Happy June! Every month we let you know what we’ve been reading and our monthly recommendations, and June of 2026 is no exception. Read on to see new titles with fabulous reviews from the Bay Books team–we’re sure you’ll love these fantastic books just as much as we do. We recommend a wide range of genres and themes, so get ready to explore more books!
Tina’s Picks
The World As We Knew It: Dispatches from a Changing Climate, Edited by Amy Brady and Tajja Isen
This collection of essays shares the less told stories in climate change literature of the stories of individuals and how they’re coping (or not) with the changes occurring in their own lives. Through the literary skills of familiar authors, these essays attempt to answer the question “At a time when our planet is experiencing terrifying and unprecedented levels of change, what corresponding transformations have you witnessed in your lives, yards, neighborhoods, jobs, relationships, or mental health?”. Individual perspectives are shared which will surely provoke some of your own. Highly recommend this!
How To Baby: A No-Advice-Given Guide to Motherhood, with Drawings by Liana Finck
Every parent-to-be needs to have this humorous and informative take on having a baby and how your life will truly change. Perfect for a baby gift, perfect for all genders (‘mothering’ is a skill, not gender based after all), and perfect for those raising children. With a healthy dose of satiric humor, Finck reminds of what it is like when we are preparing for that first baby, how those around us act, how we respond, what comes after, and after, and after…….while baby is oblivious to anything not focused on them and the rest of us scramble to make sure that everything is, well, perfect. Maybe. I’m a grandmother and I loved every minute of it. The illustrations are very well done and to the point.
Wendy’s Picks
The Pink by Marshall Thornton
Thornton is a Lambda award-winning author (the “Lammys” recognize the best in LGBTQ literature). His newly released mystery takes us to 1913 Chicago – from the mean back alleys to the Stockyards, to high society. We follow protagonist Lewis Wait as he leaves his comfortable life in academia and navigates his newfound (dangerous!) career as a Pinkerton detective, his sticky relationship with his mother, as well as his complicated love life. Painstakingly researched and cleverly relayed, you’ll enjoy this charming read and will gain some knowledge of little-known cultural history along the way.
Gay Poems for Red States by Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr.
The author shares his life story as a closeted gay kid growing up in a holler of Appalachia, who went on to be named 2022 Kentucky Teacher of the Year, as an openly gay, married man. Then shortly after this recognition and on the wave of the hateful, anti-LGBTQ movement sweeping the country, he was forced to leave his beloved profession due to on-going harassment from a small but vocal group lead by a woman who regularly attended school board meetings to sling baseless and despicable accusations at Carver and his students. Carver simply no longer felt safe working in the public school system – nor living in the Kentucky mountains that he so loves. The poetry is powerful; the message is crucial.
Becky’s Pick
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
A psychological thriller with social commentary on the performance of womanhood. Natalie is a “tradwife” influencer who sells her perfect pioneer life with farm fresh milk and eggs, a handsome cowboy husband, and six perfect children. The producers and nannies are out of sight and unknown to her millions of social media followers. One day she wakes up on a farm in the 1800s where she has to live the life she has been promoting on her social media feed.
The author presents interesting ways of sharing some contradictions of more traditional ideals including the irony of advocating for a return to a simpler and more pure past, while taking advantage of present freedoms. Religion, misinformation and influencer culture circle around a deeper thread of power throughout this book.
Karin’s Pick
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
Olga Tokarczuk won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015. This contemporary Polish writer’s interests are far-ranging and her novels delight a reader and stretch their credulity at the same time. She’s an acute observer, a wonderer, and a lover of the natural world, and her characters are imbued with these qualities. A great way to get started is with her novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead; the title is a quote from the 18th century poet William Blake whose works figure into this story. If you love to jump into a fictional world that is both quite like and probably very unlike your own, this is a novel for you.
Grace’s Picks
Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays by Joan Didion
If you are a fan of imagining that you’re living in 1960s California (think: Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood meets Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City ), or are simply just looking for a gorgeously written, transportive read, this is the next book for you! Joan Didion’s debut essay collection, Slouching Towards Bethlehem came about in 1968 and is made up of a variety of columns she had originally written for the American magazine The Saturday Evening Post. Examining everything, everywhere, and everyone circa this era, from legendary Western star John Wayne, to a real-deal, old-fashioned San Bernardino murder mystery, to the talented Joan Baez, to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury in all of its countercultural glory, this book (in my opinion) cements Joan Didion in history as a true master of prose and of storytelling that is vividly–sometimes painfully—human. Love!
Making a Way: Lesbians Out Front, Photographs by Jeb (Joan E. Biren)
Published in 1987, this collection of over 100 striking photographs powerfully captures the spirit of lesbian life in the U.S. during the eight years between the First and Second National Marches on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. The individuals and couples featured are represented in varying states and personal settings, from scenes of fierce activism to everyday moments at work or at home, and the images are accompanied by a glossary of names, remarks, and impactful stories from each of those depicted.
Photographer Jeb (Joan E. Biren) does a beautiful job of capturing these women in their truest elements—being authentically and fearlessly themselves—and documents queer love and joy in a truly unparalleled, moving way. In Biren’s words, “To love each other and ourselves, to allow our love to overcome our fears—I believe that this is the way we begin to change the world.”
