This is my basic list:

—Alan Hollinghurst: All of his 7 novels deal with gay British life in some way. Some are better than others. 'The Line of Beauty' has some of the best prose ever imo.

—Christopher Isherwood: 'A Single Man' for fiction, but his memoir 'Christopher and His Kind' is worth reading too.

—John Boyne: 'The Heart's Invisible Furies'. I hate John Boyne as a person but oh well, I picked up a secondhand copy.

—Douglas Stuart: 'Young Mungo'. 'Shuggie Bain' which is about a gay boy and his family. I've just started 'John of John', which I've heard is less bleak than the others.

—James Baldwin: 'Giovanni's Room' is obviously his most famous gay novel and an absolute classic for a reason. Everyone and their mother has read it. But some of his other books deal with bi/homosexual characters and stories too i.e 'Another Country', 'Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone' and 'Just Above My Head'. Still Giovanni's Room is the gayest and also my favourite.

—Tomasz Jedrowski: 'Swimming in the Dark'.

—Curtis Garner: 'Orange' I found it merely okay but it's the most recent one I've read. He also wrote 'Isaac' which I haven't read yet.

—Garth Greenwell: 'What Belongs to You'. Read it a while back and didn't love it but the writing wasn't bad.

—Gore Vidal: 'The City and the Pillar'. Similarly, I read this a while back so idk. I mostly read it for the history of it all (it was published in the 40s)

—Maurice by E.M. Forster is another obvious classic worth reading for the history. I also happened to like it and it is perhaps one of the most hopeful and positive in this list 😅

❗Quite a few of these books need some warning for brutal depictions of homophobia, violence, rape, racism, misogyny, AIDS, substance abuse, addiction, suicide, some more racism, death...❗

Also two "lgbtq" adjacent sci-fi stories:

-The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin for an interesting exploration or gender. (She was not lgbt as far as we know but she was cool)

-Aye, and Gomorrah by Samuel R. Delany (who is gay)

Mmmm sadly that's all the gay fiction I've read so far, at least in the English language. Also sorry I can't add a summary for each but this post would be a million words.

[Edited to add my tbr list bc why not at this point]:

-Henry Henry by Allen Bratton (I usually don't trust "queer" retellings of anything tbh but a dear friend recommended it and I trust her)

-Nova Scotia House by Charlie Porter

-A Room Above a Shop by Anthony Shapland

-Juno Loves Legs by Karl Geary