Pride books round-up 2025, part 3: poetry, history & cooking

Here’s the third installment in our Pride 2025 books round-up, with a fascinating collective of books on queer history and queer leadership, and a book investigating how each of them have been attacked and compromised by government entities bent on destroying the idea of diversity. Sound familiar?

Also featured are titles celebrating the fabulous Ballroom culture and the queens who brought it to glamorous life, as well as a brilliant mouthwatering selection of recipe books from queer chefs who bring color and flavor right to your kitchen table.

Please patronize your local bookseller and seek out these wonderful books for your reading pleasure during this very important and pivotal LGBTQ Pride month.  

“Ballroom: A History, a Movement, a Celebration” by Michael Roberson with Mikelle Street, $30 (Running Press)
In this insider’s view of the queer House/Ballroom scene, Roberson, a 30-year veteran of Ballroom and a cultural consultant to the FX series “Pose,” presents a vivid history of the drag ball phenomenon from its supposed 1888 origins in Washington, D.C., to the process of hosting and procuring events, to the impact on awareness, visibility, and equality these unifying shows had particularly on oppressed Black and trans communities.

In grand fashion, Roberson outspokenly guides readers on teaching points about Ballroom culture’s sartorial and behavioral hallmarks, over-the-top runway looks which very much deserve the rich, full-color photographic treatment featured in the book, the cutthroat competitive nature of some participating drag houses, and, lastly and most critically, the nurturing, celebratory sense of family that is bestowed upon both prancers and observers. Get your heels out and share this book with your House.          
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/

“Generation Queer: Stories of Youth Organizers, Artists, and Educators” by Kimm Topping, Illustrated by Anshika Khullar, $22.95 (Tu Books)
In this colorfully-illustrated kaleidoscopic array of queer and transgender profiles, trans/queer artist-educator, writer and historian Kimm Topping, accompanied by illustrator Anshika Khullar, examines how a group of queer youth are altering how the world considers diversity with their creative initiatives and mind frames set on equality through social change.

Topping has assembled 30 determined, outspoken queer community artists, authors, poets, educators and visionaries who contribute thoughts on safe, proactive activism, queer history documentation measures, historical timelines, and then spotlights the luminaries who graced each decade with queer radical protest and enduring achievements.

More recognizable historical figures throughout history are featured alongside contemporary movers and shakers like a Black bisexual Muslim educator (Blair Imani) and a gender-nonconforming public speaker and comedian (Alok Vaid-Menon). The future seems brighter beneath the glow of these motivated, empowered young queer people who have all queer generations in mind when it comes to pride and preservation.      
https://www.leeandlow.com/

“The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity 1869-1939” by Jonathan D. Katz with Johnny Willis, $74.95 (The Monacelli Press)
Art historians Katz and Willis present the print version of a Wrightwood 659 museum exhibition in Chicago through the end of July 2025. This companion volume gathers those museum mounted images and artwork alongside informative, academic essays chronicling the origins and artistic representations of queer identity evolving in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth centuries.

The book vividly captures a period immersed in the struggle for greater queer visibility through the art of its era. The essays, many produced from queer culture experts, probe how the earliest artistic articulations of gender, trans identity, same-sex desire and queer relationships [65] would blossom into public view in a massive cultural revolution of visibility and representation.

Organized geographically, these provocative and often sexually explicit drawings, oil paintings, and sculptures visually depict the tale of a forgotten age in emerging queer history and how art, in all its varying forms and intensities, became an escape and a method of survival for burgeoning homosexual populations across the globe. This colorful tribute to a forgotten era in the annals of queer history is a keepsake for those of us who enjoy looking back at what was once considered groundbreakingly alternative.
https://www.phaidon.com/

“Hardly Creatures: Poems by Rob Macaisa Colgate,” $16.00 (Tin House)
Colgate, a queer disabled poet, playwright, and 2024 Ruth Lily fellow, debuts with this imaginative collection reflecting on the experiences of being disabled while navigating a world that isn’t always welcoming or accommodating.

Distinguishing each section is a universal access symbol which denotes poems centered on access location points, resting benches, close captioning, gender inclusive spaces, physical accessibility, and many others. The poems are creatively unique and play on themes of inclusivity, exclusivity, love, relationships, friendship, companionship, sex, as well as the history of disabled communities told through key moments which mattered most to the poet.

Heartfelt and deeply humanitarian, Colgate carefully and thoughtfully addresses a sensitive topic with art, words, form, charm, and personal meaning, and puts poetry in motion for those who are most challenged by physical movement, mental limitation, and the struggle for equality.  
https://tinhouse.com/book/hardly-creatures/

“American Scare: Florida’s Hidden Cold War on Black and Queer Lives” by Robert W. Fieseler, $32 (Dutton)
Few readers will be surprised by the truth behind this shocking expose on governmental surveillance in the Sunshine State in the mid-twentieth century. Investigative journalist Fieseler uncovers a disturbing amount of evidence supporting the theory that what was called the Florida Legislative Investigative Committee was actually a group of white, aged legislators out to terrorize Black and queer Floridians and create an ultimate “purge” of this dual demographic from jobs and schools across the state.

Fieseler puts human faces on this atrocity with interviews and statements from several citizens who were terrorized by this cruel initiative, which was only curtailed by Supreme Court measures. An undergraduate student recalls being extracted from class and questioned; a music professor was cornered by governmental operatives in a men’s room at a courthouse.

This scandalous activity continued under the guise of uncovering “subversive crime” but what it really became was a malevolent witch hunt against members of vulnerable, at-risk communities. Fieseler’s reportage is riveting and shocking and will remind readers not to ignore the surveillant state of our own slick, serpentine government.     
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/

COOKING

“Baking Across America: A Vintage Recipe Road Trip” by B. Dylan Hollis, $38 (DK)
TikTok Social media personality and New York Times bestselling author Hollis (“Baking Yesteryear”) presents this full-color excursion through cities across America uncovering nostalgic favorite dishes in places like Boston, New Orleans, and Palm Springs, among many others.

Retro desserts are his passion and this idea splashes across pages of anecdotes and recipes that will trigger memories of childhood dinners, birthday parties, and elegant cocktail gatherings for readers of a certain age. The idea became solidified when, out of boredom and curiosity to attempt a recipe he’d found for “Pork Cake”, Hollis baked it on camera, uploaded it to social media, and soon his fanbase began sending in their old cookbooks to Hollis to test out some of the recipes from decades prior.

With over 100 unique recipes representing the best flavors of Americana, Hollis has struck gold-plated wonder with this treasury of recipes and memories. 
https://www.dk.com/us/book/9780744097610-baking-across-america/

In partnership with Book Passage, Hollis will appear June 21, 2pm at Calvery Presbyterian Church, 2515 Fillmore Street, for a Meet & Greet event and to chat about this new cookbook. http://www.bookpassage.com

“Salsa Daddy: Dip Your Way into Mexican Cooking” by Rick Martinez, $32.99 (Clarkson Potter)
Martinez, a colorful, outspoken queer Mexican American and Texan, won a James Beard award with his first cookbook, “Mi Cocina,” and because of the overwhelming response to that book and suggestions that his salsa concoctions were the most enticing part of it, he decided to bring forth an entire book composing his best and most favored recipes for everything salsa-related in Mexican cooking.

From densely flavorful to refreshingly light, Martinez offers takes on traditional salsas in seventy varieties, using ingredients like charred tomatoes and crema (“La Tatemada Cremosa”), and adobo as well as sour oranges, morita, peanuts, chili de arbol, caramelized onions and serrano peppers, and many, many more alongside ideas for fully-conceived meals that incorporate these ingredients like an Albondingas sub sandwich.

“I believe salsa belongs everywhere, all the time,” writes the author before offering chapters on “Salsa Alchemy” describing four go-to ways to use leftover salsa, deep-fried Taquitos (Flautas) Ahogadas, and everything salsa under the sun. This useful, vibrant cookbook is a must-have item for any chef who loves the idea of incorporating salsas into their daily meals.          
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/762096/salsa-daddy-a-cookbook-by-rick-martinez/

“Potluck Desserts: Joyful Recipes to Share with Pride” by Justin Burke & Brian Samuels, $29.99 (Countryman/Norton)
Burke, a food writer, recipe developer, queer food activist, and award-winning pastry chef and baker, has handcrafted this recipe book to celebrate all things home-baked, comforting, and deliriously sweet. Together with photographer Brian Samuels, the pages in this vibrant collection spring to life and beg to be recreated in a reader’s own kitchen.

Categorized by the vessels these dishes are baked in and served from, the opening sections feature recipes that can be served on square, rectangular, sheet, and loaf pans like Strawberry and Cream Cake; moist, caramel-loaded and gooey-sounding Scotcheroos and Grasshopper Brownies; and Brown Butter Snickerdoodle Cookie Bars. Delectable, easy-to-prepare loafs of Peach Cobbler Bread, Honey-Almond Financier, fruit cobblers, trifles, and sweet dessert salads, even ice cream recipes are included as complimentary sides to these favorites.

All of these delights are meant for a crowd of hungry friends at a fun gathering, especially a timely Pride Celebration Slab Tart that will stun your group with its vibrant fruit-filled color set against a backdrop of mascarpone and cream cheese filling. This book is as joyful as it is mouthwatering.      
https://wwnorton.com/

“Dining Out: First Dates, Defiant Nights, and Last Call Disco Fries at America’s Gay Restaurants” by Erik Piepenburg, $30 (Grand Central)
A journalist for The New York Times since 2004, Piepenburg explores the idea and history of the “gay restaurant” culture which became prevalent when queer patrons began eating and hanging out at certain establishments across the country.

Utilizing a treasure trove of interviews with chefs, wait staff, patrons, and culture experts, Piepenburg builds a convincing and engaging legacy of gay-friendly and gay-popular eateries and examines the differences between them and the gay bars that are just as attractive to queer populations.

Whether seated at one of several safe-space queer businesses in San Diego’s Hillcrest neighborhood, or a selection of campy gossipy gay brunch hot spots across the US, [120] or watching “a table of loud-mouthed drag queens scarf down platters of grease-soaked bacon-and-cheese potato skins at two a.m.,” there is plenty to enjoy throughout this fun, thoughtful, and delightfully entertaining romp across the tables of gay restaurants.       
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/