The Best Queer Books of 2026, According to Barnes and Noble

Barnes & Noble quietly released its picks for the Best Books of 2026—so quietly that most of us missed it. I went through all 17 categories, from Fiction to Business Books to eBook Series, to highlight the queer books included. These are just the titles I recognized as having queer content. Unfortunately, I don’t yet have a complete mental rolodex of every queer book in existence, so I might have missed some. They range from gay literary fiction to trans horror to queer science writing. How many have you read? Get 15% off annual All Access memberships for a limited time in celebration of Book Riot’s 15th anniversary! Savings amount to more than 3 months of free unlimited access to our entire content archive, plus features like Collections and the New Release Index. Claim your savings and start leveling up your reading life. John of John by Douglas Stuart (Fiction)Booker Prize winner Douglas Stuart delivers John of John, one of the most highly anticipated novels of the year, about a young man who returns to his home in the Hebrides islands to reckon with the tension between his family’s expectations and his own desires. —Rebecca Schinsky Our Queerest Shelves Sign up for bookish ...