Martin Soudek’s shelfless Shelfie
I don’t have a shelf for these yet, but this collection is important to me. These books chart my long journey as a gay man toward radical self-acceptance, from secrecy and shame to desire named aloud, from inherited silence to voices that taught me how to speak.
I came to this realization while fighting, in real life, for dignity and fairness in an institution I belong to that historically persecuted queer people. Reading has become both an act of refuge and resistance.
Somewhere along the way, I realized survival isn’t solitary. It’s communal. So I started a queer book club, not as a solution, but as a place to thrive: a community where we can read in conversation with the past, disagree gently, listen deeply, and recognize ourselves in one another.
These works remind me that literature didn’t just help me accept who I am; it helped me find where I belong.
Martin Soudek is a lawyer living in Ottawa, Canada. You can find him on Instagram at @m50ud and his bookclub at @OttawaQueerBookClub.
Shelfies is edited by Lavie Tidhar and Jared Shurin.
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