The Pride of books in Dublin City Libraries

This weekend the city will celebrate the annual Dublin LGBTQ+ Pride Festival. 

You can use your library card on Borrowbox to access a host of LGBTQI+ eBooks and audiobooks from the comfort of your home. We’ve picked a selection of these below. These books contain complicated friendships, loneliness, families both close and estranged, budding romance and mysteries.

Access eBooks/eAudiobooks on BorrowBox on your phone, tablet or reader or download the BorrowBox app from your App Store (Google Play) (iTunes) (Kindle Fire). Once you have installed the app, search for Dublin in the ‘Library’ field provided and then sign in using your library membership card number and PIN. Watch our how to video on Borrowbox. Members of other library authorities will need to log in using a different link.

If you don’t have a library card at the moment, if you need to renew your library membership, or if you’re not sure of your PIN, don’t hesitate to contact your local library and they will help you; please see here for more information on library membership.

Browse the library catalogue. 

The Hours follows three women, in three different generations, all of whom are interlinked and affected by the novel Mrs. Dalloway. Each woman lives through a Tuesday in June and as the hours go on, their stories interweave with shared themes of love, loss, sexuality and illness. Each woman’s day is told by a different narrator in this BBC dramatisation of Michael Cunningham’s award winning novel. 

Perfectly Preventable Deaths. Twins Madeline and Catlin move from Cork to Ballyfran, a strange and isolated town surrounded by mountains. Finding their feet in a new school, a new family, neither of them could expect the secrets the mountains around them hold. They start to grow apart as Catlin falls in love and Madeline starts to discover she has secrets of her own to keep. But the danger around them is coming closer. 

The Death of Vivek Oji. Shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2022. Starting on the day that Vivek Oji dies, and with the despair of his mother, this novel weaves back and forth between Vivek’s childhood and the aftermath of his death. Set in Nigeria during the 80s and 90s it explores experiences of sexuality & gender and the impact of criminalisation on the LGBTQ+ community there. This non-linear story flicks between the perspectives of Vivek’s family as they struggle to understand him even as their lives are shaped by his gentle and mysterious spirit.

Confessions of the Fox. An intriguing and compelling story within a story. A 21st-century academic, Dr. Voth, finds a manuscript, the confessions of Jack Sheppard, an 18th-centuary thief. The manuscript follows Jack’s experience of transitioning gender, love affair with his partner-in-crime Edgeworth Bess and their run ins with the law. Dr. Voth begins to annotate the document with scholarly comments but quickly his comments become more personal. The novel uses satirical commentary. 
 

The Gracekeepers. In a world covered by the sea most people live on boats or the small scattered islands that remain. North is a dancer and bear-tamer who lives on a circus boat, but the boat is crowded and the undercurrents of the troupe’s emotions threaten any stability they have. Callanish lives alone on a graveyard island, tending to the resting places of those who die at sea. When these two young women are brought together by a storm, their worlds widen and change. But can they beat the tide?
 

Stung With Love. Despite the majority of her work being lost, destroyed or fragmented, Sappho is still a well-known and influential lyric poet. Her depictions of relationships and love between women have caused her name and birthplace, Lesbos, to be referenced in the terms lesbian and Sapphic. This new translation by Aaron Poochigian contains a preface by British Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy.
 

Real Life. Told over the course of one weekend in late summer, Real Life follows Wallace, a PhD student between that weekend and flashbacks to his childhood, his earlier college days. Wallace is black and gay, and he has built walls around himself for self-preservation. His friends don’t really know what he’s going through, too busy with their own lives. But over this weekend, confrontations with colleagues and a budding flirtation with an ostensibly straight classmate may fracture his defences. 

From our colleague, Esme.