Your Bi-bliography: great books for Bi Visibility Day
Today is Bi Visibility Day, which means it’s the best day to get your bifocals on and check out some representations of bisexuality in our collection with your guide, librarian by day and archivist by night, Clare:
Clare pictured holding a copy of Bifocal, the newsletter that ran from 1994-1996 for BAM (Bisexual Awareness in Melbourne), a group of bisexual individuals and allies that provided information and support for bisexuals, their partners, and friends, in the Australian Queer Archives.
There are thousands of incredible books about the dynamic and varied experience of being bi, but we want to make sure you can borrow our recommendations straight away if you’re interested, so for this post we will be suggesting reads that Deakin Library has in our catalogue.
Clare’s recommendations
- The happy couple by Naoise Dolan – This was one of the favourites at my queer book club last year. The characters may be messy and unlikeable, but the text is sharp and witty.
- Can I steal you for a second? by Jodi McAlister – If you’re a fan of the Bachelor / Bachelorette franchise and particularly loved Australia’s recent bi season with Brooke Blurton, you will like this book by Deakin academic Jodi McAlister whose field of expertise is romance fiction!
- Red, white & royal blue by Casey McQuiston – This book might provide a nice escape from the current US election.
- Growing up Queer in Australia edited by Benjamin Law (deakin.edu.au) – Some of the ‘bi-lights’ from this book for me include ‘How to be both’ by Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen, ‘A robust game of Manball’ by Patrick Lenton and the LGBTI-Q & A with Kate McCartney.
Fiction
- Scarecrow by J.E. Sumerau
- Heartstopper Volume 1 by Alice Oseman
- The upside of unrequited by Becky Albertalli
Poetry
- The lost Arabs by Omar Sakr
- Hera Lindsay Bird by Hera Lindsay Bird
- Leaves of grass by by Walt Whitman
- Dear birch by Margaret Christakos
- Unbecoming by Neil Surkan
Non-fiction
- Bi: the hidden culture, history and science of bisexuality by Julia Shaw
- Life isn’t binary: on being both, beyond, and in-between by Meg-John Barker and Alex Iantaffi
- Big love: reclaiming myself, my people, my country by Brooke Blurton
- The letters of Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf edited by Louise DeSalvo and Mitchell A. Leaska
- Bisexual and pansexual identities: exploring and challenging invisibility and invalidation by Nikki Hayfield
- Bisexuality, religion and spirituality: critical perspectives edited by Andrew Kam-Tuck Yip and Alex Toft
- Women in relationships with bisexual men by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli
- Bisexual men exist: a handbook for bisexual, pansexual and m-spec men by Vaneet Mehta
- Bi: bisexual, pansexual, fluid, and nonbinary youth by Ritch C. Savin-Williams
- The B word: bisexuality in contemporary film and television by Maria San Filippo