14 must-read queer books like The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

Cover of The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

The Argonauts

By: Maggie Nelson

3.91

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

An intrepid voyage out to the frontiers of the latest thinking about love, language, and family Ma…

If you liked the queer plot in The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson , here is a list of 14 books like this:

Cover of Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado

1. Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

By: Carmen Maria Machado

3.84

Format: 248 pages, Paperback

In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders betwe… read more

Similar categories in Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body and Other Parties: Stories book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

  • feminism
  • queer
  • lgbt
"I'm having a crisis of function."

-Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

"None of us will make it to the end."

-Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

"What I say: “Why did you leave her with me?"

-Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

"Everything is soft, like a fresh oil painting."

-Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

Cover of Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

2. Citizen: An American Lyric

By: Claudia Rankine

4.27

Format: 169 pages, Paperback

A provocative meditation on race, Claudia Rankine's long-awaited follow up to her groundbreaking bo… read more

Similar categories in Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

  • nonfiction
  • essays
"You can't drive yourself sane."

-Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric

"Memory is a tough place. You were there."

-Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric

"That's the bruise the ice in the heart was meant to ice."

-Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric

"The past is a life sentence, a blunt instrument aimed at tomorrow."

-Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric

Cover of Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse by Anne Carson, Stesichorus

3. Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse

By: Anne Carson , Stesichorus

4.27

Format: 160 pages, Paperback

The award-winning poet Anne Carson reinvents a genre in Autobiography of Red, a stunning work that … read more

Similar categories in Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

  • queer
  • lgbt
"Under the seams runs the pain."

-Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse

"There is no person without a world."

-Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse

"Don't want to be free want to be with you."

-Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse

"Sometimes a journey makes itself necessary."

-Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse

Cover of The Idiot by Elif Batuman

4. The Idiot

By: Elif Batuman

3.66

Format: 423 pages, Hardcover

A portrait of the artist as a young woman. A novel about not just discovering but inventing oneself… read more

Similar categories in Elif Batuman's The Idiot book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

"For a while now, I have been conscious of a tension in my relationship with you,"

-Elif Batuman, The Idiot

"Lighting a match felt exciting and a little bit dangerous, and when the flame came into contact with the paper, it made a sound like the needle coming down on a record player—like the music was about…"

-Elif Batuman, The Idiot

"For the first time in my life, I couldn't think of anything I particularly wanted to study or to do. I still had the old idea of being a writer, but that was being, not doing. It didn't say what you …"

-Elif Batuman, The Idiot

"Suddenly it occurred to me that maybe the point of writing wasn't just to record something past but also to prolong the present, like in One Thousand and One Nights, to stretch out the time until the…"

-Elif Batuman, The Idiot

Cover of Inferno (A Poet's Novel) by Eileen Myles

5. Inferno (A Poet's Novel)

By: Eileen Myles

4.25

Format: 355 pages, Paperback

"All the lesbian intimacy you've yet to find on OKCupid can be found in this book." -- Lambda Liter… read more

Similar categories in Eileen Myles's Inferno (A Poet's Novel) book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

  • feminism
  • queer
  • lgbt
Cover of Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

6. Stone Butch Blues

By: Leslie Feinberg

4.43

Format: 230 pages, Hardcover

Woman or man? This internationally acclaimed novel looks at the world through the eyes of Jess Gold… read more

Similar categories in Leslie Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

  • feminism
  • queer
  • lgbt
Cover of The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

7. The Argonauts

By: Maggie Nelson

3.91

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

An intrepid voyage out to the frontiers of the latest thinking about love, language, and family Ma… read more

Similar categories in Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

  • biography
  • memoir
  • lgbt
  • feminism
  • nonfiction
  • essays
  • queer
Cover of I Love Dick by Chris Kraus, Eileen Myles, Joan Hawkins

8. I Love Dick

By: Chris Kraus , Eileen Myles , Joan Hawkins

3.81

Format: 336 pages, Paperback

In I Love Dick, Chris Kraus, author of Aliens & Anorexia, Torpor, and Video Green, boldly tears awa… read more

Similar categories in Chris Kraus's I Love Dick book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

  • feminism

9. Outline

By: Rachel Cusk

4.20

Format: 488 pages, Hardcover

A woman writer goes to Athens in the height of summer to teach a writing course. Though her own cir… read more

Similar categories in Rachel Cusk's Outline book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

Cover of Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

10. Giovanni’s Room

By: James Baldwin

4.33

Format: 224 pages, Paperback

Set in the contemporary Paris of American  expatraites, liasons, and violence, a young man finds  h… read more

Similar categories in James Baldwin's Giovanni’s Room book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

  • queer
  • lgbt
"Nobody can stay in the Garden of Eden."

-James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

"Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition."

-James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

"...for nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom."

-James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

"I loved her as much as ever and I still did not know how much that was."

-James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

11. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

By: Audre Lorde

3.88

Format: 96 pages, Paperback

ZAMI is a fast-moving chronicle. From the author's vivid childhood memories in Harlem to her coming… read more

Similar categories in Audre Lorde's Zami: A New Spelling of My Name book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

12. Chelsea Girls

By: Eileen Myles

4.27

Format: None pages, Paperback

Available once again for a new generation of readers, the groundbreaking and candid coming-of-age n… read more

Similar categories in Eileen Myles's Chelsea Girls book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

13. Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era

By: Paul B. Preciado , Bruce Benderson

3.98

Format: None pages, Paperback

What constitutes a "real" man or woman in the twenty-first century? Since birth control pills, erec… read more

Similar categories in Paul B. Preciado's Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

Cover of In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

14. In the Dream House

By: Carmen Maria Machado

4.42

Format: 251 pages, Hardcover

For years Carmen Maria Machado has struggled to articulate her experiences in an abusive same-sex r… read more

Similar categories in Carmen Maria Machado's In the Dream House book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

  • biography
  • memoir
  • lgbt
  • feminism
  • nonfiction
  • queer
"But this story? This one's mine."

-Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

"I thought you died, but writing this, I'm not sure you did."

-Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

"Your heart launches itself against your rib cage like an animal."

-Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

"How do you get someone you want to want you? Why did no one love you?"

-Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

Cover of Nevada by Imogen Binnie

15. Nevada

By: Imogen Binnie

3.97

Format: 290 pages, Paperback

A beloved and blistering cult classic and finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fi… read more

Similar categories in Imogen Binnie's Nevada book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

  • queer
  • lgbt
"James does what anybody would do when they see somebody they'd like to know: he ignores the shit out of her."

-Imogen Binnie, Nevada

"It's like I got drunk all the time not because I'm a total addict but because it was a coping mechanism to deal with being unhappy"

-Imogen Binnie, Nevada

"Oh, Williamsburg. There was a point when you seemed like a scary, tough neighborhood, but now it's obvious that the graffiti on your walls gets put there by art students."

-Imogen Binnie, Nevada

"Eventually you can't help but figure out that, while gender is a construct, so is a traffic light, and if you ignore either of them, you get hit by cars. Which, also, are constructs."

-Imogen Binnie, Nevada

Cover of Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency by Olivia Laing

16. Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency

By: Olivia Laing

4.01

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

“One of the finest writers of the new non-fiction” (Harper’s Bazaar) explores the role of art in th… read more

Similar categories in Olivia Laing's Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

  • feminism
  • nonfiction
  • essays
  • queer
"Empathy is not something that happens to us when we read Dickens. It’s work. What art does is provide material with which to think: new registers, new spaces. After that, friend, it’s up to you."

-Olivia Laing, Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency

"The Argonauts is about these small, miraculous domestic dramas, and the acts of readjustment and care that they require, but it is also a reconsideration of what the institutions established around s…"

-Olivia Laing, Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency

"Fiction can do that: can make a space for reflecting, for generating novel ways of responding and reacting to lies and guns and walls alike. The mere act of cracking open a book, Smith thinks, is cre…"

-Olivia Laing, Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency

"These narratives are interesting in and of themselves, but Nelson isn’t just airing her feelings out. She’s bent on using these experiences as ways of prying the culture open, of investigating what i…"

-Olivia Laing, Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency

Cover of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor

17. Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

By: Andrea Lawlor

3.87

Format: 354 pages, Paperback

It’s 1993 and Paul Polydoris tends bar at the only gay club in a university town thrumming with pol… read more

Similar categories in Andrea Lawlor's Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

  • queer
  • lgbt
"Inside Paul something tight released: a rusted nut turned finally around its old bolt. White sheets were thrown off moldering couches with a fanfare of dust and sunlight."

-Andrea Lawlor, Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

"It was June, and like everyone else Paul made himself extremely busy going to queer art openings and queer punk shows and queer spoken word showcases and queer evenings of performance art. He was exh…"

-Andrea Lawlor, Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

Cover of Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

18. Detransition, Baby

By: Torrey Peters

3.94

Format: 337 pages, Hardcover

A whipsmart debut about three women—transgender and cisgender—whose lives collide after an unexpect… read more

Similar categories in Torrey Peters's Detransition, Baby book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

  • queer
  • lgbt
"The moment elongates like pulled taffy."

-Torrey Peters, Detransition, Baby

"All pain merits care, but not dogmatically egalitarian relativism."

-Torrey Peters, Detransition, Baby

"The days I don't love you... I have to work hard to make those days happen."

-Torrey Peters, Detransition, Baby

"She's the type to turn hardship into hardness, like a shield for people she loves."

-Torrey Peters, Detransition, Baby

Cover of Reverse Cowgirl by McKenzie Wark

19. Reverse Cowgirl

By: McKenzie Wark

4.12

Format: 200 pages, Hardcover

Another genre for another gender. What if you were trans and didn't know it? What if there were … read more

Similar categories in McKenzie Wark's Reverse Cowgirl book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

  • memoir
  • lgbt
  • feminism
  • nonfiction
  • essays
  • queer
Cover of My Meteorite: Or, Without the Random There Can Be No New Thing by Harry Dodge

20. My Meteorite: Or, Without the Random There Can Be No New Thing

By: Harry Dodge

3.93

Format: 336 pages, Paperback

An expansive, radiant, and genre-defying investigation into bonding--and how we are shaped by force… read more

Similar categories in Harry Dodge's My Meteorite: Or, Without the Random There Can Be No New Thing book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

  • biography
  • memoir
  • lgbt
  • nonfiction
  • queer
Cover of No Archive Will Restore You by Julietta Singh

21. No Archive Will Restore You

By: Julietta Singh

4.28

Format: 118 pages, Paperback

At once memoir, theory, poetic prose, and fragment, No Archive Will Restore You is a feverish medit… read more

Similar categories in Julietta Singh's No Archive Will Restore You book and Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts

  • biography
  • memoir
  • lgbt
  • feminism
  • nonfiction
  • essays
  • queer

7 Best nonfiction books like The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

Transform Your Habits

Citizen: An American Lyric

Claudia Rankine

4.27

Transform Your Habits

The Argonauts

Maggie Nelson

3.91

Transform Your Habits

In the Dream House

Carmen Maria Machado

4.42

Transform Your Habits

Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency

Olivia Laing

4.01

View all the books

18 Top fiction books like Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

Transform Your Habits

Play It As It Lays

Joan Didion , David Thomson

3.92

Transform Your Habits

The Bluest Eye

Toni Morrison

4.12

Transform Your Habits

The Stranger

Albert Camus , Matthew Ward , Stuart Gilbert , None

4.02

Transform Your Habits

White Nights

Fyodor Dostoevsky

4.06

View all the books

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