the ace shelf
every book about asexuality
I was going to make a video called the five books about asexuality. I was wrong by about ten.
There are at least fifteen nonfiction books about being asexual and a fiction list I could not finish reading out. So why did I think there were five? Same reason you probably do. There are three that everyone recommends, everyone recommending them is quoting each other, and the rest of the shelf has been sitting there the whole time being invisible.
This is the actual list, sorted by what each book is for.
means I have actually read it. 7 of 29 so far. That mark is the point of the page: a list of every book about something that only holds what one person got round to is a reading diary, and that is how the shelf got this narrow in the first place. I will move the dots as I read.
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start here
if you are questioning right now, these three ask the least of you. two of them are comics and you can finish either in an afternoon.
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a graphic memoir. the panels where everyone else is reacting and the narrator is standing there not feeling it. the one to pick up when you cannot face three hundred pages of argument.
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A Quick & Easy Guide to Asexuality
under a hundred pages, both creators ace. the fastest introduction that exists, and the one to send someone who has just been told and does not know what to do with their face.
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the elder of the shelf. before this there was almost nothing written for a general audience. what asexuality is, what it is not, the misconceptions. it holds up, though the internet it describes is a decade old.
the arguments
these are doing more than explaining. each one has a thesis, and each one asks more time of you.
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Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
the best written book on this shelf, and still not the one to start with. chen is a journalist, and this is not a book about asexual people so much as a book that uses asexuality to look at everything else: why we assume desire is universal, and who gets believed about their own body.
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Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture
the first of its kind. asexuality read through anti-Blackness and the history of how Black bodies have been forced into a hypersexual role, which makes "i do not want this" almost unhearable. if you add one book to the standard list, add this one.
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Ending the Pursuit: Asexuality, Aromanticism and Agender Identity
the most recent of the three, and it takes on all three identities at once, which almost nothing does. paramo founded AZE Journal.
the manuals
for when you are past "what is this" and into "so how do i actually live".
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I Am Ace: Advice on Living Your Best Asexual Life
from Ace Dad Advice. warm, unhurried, slightly older than you and not remotely embarrassed. how to tell someone. what to do about dating.
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Ace Notes: Tips and Tricks on Existing in an Allo World
illustrated, practical, and about the daily business of being ace around people who are not.
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the most structured of the three, and the one that covers aromanticism properly instead of as a footnote.
other ace people talking
not one author explaining. a lot of people who are not you, saying things you have thought.
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built from interviews across the whole spectrum, asexual and aromantic and demi and grey.
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from the podcast of the same name. it applies the aspec lens to basically everything, which turns out to be most things.
the academic shelf
nobody ever mentions this one and it exists. it is dry and it is not for a 1am crisis. but if anyone has ever implied there is no serious thinking behind any of this, the serious thinking has been going on for over a decade and it has footnotes.
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by the researcher behind the one per cent figure everybody quotes, including me.
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Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives
the edited collection. where the academic conversation actually happens.
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reads intimacy and compulsory sexuality through feminist theory.
the fiction
the part that surprised me. this is where the shelf is not small at all, and it is not one genre. fantasy, science fiction, historical, mystery, romance. we are not confined to the coming out novel any more and i do not think most ace people know that.
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georgia goes to university determined to finally have the romance she has read about her whole life, and works out she is aromantic and asexual. she is not fixed at the end, and the love story is her friendships. the one i would hand my fifteen year old self.
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not an asexuality book, which is why it is here. a friendship at the centre on purpose, and a demisexual lead in a book that is not about that.
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a biromantic asexual protagonist in an actual cozy romance. the break-up questions in the first chapter are the ones every ace person has been asked.
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kann again, the adult one.
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portal fantasy, and one of the first mainstream books with an ace protagonist who says so on the page and is respected for it by every other character.
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a Lipan Apache girl who can raise the ghosts of dead animals, investigating her cousin’s death. ace protagonist, and the book is about the mystery.
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on my tbr. romantic asexual lead, and a web series that goes viral.
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on my tbr. grief, sisters, and a lead who is working out she may be both aro and ace.
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The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy
on my tbr. historical adventure with an asexual lead who wants to be a doctor.
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on my tbr. science fiction, four astronauts, and the ace reading is in the texture rather than the plot.
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on my tbr. a reality dating show, and a lead who is demisexual.
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on my tbr. a romance with an ace love interest, written by someone who writes very good romance.
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on my tbr. a trans boy running a blog of fake meet cutes, and it gets complicated.
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on my tbr. science fiction on a pleasure moon, with an ace lead.
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on my tbr. Persian-inspired fantasy, blood magic, a plague, and a nonbinary refugee lead.
books people sent me
This part is not written yet, on purpose. If there is one I have missed, tell me and it goes here.
which one on here has nobody ever recommended to you?
come think with me
when the shelf grows, i will tell you
i am reading my way through the ones with no dot. one letter when there is something worth saying, never more.
- one letter a week, about a ten minute read
- all nine printable workbooks, free
- the research, with its caveats kept in
- hit reply and it reaches me. i read every one
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all of this is free and it stays free. if it gave you a word you didn’t have, you can buy me a coffee.