Since 2003, the 331⁄3 book series has provided in-depth analyses of albums from as early as the late 1950s to as recent as the late 2010s.
Not to be outdone, the “Singles” series, edited by Emily J. Lordi and Joshua Clover, narrows the focus to one song. The latest installment, “Under Pressure” (Duke University Press, 2025) by Max Brzezinski, puts the 1981 pop anthem by David Bowie and Queen in the spotlight, giving it the star treatment.
Even though Elton John may be in retirement mode, he’s never far from the public eye. His 2024 documentary, “Elton John: Never Too Late,” earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song (“Never Too Late”). That tune also appeared on his 2025 Brandi Carlile collaboration album “Who Believes in Angels?” Matthew Restall’s “On Elton John: An Opinionated Guide” (Oxford University Press, 2025), described as “a lively and imaginative exploration” of the Rocket Man’s career, earns Captain Fantastic a place for himself on your bookshelf.
In “The Vinyl Diaries: Sex, Deep Cuts, and My Soundtrack to Queer Joy” (Random House Canada, 2025), Toronto-based gay writer Pete Crighton, tells his coming-of-age story in the early days of the HIV/AIDS crisis, with an emphasis on the influence of the music of the era. Crighton, who has fabulous taste in music, separates the book into two sides (like an LP), and uses song titles (Marianne Faithfull’s “Broken English,” the B-52s’ “Give Me Back My Man,” Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” and Radiohead’s “High and Dry,” among many others to separate sections.
It's difficult to pinpoint why exactly, but queer British authors seem to have a knack for writing about the intersection of music and LGBTQ life. Martin Aston’s “Breaking Down The Walls Of Heartache: How Music Came Out” and the late Darryl W. Bullock’s “David Bowie Made Me Gay” (both from 2017) are two prime examples. The latest British writer to enter that fray is Jon Savage with his book “The Secret Public: How Music Moved Queer Culture from the Margins to the Mainstream” (Liveright Publishing Corporation/W.W. Norton, 2025) in which he takes “fresh looks” at Janis Ian, Sylvester, New York Dolls, Bette Midler, Liberace, Grace Jones, and Dusty Springfield, to name a few.
Speaking of the Brits, as part of the British Film Institute’s BFI Screen Guides series, we now have “100 Queer Films Since Stonewall” (BFI/Bloomsbury, 2025) by Chelsea McCracken & Matt Connolly. Beginning with Toshio Matsumoto’s “Funeral Parade of Roses” (1969) and concluding with Harshavardhan Kulkarni’s “Badhaai Do” (2022), the book also includes a selection of domestic (“The Birdcage,” “Parting Glances,” “But I’m A Cheerleader,” “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”) and international (“La Cage Aux Folles,” “Taxi Zum Klo,” “Yossi & Jagger,” “BPM,” and “Rafiki”) titles, as well as films with numerous accolades to their names (“Moonlight,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “Boys Don’t Cry,” and “Flee”).
Michael Koresky, editorial director at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image, is the author of “Sick and Dirty: Hollywood’s Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness” (Bloomsbury, 2025). A sort of companion to Vito Russo’s highly regarded “The Celluloid Closet,” Koresky’s book spans more than 100 years, from 1922 (Alla Nazimova’s “Salome”) to 2024 (Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw The TV Glow”), from the days of the Motion Picture Production Code (Hays Code) to the far more liberated and progressive present day.
“To Broadway” (Abrams Comic Arts, 2025), by Maurane Mazars, is a stunningly illustrated graphic novel that tells the story of Ulrich Rosenstiehl, better known as UIi, a freckled modern dance student in postwar (1957) Germany. Frustrated by the strict limitations of the Folkwang Institute, Uli’s dreams of dancing on Broadway (and perhaps alongside his idol Gene Kelly in films), he heads to New York in search of his great loves: dance and fellow dancer Anthony.
