past and present begin to blur. And soon it’s impossible to tell quite where the curse ends and Hollywood begins…

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks to read.
LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks.

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one in the journalism community is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?

Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband, David, has left her, and her career has stagnated. Regardless of why Evelyn has chosen her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jump-start her career. Summoned to Evelyn’s Upper East Side apartment, Monique listens as Evelyn unfurls her story: from making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the late ’80s and, of course, the seven husbands along the way. As Evelyn’s life unfolds – revealing a ruthless ambition, an unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love – Monique begins to feel a very a real connection to the actress. But as Evelyn’s story catches up with the present, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.

Wow No Thank You by Samantha Irby

lgbtq books
LGBTQ+ books and audiobooks.

Staring down the barrel of her 40th year, Samantha Irby is confronting the ways her life has changed since the days she could work a full 11-hour shift on 4 hours of sleep, change her shoes and put mascara on in the back of a moving cab and go from drinks to dinner to the club without a second thought. Recently, things are more ‘Girls Gone Mild.’

In Wow, No Thank You. Irby discusses the actual nightmare of living in a rural idyll, weighs in on body negativity (loving yourself is a full-time job with shitty benefits) and poses the essential question: sure sex is fun but have you ever googled a popular meme?


If you’d prefer books to audiobooks, may we direct your attention to this list of uplifting young adult novels written by LGBTQ+ authors next?

Got another queer book or resource you think people should be checking out right now? Pop it in the comments section below!

This article has been updated since its original publish date. 


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


Leave a Reply