Lesbian Fiction Catalogue as of November 2014
Books are listed in alphabetical order of author’s last name. Details of books are in the following order:
Catalogue number
Author
Title
Description
Date published
Number of tapes
Reader’s name
023
Aldridge, Sarah
The Latecomer
Two women meet briefly on a ship returning from Europe. A strange set of circumstances reunites them and their relationship develops into love.
Published 1979
3 tapes
Read by Marlene Tise
031
Arnold, June
Sister Gin
A story about an older lesbian. Sue worries about hot flushes, frustrated creativity and a growing compulsion to leave her lover, Bettina. Then 77-year-old Maimie Carter, bridge player and vigilante, enters her life.
Published 1979
4 tapes
Read by Ruth Parry
163
Arrowsmith, Pat
Somewhere Like This
A documentary-style novel that describes, with stark realism, prison life from the viewpoint of women prisoners and their prison officers. Gripping and fascinating, it describes inner thoughts and beautiful and painful lesbian romance. An excellent account of 1970s lesbian life in prison.
Published 1970
5 tapes
Read by Betty
045
Bedford, Sybille
A Compass Error
A Seventeen year old girl in the south of France is seduced by the wife of a fashionable painter, is led by betrayal to discover identity and purpose in her life.
Published 1984
6 tapes
Read by Jill Wight
113
Boock, Paula
Dare, Truth or Promise
Teenage fiction. When Louie and Willa first meet, they don’t know their lives will soon be changed forever. Willa wants only to get through her final year at school quietly so she can graduate and become a chef. More than anything, she wants to be left alone. But each girl unexpectedly finds that plans mean nothing when it comes to love.
Published 1999
3 tapes
Read by Betty
177
Boulter, Amanda
Around the Houses
Anna is having a baby. The father is gay. Her lover is a woman and still hasn’t told her parents. This is a funny, telling tale about a neighbourhood where different identities, sexualities and communities generate conflict, humour and wacky situations in equal measure.
Published 2002
5 tapes
Read by Chris Stevenson
204
Boulter, Amanda
Back Around The Houses
Sequel to Around the Houses (cat. 177). Pearl is now living above the Cosmic Café in Balham where business is booming and designer T-shirts, body pierced animal rights activists and vegans mix easily.
Published 2003
6 tapes
Read by Chris
007
Bradshaw, Jan & Hemming, Mary (eds)
Girls Next Door: Lesbian Feminist Stories
Witty, touching, funny and sad stories. Some by accomplished writers and others by new writers, all reflecting the warmth and comfort of feelings of women for each other.
Published 1985
5 tapes
Read by Helen Brown
041
Brady, Maureen
Folly
Folly is a refreshing and skilfully told story of a group of Southern US women factory workers who unite, despite their differences and strike; also about women exploring their love for one another.
Published 1982
6 tapes
Read by Marlene Tise
112
Brown, Rita Mae
Rubyfruit Jungle
Molly Bolt, she’s just another dirt poor little old southern girl who played doctor with the boys beat up Leroy, lost her virginity to her girlfriend in 6th grade. A skinny big-mouthed brat who grew up beautiful, mesmerised the head cheerleader of Ft Lauderville High, captivated a gorgeous Jack-Daniels-guzzling heiress and took off for New York City to become the greatest film-maker that ever lived.
Published 1994
4 tapes
Read by Betty
030
Clausen, Jan
Sinking Stealing
Josie and Erika are runaways on a Greyhound Bus trip across America. Theirs is no ordinary relationship, for Josie is not 10-year-old Erika’s mother. Powerful novel about lesbian custody and parenting.
Published 1985
4 tapes
Read by Lee Lanning
239
Cooper, Fiona
Rotary Spokes
Cooper’s first novel, a classic, tells of bike-mechanic Rotary Spokes, as she expands her horizons geographically and sexually.
Published 1988
7 tapes
Read by Betty
156
Cooper, Fiona
Jay Loves Lucy
Jay, mid-30s, comfortable with single life finds her world turned upside down when she falls in love. But Lucy is mid-40s, divorced, devoted to her only son and has never kissed a woman before. Jay is the woman who won’t take no for an answer; Lucy the mistress of the endless maybe. Sly and funny by turn, this describes a rite of passion, from love’s first flutter to its fall and in doing so paints a painful portrayal of opposing sensibilities
Published 1991
3 tapes
Read by Elaine
146
Darling, Julia
Crocodile Soup
Gert Hardcastle, a 30-something lesbian, catalogues Egyptian artefacts in a dusty Northern museum. Unlucky in love, she thinks she has found The One in Eva – who works in the cafeteria. As Gert embarks on her hilarious and poignant pursuit, she looks back on her eccentric childhood.
Published 1998
5 tapes
Read by Elaine
272
Donoghue, Emma
Stir-fry
Maria has just arrived in Dublin. Staying with her aunt, Maria decides to move out, so she answers an advertisement pinned up in the students’ union. She finds herself sharing a flat with Ruth and Jael, two older, more sophisticated, feminist women, who she eventually realizes are lovers.
Published 1995
5 tapes
Read by Betty
117
Donoghue, Emma,( ed)
The Mammoth Book of Lesbian Short Stories
an international array of the best-known lesbian authors and new talents, some stories have been specially commissioned for this work, from such writers as Dorothy Allison, Patricia Dunker, Tanith Lee, Jennifer Levin, Anna Livia, Ingrid Macdonald, Sara Maitland, Shani Mootoo, Elizabeth Taylor, Shay Youngblood, and many others.
Published 1999
15 tapes
Read by Jane
159
Dorcey, Mary
Biography of Desire
Biography of Desire explores the conflicting , ambivalent currents of loyalty and desire through the lives of two women. Katherine, a married woman and mother of two , first meets Nina by chance in the casualty ward of a city hospital.
Published 1997
9 tapes
Read by Pat Coleman
230
Dreher, Sarah
Solitaire and Brahms
Lesbian oppression in the 1950s – the devastating conflict between public and private life – described in the most intimate detail. Shelby Camden expresses her innermost thoughts and feelings in a way no one else has done. This book gives young and middle-aged lesbians a taste of our history. It also gives old lesbian survivors a sense of pride.
Published 1997
11 tapes
Read by Elaine
129
Duffy, Maureen
Illuminations
Hetty has taken early retirement after an unhappy affair with the male head of the history department in the college where she lectured. When she accepts a surprise invitation to address an EEC conference in Germany she little expects that her life is about to be utterly transformed. She stumbles across the letter of an 8th century nun and is fired by Tetty’s heroic journey. Hetty has embarked on her own voyage where she meets and falls in love with a young German woman, Helga.
Published 1992
6 tapes
Read by Betty
247
Dummler, Stephanie
The Dovecote
A Lesbian love story that mocks the status quo of the 1960s&70s. This is the engaging story of a young girl, only 10 at the beginning, growing up in the 60s and 70s, discovering her sexuality and finally falling in love with a woman. Her story alternates with that of an older woman, married with a child, who discovers that she is lesbian by nature; consequently she faces many difficulties and misunderstandings, both socially and within her own family.
Published 2009
5 tapes
Read by Betty
115
Dykewomon, Elana
Beyond the Pale
This tells a story of Jews who fled violent anti-Semitism in Russia to emigrate to New York’s Lower East Side. Most of the 20th Century’s political passions – trade unions, anarchism, socialism, women’s suffrage – are spelled out in this moving chronicle.
Published 1997
10 tapes
Read by Lia
236
Edwards, Nicky
Tough At The Top
Felicity, a newly unemployed urban lesbian feminist, decides to re-build a house she has inherited. 2 local women, Elsbeth and Shirley, change as they find themselves engaged in the re-building project. Throughout, is a narrative given by a Neolithic lesbian.
Published 1992
6 tapes
Read by Betty
100
Ernshaw, Carol
7 moves
After her girlfriend vanishes, Chris follows a trail to Morocco and back. 7 Moves powerfully tracks Chris’s gradual recognition that no one can truly know another person’s soul.
Published 1998
7 tapes
Read by Jane
109
Forrest, Katherine V
Curious Wine
The group of women who meet for a ski weekend will all be touched by what happens in the intimate log cabin by Lake Tahoe. But for beautiful Lane Christianson and hurt vulnerable Diana Holland, the events are to prove cataclysmic.
Published 1993
4 tapes
Read by Ruth
185
Forrest, Katherine V.
Flashpoint
It is the last weekend in September during the summer of 1991 and a political decision to be announced in California will have far-reaching effects on America’s lesbian and gay community. In a cabin in a Southern California mountain resort, four people wait in mutual antagonism for Donnelly, the woman who has summoned them there, the woman with whom they have all shared a part of their lives.
Published 1994
6 tapes
Read by Betty
014
Galford, Ellen
The Fires of Bride
Humorous novel about Maria, an artist, and Catriona, clan chieftain, GP, and witch on Cailleach, a remote Scottish island. Maria feels empathy with the Sisters of Bride who worshipped the One True Goddess.
Published 1986
6 tapes
Read by Dusty Rhodes
128
Galford, Ellen
Queendom Come
During the “reign” of a rather dominating female Prime Minister, the ancient Britain and magnificent virago, Albanna, has returned to her Queendom, demanding an excess of regal attention and Chinese take aways. With the help of her lesbian high priestess Gwhyldis, she is fulfilling a promise made to deliver her people in times of trouble.
Published 1991
4 tapes
Read by Betty
210
Galford, Ellen
The Dyke and the Dybbuk
Dybbuk Kokos, feisty soul-stealing demon of mediaeval Jewish folklore, has been trapped in a tree for 200 years. When lightning finally strikes and she is freed, Kokos finds herself in the 20th Century and she must hunt down the descendent of the woman she was instructed to haunt centuries ago. She is Rainbow Rosenbloom, a London taxi driver, film critic, lesbian and niece to a pack of formidable aunts. As this hilarious tale unfolds both Rainbow and her dybbuk discover that history still holds a few tricks up her sleeve.
Published 1993
6 tapes
Read by Jill
019
Hanscombe, Gillian
Between Friends
Letters between four women. Challenges assumptions and beliefs about sex with men, monogamy, love, lesbianism, sisterhood. Lesbian love story.
Published 1983
4 tapes
Read by Karen Smudsky
026
Lang, Elizabeth
Anna’s Country
From suburban housewife to lesbian mother – a gentle retiring woman decides to change her life. She leaves her abusive husband and seeks refuge with her neighbour. She discovers her own identity and strengths.
Published 1981
7 tapes
Read by Marlene Tise
131
Lee, V G
The Comedienne
It’s time for Joan to try her luck on the London comedy circuit. After all, everyone always said she was a funny woman. A touching evocation of loneliness and the complex relationship between an ageing mother and daughter. A light touch. A wonderful laconic style and spot-on humour.
Published 2000
6 tapes
Read by Gill Johnson
194
LEE, V.G.
The Woman in Beige
Lorna has a newspaper round and her dole money to support her in her mission to complete the Alternative, Alternative Cookbook. The only distractions are her neighbour and his wilderness garden with his giant albino rabbit, Alfred the Great, and a woman called Dan who dresses in beige and makes Lorna’s heart leap with every encounter. But it won’t be long before Dan’s strange behaviour makes Lorna suspect her of a most peculiar crime.
Published 2003
9 tapes
Read by Elaine
235
Lee, V G
Diary of a Provincial Lesbian
Lesbian humour. When Georgie gives Margaret a diary for Christmas along with a copy of EM Delafield’s classic novel Diary of a Provincial Lady, she decides to write her own version and this is the books narrative. We follow Margaret through the heartache and reawakening that frames her year.
Published 2006
6 tapes
Read by Betty
028
Livia, Anna
Relatively Norma
A Lesbian feminist novel of Minnie from Brixton, south London visiting her family in Australia accompanied by her alter ego, Milly. Full of verve, wry ingenuity and anarchic fun.
Published 1982
6 tapes
Read by Anna Livia
049
Lynch, Lee
Toothpick House
In Lee Lynch’s first novel, Annie Heaphy, cab-driving baby butch, lives a life of freedom in a shack on the Connecticut coast. Her dislike of Yalies and all they represent extends to beautiful, self-possessed Victoria Locke … until they fall in love. Toothpick House is also the story of the burgeoning women’s movement, and the changes it brought to traditional lesbian lives.
Published 1983
5 tapes
Read by Lee Lanning
152
Lynch, Lee
Old Dyke Tales
A collection of very different stories about older lesbians in America: warm, funny, touching, always interesting and very entertaining. Excellent characters, plot and dialogue.
Published 1988
5 tapes
Read by Pat Coleman
126
Lynch, Lee
That Old Studebaker
This book addresses the questions about love that we all have rolling around in our heads. There are many different characters, all have different attitudes and ways of living their lives. Each character is refreshing and the ride in the old Studebaker puts a nice perspective on coming out in a straight world.
Published 1991
4 tapes
Read by Betty
025
Mahyere, Eveline; translated by White, Antonia
I Will Not Serve
Lesbian novel of boarding-school life, written in the 1950’s. Tells of Sylvie, gifted and defiant, and her obsessive love for a nun, for which she has to leave the school. Witty, finely balanced prose.
Published 1984
3 tapes
Read by Judith Humphrey
052
Manning, Rosemary
The Chinese Garden
Rachel is the victim of her own passions as well as other people’s in this novel of school life.
Published 1984
3 tapes
Read by Doreen Langfield
051
March, Caeia
Three Ply Yarn
A passionate story of three women struggling to take command of their lives, increasingly intertwining with each other. Full of the realities of working-class lesbian experience, an absorbing story.
Published 1987
6 tapes
Read by Caeia March
180
March, Caeia
Spinster’s Rock
Sequel to ‘Three Ply Yarn’ (Cat. 051). When Lotte and Deanne see a ramshackle old place, they know it is for them. Within months they have moved in and started to renovate their new home. But, as blissful as their new lifestyle is, they are never cut off from the harsh realities around them.
Published 1999
5 tapes
Read by Betty
199
March, Caeia
The Hide and Seek Files
Set between 1920 and 1980 this story reflects the history of lesbians in working class North of England. Moss and her partner Biff are the mainstays of their northern mining community. A devoted couple who run the local grocery shop, but are they quite what they seem?
Published 1998
8 tapes
Read by Betty
182
Marlow, Jane
Maddie and Anna’s Big Picture
Girls and girls, girls and boys, boys and boys, and – blessed relief – not a stereotype amongst them. This is a funny and moving first novel about lust, lies and leaseholds; about friends and lovers and those little fibs they tell…
Published 2002
6 tapes
Read by Betty
229
Mendelson, Charlotte
Daughters of Jerusalem
Jean Lux, constrained academic, wife and guilty mother, is waiting for excitement and it will come from an unexpected source. Meanwhile Eve, her intelligent elder daughter, loathes her younger sister. Into this climate of repression and bitterness enters Raymond Snow who begins to show interest in Eve. However, Jean’s best friend Helena has an unspoken love for her, a love that may alter everyone’s life forever.
Published 2004
7 tapes
Read by Jill
140
Miller, Isabel
Side by Side
Sharon and Patricia grew up across the street from each other, and right from the start Sharon knew they were meant to be together. It is 1950’s America and, discovered by their parents, they are separated while still in their teens. Over the next few years they travel different paths, when they find each other again they are in the midst of the Stonewall riots. It takes all their courage to put their lives and future and their love completely on the line.
Published 1990
4 tapes
Read by Abi
119
Miller, Isabel
The Dooryard full of Flowers and other short pieces
Short stories and poems, including extracts of the incomplete sequel to ‘Patience and Sarah’.
Published 1993
3 tapes
Read by Betty
022
Millett, Kate
Sita
An account, by the lesbian author of the classic feminist work “Sexual Politics”, of her intense affair with an older woman.
Published 1977
8 tapes
Read by Rosy Meehan
048
Miner, Valerie
Movement
After she leaves home in the turmoil of the sixties, Susan moves on to Canada and London – where she becomes a writer and editor, feminist and lesbian
Published 1982
4 tapes
Read by Madeleine Walton
106
Morgan, Claire (Patricia Highsmith)
The Price of Salt (Carol)
The story of a young woman, Therese, who is captivated at first sight by Carol, an older married woman. Not having realised any lesbian feelings before, Therese is completely stunned by this sudden rush of emotion. Happily, both women do ‘connect’ and develop a relationship. Unhappily, Carol exacts a very heavy personal price for pursuing this lesbian relationship.
Published 1991
8 tapes
Read by Jane
044
Namjoshi, Suniti
Conversations of Cow
A funny but informative novel telling of the adventures of a lesbian cow and a rather straight homosexual woman…
Published 1985
2 tapes
Read by Madeleine Walton
213
Newman, Leslea
A Letter to Harvey Milk
Lesbian Short Stories: Nine warm-hearted, good-humoured stories alive with the sounds of many women’s voices, about being lesbian and Jewish in the USA. This anthology includes tales of childhood, family ties and lesbian relationships.
Published 1988
6 tapes
Read by Betty
135
Pass, Gail
Zoe’s book
An astonished young woman is plucked from her studies at the British Museum and brought to a bizarre household where she meets Zoe Mohr. The young woman listens incredulously to her claims of association in her youth to Virginia Woolf and the men and women of Bloomsbury.
Upblished 1976
5 tapes
Read by Elaine
105
Retzig, Jane
Boundaries
West Yorkshire, 1979. social worker Elizabeth Smith has finally gathered the courage to end her unhappy marriage. Lost and lonely, she buries herself in work to keep her emptiness at bay. Then she takes in battered sixth former Jan as a lodger and suddenly she finds her whole world turned upside down….
Published 1995
4 tapes
Read by Betty
018
Roberts, Michelle
A Piece of the Night
Julie Fanchot, convent educated, trained to please but still clinging nevertheless to knowledge that she’s also the witch, the whore, mad woman and lesbian.
Published 1978
6 tapes
Read by Rosie Ilett
142
Rule, Jane
Desert of the heart
This lesbian classic is set in Reno, where Evelyn is waiting 6 weeks for her divorce. There she meets Ann, 15 years her junior, free spirit and lesbian, who refuses to ignore the powerful feelings being unleashed against the backdrop of the Nevada desert.
Published 1975
5 tapes
Read by Betty
143
Rule, Jane
Outlander
Short stories and essays. In which Jane Rule evokes a startling variety of lesbian lives with sure-handed artistry.
Published 1981
5 tapes
Read by Betty
024
Rule, Jane
After the Fire
At the end of an eight-year relationship Karen comes to an island off the coast of Vancouver. She becomes absorbed into the lives of four women there and discovers new definitions of family and community.
Published 1989
4 tapes
Read by Jodi Abell
161
Salvatore, Diane
Paxton Court
A close circle of lesbian and gay friends retire together to Florida. The newcomers to ‘Paxton Court’ are a shock to the neighbours. This book is about how people learn to live together. It is sexy, moving and very funny.
Published 1995
4 tapes
Read by Jill
034
Sarton, May
The Magnificent Spinster
Jane Reid epitomises all that is glorious about the state of spinsterhood and, in particular, the freedom to form and maintain friendship of the rarest, most courageous and most lasting kind.
Published 1985
8 tapes
Read by Mazzy
005
Schulman, Sarah
After Dolores
The tough, colourful lesbian culture of Manhattan’s Lower East Side finds a go-go dancer, a well-read hairdresser, a trigger-happy cashier, dangerous actress, and a Priscilla Presley impersonator brought together in this story of murder and loss of love.
Published 1989
3 tapes
Reader unknown
162
Schulman, Sarah
Girls, Visions and Everything
A quirky novel about lesbians on the Lower East Side of New York. They fall in love, have sex with friends, imagine themselves as great American heroes, work dull jobs, and endear themselves to the reader. Schulman richly describes lesbians in the context of their own community and the larger society around them. Very funny, very sexy.
Published 1999
5 tapes
Read by Elaine
263
Shacklady, Helen
The Stolen Crate
This lesbian thriller, the middle volume in an acclaimed trilogy, weaves together the love story begun in The Patterned Flute (cat. No. 202), with the tale of a movement protesting against green field developments planned in the North of England. In between the demands of another scary plot, emotional commitment looms largest for the principal lovers.
Published 2002
4 tapes
Read by Betty
042
Taylor, Valerie
Prism
Anne finds herself newly single at 65. Retiring from work she moves to a small town in Chicago where she expects to stay closetted for the rest of her life. But then Anne meets a woman who’s startling revelation changes both their lives. Will love triumph…?
Published 1981
4 tapes
Read by Marlene Tise
144
Toksvig, Sandi
Flying under Bridges
Eve didn’t entirely mean to kill the groom…after all, she was the mother of the bride. Inge Holbrook, TV celebrity and Eve’s best friend from school moves back to Edenford and changes lives. Middle-England, church morality and male authority beware to be challenged in this witty and moving novel
Published 2001
7 tapes
Read by Betty
147
Tulchinsky, Karen X.
In Her Nature
Desire, love, hot sex, cool sex, relationships, grieving, surviving, thriving as a Jewish dyke – it’s all here in this rich and warm debut collection of short stories. Delivered in clean, caring prose, In Her Nature serves up a delicious slice of life born and lived lesbian.
Published 1995
5 tapes
Read by Lia
173
Tulchinsky, Karen X
Love Ruins Everything
Nomi Rabinovich is dumped by her girlfriend – for a man. She plots her revenge and swears off love. But she then travels to be with a very extended family for her mother’s second wedding. Gay (male) politics enlarge the plot before love breaks out again. Intrigue and melodrama shine right in this uproarious novel.
Published 1998
7 tapes
read by Pat Coleman
feministaudiobooks 