Welcome to The Rainbow Shelf - Your next queer read awaits!

The Rainbow Shelf

Discover a world of queer stories
Featured books

Featured books

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

Set in the contemporary Paris of American expatraites, liasons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morali…

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The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

One is a vengeful princess seeking to depose her brother from his throne.
The other is a priestess searching for her family.
Together, they will change…

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A Restless Truth by Freya Marske

Maud Blyth has always longed for adventure. She'd hoped for plenty of it when she agreed to help her beloved older brother unravel a magical conspira…

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I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea

Laure Mesny is determined to make it in the cut-throat world of ballet, and she will do anything to prove that this Black girl can take centre stage.…

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Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

Teeming with energy, humour and heart, a love song to black Britain told by twelve very different people.

Grace is a Victorian orphan dreaming of the …

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Learning Curves by Rachel Lacey

For Audrey Lind, working with clay still evokes memories of her favorite professor. The woman’s zeal for art history ignited Audrey’s own academic ca…

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On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

This is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family'…

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Pet By Akwaeke Emezi

There are no monsters anymore, or so the children in the city of Lucille are taught. Jam and her best friend, Redemption, have grown up with this les…

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About The Rainbow Shelf

The Rainbow Shelf curates a diverse collection of literature that celebrates queer voices and stories. Based in Johannesburg and shipping nationwide - find your next queer read here!

Growing up, I always struggled to find queer books, or they were scattered across different sections in bookshops. Un…

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Please drop us a message, we would love to hear from you! Can't find the book you want, let us know and we'll try source it for you.