The Oldest & Very Best LGBTQ & Feminist Bookstore in the Country
New Releases
Aristotle and Dante Dive Into the Waters of the World
The highly anticipated sequel to the critically acclaimed, multiple award-winning novel Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is an achingly romantic, tender tale sure to captivate fans of Adam Silvera and Mary H.K. Choi.
In Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, two boys in a border town fell in love. Now, they must discover what it means to stay in love and build a relationship in a world that seems to challenge their very existence.
Ari has spent all of high school burying who he really is, staying silent and invisible. He expected his senior year to be the same. But something in him cracked open when he fell in love with Dante, and he can’t go back. Suddenly he finds himself reaching out to new friends, standing up to bullies of all kinds, and making his voice heard. And, always, there is Dante, dreamy, witty Dante, who can get on Ari’s nerves and fill him with desire all at once.
The boys are determined to forge a path for themselves in a world that doesn’t understand them. But when Ari is faced with a shocking loss, he’ll have to fight like never before to create a life that is truthfully, joyfully his own.
Holiday Gift Guide
Holiday Gift Guide
Just in time for the holidays we have put together a list of the extraordinary, eye-catching, best-selling titles of our 2021 at PAT @ Giovanni’s Room (so far). These are the books that defined our year: true stories of incredible experiences, fabulous imaginings from diverse perspectives, gorgeous art and photography, and more. We’ve also included a brief collection of what’s always popular, regardless of the year, and of course our perennial CALENDARS!
Events
Keith Boykin: Race Against Time
Keith Boykin is a CNN political commentator, New York Times best-selling author, and a former White House aide to President Bill Clinton. His new book is Race Against Time: The Politics of a Darkening America (September 14, 2021).
A graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School, Keith has taught at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University in New York and at American University in Washington, D.C. He is a co-founder and first board president of the National Black Justice Coalition and a Lambda Literary Award-winning author of four books.
Keith was a co-host of the BET Networks talk show “My Two Cents,” starred on the Showtime reality television series “American Candidate,” worked as an associate producer of the film “Dirty Laundry,” and has appeared on numerous TV shows, including BET’s “Being Mary Jane.”
Born in St. Louis, Keith has lived in 12 cities, visited 48 of the 50 United States, and traveled the world. He lives in New York City.
Best Seller
Dream of a Woman
Casey Plett’s 2018 novel Little Fish won a Lambda Literary Award, the Firecracker Award for Fiction, and the Amazon First Novel Award (Canada). Her latest work, A Dream of a Woman, is her first book of short stories since her seminal 2014 collection A Safe Girl to Love. Centering transgender women seeking stable, adult lives, A Dream of a Woman finds quiet truths in prairie high-rises and New York warehouses, and in freezing Canadian winters and drizzly Oregon days.
In “Hazel and Christopher,” two childhood friends reconnect as adults after one of them has transitioned. In “Perfect Places,” a woman grapples with undesirability as she navigates fetish play with a man. In “Couldn’t Hear You Talk Anymore,” the narrator reflects on past trauma and what might have been as she recalls tender moments with another trans woman.
An ethereal meditation on partnership, sex, addiction, romance, groundedness, and love, the stories in A Dream of a Woman buzz with quiet intensity and the intimate complexities of being human.
Book of the Week
All of Us Villains
An Indie Next Pick!
The blockbuster co-writing debut of Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman, All of Us Villains begins a dark tale of ambition and magick… You Fell in Love with the Victors of the Hunger Games.
Now Prepare to Meet the Villains of the Blood Veil. The Blood Moon rises. The Blood Veil falls. The Tournament begins.
Every generation, at the coming of the Blood Moon, seven families in the remote city of Ilvernath each name a champion to compete in a tournament to the death. The prize? Exclusive control over a secret wellspring of high magick, the most powerful resource in the world–one thought long depleted.
This year, thanks to a salacious tell-all book, the seven champions are thrust into the worldwide spotlight, granting each of them new information, new means to win, and most importantly, a choice: accept their fate or rewrite their story.
But this is a story that must be penned in blood.
New Local Releases
Excellent Sons: A Love Story in Three Acts
Still teenagers, we had started to build the foundation of an eternal love, one kiss, one smile, one caress at a time. And in my youthful arrogance, I’d been sure the house of love we were building would be impervious to the world’s disapprobation, no matter how mightily it huffed and puffed and blew.”
Tristan and Max are a pair of Asian-American high school students who find themselves unexpectedly in love in post-Columbine America.
Tristan works to balance what it means to be an excellent son, with its prescribed expectations and attendant demands, with his growing desire for independence and his deepening feelings for Max. While Max, after years of hopelessness, feels himself come alive at Tristan’s touch, he tries desperately to forge a path forward that centers his identity and allows him to fully express his feelings for Tristan.
Just seventeen, they are learning to navigate the multiple worlds they must live in to keep themselves and their growing love safe. Like any other dating couple, they are looking forward to attending prom and planning a trip to Paris the summer after graduation, before they start college, when a shocking act of homophobic violence shatters their world.
Told via alternating, intertwining points of view, Excellent Sons combines a contemporary gay romance with an erotic retelling of a classic fairy tale that both centers and drives the novel. Yet beyond love and romance and the primacy and urgency of sex, the book examines what it means to be an excellent son, the relationship between lovers and parents, and parents and children, and what we as children owe our parents, and ourselves.
Introducing Queer Atlas
Welcome to Queer Atlas, a podcast broadcasting out of Philly AIDS Thrift @ Giovanni’s Room. Queer Atlas has been created to highlight queer & trans art, activism, and spaces here in the city of Philadelphia. Each episode features an interview from a special guest, conversations about new and old LGBTQ media we are enjoying, as well as a peek at life in our store.