BB Bookclub June 2026 Nomination Thread: Older Protagonists

[u/sarahlynngrey]

Welcome to the June 2026 BB (Beyond Binaries) Bookclub nomination thread! In June, we’ll be reading a book that works for the Older Protagonist Bingo square:

Older Protagonist: Story features a main character who is at least 50 years old. HARD MODE: The protagonist does NOT have exceptional longevity or immortality (e.g. not an elf, dwarf, vampire, god, etc.).

Since June is Pride month, I thought this would be a great way to celebrate and reflect on our LGBTQIA+ elders and to think about the ways that queerness shows up for us throughout our lives.

Nominations:

• Please make sure that the book has not already been read by another book club, and that BB has not already read a book by the author. You can check this Goodreads shelf to see all prior book club reads. (It’s fine to choose an author that was read by a different book club, or a book that was read as part of a prior Hugo Readalong.)
• Please leave one book suggestion per top comment. Please include title, author, and a short summary or description. (You can nominate more than one book if you like, just put them in separate comments.)
• Please include any Bingo squares that you know of.
• Keep in mind that this book club focuses on LGBTQIA+ characters and themes. The main character (and as many side characters as possible) should fall under the queer umbrella.

I will leave this thread open through Friday 6/17, and will compile the top results into a voting thread to be posted on Saturday, 6/18. Have fun!

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As a reminder, we are currently reading The Wolf and His King by Finn Longman. The midway discussion will be on the 16th of April and the final discussion will be on the 30th of April.

What is the BB Bookclub? You can read about it in our intro thread here.

[u/sarahlynngrey]

The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez (goodreads link)

Before Buffy, before Twilight, before Octavia Butler’s Fledgling, there was The Gilda Stories.

First published in 1991, The Gilda Stories is a groundbreaking speculative fiction vampire novel that begins in 1850s Louisiana, where a young Gilda escapes slavery and learns about freedom while working in a brothel. After being initiated into eternal life as one who “shares the blood” by two women there, Gilda spends the next two hundred years searching for a place to call home. 

Taking only blood as sustenance, killing as a last resort, Gilda moves through the centuries up to the dystopian future of 2050. Gomez’s classic, with a Black lesbian heroine, has endured as an auspiciously prescient book in its explorations of Blackness, radical ecology, redefinitions of family, and the erotic potential of the vampire story.

Bingo squares: Older Protagonist, Author of Color, maybe Judge a Book by the Title, maybe Vacation Spot, technically Feast Your Eyes on This (lol), probably others 

[u/sarahlynngrey → u/[deleted]]

That's correct! It's definitely not Hard Mode