2-Spirit Bookshelf

Recent Posts

all

257

exclusive

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • May 6

Mental Health Awareness Month - A Book List

31 books

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • Apr 29

I haven’t been posting much about what I’ve been reading so here are some thoughts on books I’ve read recently!\ \ Monstrilio- SO worth the hype. I loved how real this story felt despite being tilted with a grim fantasy strangeness. I find that takes a really talented and creative writer. It is beautiful but totally gutting (pun….intended). I can’t wait to see more from this author.\ \ Best quote “god is a scumbag“ lmaoo\ \ How to Lose Everything- this hurt my heart so much. The title says it all- someone who really loses everything. And this is felt hard while reading. The author is a queer Indigenous woman who went through hell but still grew a life blooming with flowers and joy. A very empowering memoir.\ \ Heart the Lover- I had super high hopes for this one and I think it met them?? It was extremely well written. I didn’t love the plot but the writing was so engaging, I really felt like I too was experiencing everything the characters were going through. The references to other renowned works was a cool element in this one. Also, the card game I am dying to play because it sounds so good lol who wants to play Sir Hincomb Funnibuster???\ \ Lost Lambs- Major ICK. How does this have so many rave reviews? It’s racist and ableist as fuck.\ \ There is a way to portray shitty characters and this just isn’t it. I don’t even feel comfortable typing out the quotes. 🥴 gross\ \ Join for free or login

Rapid Reviews Reading Update

4 books

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • Apr 10

If you follow my blabbing on threads or know me personally, you’re probably aware I’ve been making a conscious effort to read/recommend books by authors who I genuinely respect.\ \ This is really important to me and sometimes feels very challenging because I have strong convictions yet always want to give folks the benefit of the doubt. I feel so bummed out when I find out someone is not who I thought they were. But I guess that’s life. That’s social media and public platforms.\ \ Here are 7 books by authors who I will always stand behind and 7 books by authors I will no longer be recommending (*weeps a little*).\ \ If you have book recs by stand up authors (subjective, I know) I’m always looking for more! :)\ \ \ \ Upgrade for $5 or login

Authors: forevers and nevers

7 books

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • Apr 3

[Here are some Indigenous audiobooks that are currently on sale on Libro! (I think it varies by region)\ \ Audiobooks took me a looong time to get into. As someone with autism and ADHD, processing information (especially verbal) has always been a challenge. But I really wanted to find a way in, especially during burnout, when reading with my own eyeballs is too dang hard.\ \ If audiobooks are hard for you too, but you want them to work, I really recommend pairing them with something that keeps your body busy and your mind open to processing sound information. I know a lot of people craft, but for me that takes too much focus because I need to think about my art. What’s helped me is sort of mundane tasks like doing the dishes, tidying up, small chores that you can do on auto pilot. Audiobooks make those moments feel more doable and enjoyable. There has been a substantial increase in my available spoons since getting into audiobooks!!\ \ I used to avoid listening on walks because I really value being present- taking in the world around me and being in relationship with the land. But lately I’ve been going on night walks with an audiobook, and it’s been sooo nice. A different kind of presence. In the darkness of night the sounds are dull, the brightness is gone, the humans are asleep and everything is . It’s just you and a story and the light of the moon. (sometimes some little furry pals lurking about !!) I find myself walking three times farther than usual. It’s turned into a gentle way to move my body, especially on days when that feels hard. It’s my new favourite coping skill (and I’ve been needing to do a lot of coping!!!!)\ \ If you haven’t joined libro, I highly recommend it. It is superior to every other audiobook service. You get to support in the bookstores and the sales selection is always vast and you get to keep the audiobooks, even if you unsubscribe and you can bookmark different parts of them, etc!!!\ \ Feel free to join using my link so I can read more💕 https://libro.fm/referral?rf\_code=lfm992710\\ \

Audiobook love & sale selection!

9 books

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • Mar 20

\ \ Just received one of my most anticipated books of the year! Jake Skeets new poetry collection will be released in 4 days by Milkweed Editions! We will be posting our giveaway next week so stay tuned. They also sent me extra copies for friends and family so I’ll probably save a couple for more giveaways! :)\ \ I will be reading this over the weekend and will try to get a review up.\ \ About:\ \ “Beauty is possible even when it appears impossible. An astounding book.” —Joy Harjo, author of Washing My Mother’s Body\ \ “For now, go out and dream of joy, we know the labor of feeling it.”\ \ With Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, Jake Skeets emerged as a visionary new literary voice, offering readers a queer, Indigenous poetics inextricable from a connection to land. With Horses, Skeets tracks the shifting land of the Navajo Nation: What changes and what remains the same in a place that has been inhabited for thousands of years?\ \ In poems employing numbers significant to Diné thought and lifeway, Skeets explores the reclamation of land, imagination, and language—a world beyond environmental apocalypse, where joy is possible and where transformation is embraced over erasure. Arranged as a quartet, Horses begins with a meditation on two hundred horses found dead, mired in mud that had once been a stock pond on Navajo land in Arizona. What was once a source of life had become a death trap for a herd living on the edge of survival. From here, Skeets’s poems radiate outward, tracing the body and its relationship to a landscape marked by geologic time and the fragile, eroding moments of the present.\ \ Fiercely observant, brilliantly constructed, and hauntingly incisive, Horses evokes both the end of a world and a new dawn emerging on the horizon.](https://2spiritbookshelf.binderybooks.com/item/2HNfLgi2NjthociYzgEe/)

Jake Skeets New Poetry+ Giveaway

1 book

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • Mar 16

Top 10 Trans & Genderqueer Books

Trans Rights Read A Thon Must Reads! Part 2 coming as well as a fully Indigenous Trans Book list too 🫀🫀🫀

Checkout my bookshop.org/shop/indigenousbookshelf for a full list!

Thank you @transrightsreadathon for pulling this together. Y’all check out their page for more info and TAKE ACTION YOOO **The Trans Rights Readathon is an annual decentralized call to action for readers and book lovers in support of Trans Day of Visibility (TDOV) on March 31st**

10 books

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • Mar 15

\ \ For the lovers of “Unhinged” books except I’m tired of seeing that word used so much recently on bookstagram so I’m just gonna go with WTF instead\ \ Some of my recent reads. These are not Indigenous, but explore other areas of marginalized identities such as disability, trauma, mental illness, gender, sexuality, class, etc.\ \ Also sorry I’ve been so absent, I’m really struggling with my health!!!! :(\ \ but I will try to commit to more regular posts!](https://2spiritbookshelf.binderybooks.com/item/BRgcaFRORytMDYyjeMNz/)

WTF BOOKS????👀

3 books

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • Mar 5

5 Book giveaway for this heart wrenching and poetic Palestinian Litfic!

5 Book giveaway for this heart wrenching and poetic Palestinian Litfic! To enter: - comment an emoji that reminds you of who (or what) you love!!

And if you’re super cool, you’ll also follow @houseofanansi who has so kindly offered these books to give it to y’all and the debut author @ashzgl ! ♥️😊

Winners will be announced in 10 days ! (March 15)

Happy reading, pals!

1 book

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • Mar 4

Indigenous books out this year! With descriptions this time

More global Indigenous Books out this year! Decided to do some posts with a description of the books. Stay tuned for more! Has anyone here started the StoryGraph challenge?????

4 books

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • Feb 6

\ \ hey y’all\ \ I am so sorry for the radio silence on all of my social media platforms.\ \ For those of you who didn’t see my Instagram story yesterday evening I’ve been in the hospital for quite a while and I haven’t had access to my phone. I now have access to my phone, but no laptop, which is where I do my editing so I’m gonna do my best to work without it but I’m not too tech savvy with my phone lol so bare with me for a little bit please! I swear it’ll be worth it because I have a lot of giveaways coming up including five copies of Seven Heavens Away which is in the photo here and I am currently reading!\ \ These are some of the books. I am reading right now or have just finished. I’d specifically chosen some of these ones for this post because i’d like to highlight them as they are lesser known and have special meanings to me!:\ \ Red Rain was just given to me by my best pal. It is a memoir written by their close friend/ 2-Spirit mentor. I am only partway through, but it is a story like no other I have heard. It has been giving me a lot of hope specifically at this time in my life while I am in the hospital.\ \ The Autistic Survival Guide to Therapy has been a book. I’ve been working through over a few months, even though it is quite short. It was recommended to me by my previous therapist who is the first ever care worker who have been able to support and connect with me after a whole lifetime of traumatic experiences with clinicians. This book has been a godsend and I can’t believe it isn’t more well known because the information in it is so very important for both autistics and therapists/ care workers and potentially anyone who has a mental health issue and/or goes to therapy. I will be doing a full review on this book once I have processed my thoughts, but I just want to say here that if you have autism and haven’t been able to find professional support, this book might really help you. It is very accessible and has tangible suggestions for you to try out.\ \ The last book I really wanted to highlight is The Flesh Of Ice. This author was suggested to me by Cherie Dimaline, who y’all know is a fantastic storyteller and has also been a good pal to me over the last year. ( I believe she actually mailed me a different one of his books, but I haven’t been home to read it). Anyway, as I move forward on my book content creation journey I have been trying to focus on authors, who I know are just good people trying to do good things. This is what I know about this author (who by the way is two spirited). Although most of his books are not super well known, you might be familiar with one he collaborated on called Tsqelmucwílc. In the flesh of ice, Gary picks up on a previous poetry book he has written, telling stories (traumas) of survivors of the Kamloops Residential School, as well as sharing stories from their descendants. This is a really important collection for folks to read, especially Canadians. The stories shared do not hold back- name are named, horrors are shared, and the ending gives space for these folks to take back their narratives. Please do check out this author, especially if you’re into reading Indigenous, poetry, or are Canadian!\ \ Ps: if you’d love to support my work or just help me out if you’re that kinda cool person please feel free to purchase any of these books from my bookshop! Unfortunately, physical copies can’t be sent to Canada yet, but if you’re in Canada, you could get the e-book version. Physical copies available in the US (and you also get to choose which indie bookstore you want to order from so your supporting the book world in all sorts of ways!!) https://bookshop.org/shop/indigenousbookshelf](https://2spiritbookshelf.binderybooks.com/item/NS2ruGhQJrnx8h3yEQOi/)

I am alive& sorry for the radio silence

6 books

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • Jan 13

\ \ Hey y’all\ \ Sorry I’ve been slow on here lately, I had the plague 😷\ \ I just wanted to give a little update on some of the audiobooks I’m reading now or have recently read.\ \ I am going through a bit of a time right now, so I might not be so active over the next week or two. If anyone has any audiobook suggestions to get me through the black hole of my life feel free to let me know lolllll 🥴 (for context I am losing Lulu aka the only reason for my being)\ \\ I couldn’t tag howling woman or misbehaving at the crossroads I think because they aren’t out yet?? anyway they’re available for pre-order! You can check my bookshop. \ \ Join for free or login](https://2spiritbookshelf.binderybooks.com/item/hjb8pIY1WHvZ2VayVcrv/)

New reads and brb

6 books

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • Jan 10

Global Indigenous Book Challenge ~ stories at the intersections 🤝

Global Indigenous Book Challenge ~ stories at the intersections 🤝 swipe for who I include when I say Indigenous 🫂

Link in bio for StoryGraph challenge! Fok not-so-Goodreads ehh

Last year I forgot to post the challenge I made so I might post that one later too?? Idk that’s a lotta readin’!!

Disclaimer: I am fully aware how obnoxious the cover of this post is and I am sorry

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • Jan 8

\ \ Thanks no thanks to Dylin Hardcastle for bulldozing their limb through my gut, tearing out my heart and throwing it into a wood chipper\ \ Dylin wrote A Language of Limbs as part of their PhD and it is their debut novel. (How they are ever going to top this - I have no idea!!)\ \ The story is set in 1970’s Newcastle, following two queer youth referred to as Limb One and Limb Two. Spanning three decades, these two lives bring us through moments of collective queer history and culture where joy and grief exist side by side, inseparable. (Australia’s first Mardi Gras, the AIDS crisis, etc)\ \ A Language of Limbs is a collection of lives stitched together with poetry, art, fragments, and feelings. The seemingly little moments carry enormous weight, reminding us how terrifyingly close we always are to a completely different life. The book is about love being policed, friendship as love, queerness lived loudly & quietly, and everything in between. It’s so dang heartbreakingly tragic, and yet sooo deeply hopeful. I cried and cried and cried.\ \ This is an essential queer read. It is going to stick with me for a long, long time. The AIDS epidemic section had me fucking winded, gasping for air and sobbing (literally!!)\ \ Shoutout to the author for their recognition and appreciation of Indigenous peoples, as well as the impact Indigenous liberation movements have had on queer ones. That was super cool of them to acknowledge and I am very grateful for it.\ \ I will (and already have started) gifting this book to everyone I know.\ \ I can’t wait to read more from Dylin!!\ \ ————————————\ \

“Let me tell you / my dead friends were so much fun / let me tell you / we had so much fun / let me tell you / it was worth it.”\ \ “I am most free when I am in connection, because I know my liberation is bound up with yours,"\ \ “Grief is not sadness. Grief is the body cut open. Flows of blood and joy and salt and ache and words and memories and memories never made. Grief is undoing. Grief is wanting flesh, yearning for a voice. Grief is fear of forgetting...a face...the contour of a hip...your brilliant red hair...Grief is wondering what could have been made and what could have become. Grief is what if. Grief is endless cycles of why, and I wish I didn't. Grief is the guilt of the living, of my living. Grief is the sobbing into my birthday cake, because I'm older than you, now. Grief is the building of a world without you in it.\ \ Then there’s the less obvious, the part no one writes about. How grief is horny. How I bend myself over the bed head and feel your fingers in my ass, real and imagined. Fried is pining for your touch. Grief is being wet for a ghost. Grief is not sadness, it is a kaleidoscope of desires like white lights refracted through skin. Sadness, it think, is the object. And grief is the negative space.”\ \ “Queering. Queer, as in adjective, as in being, as in I am this. Queer, as in verb, as in doing. As in I queer this. Queer, as in fucking queers. Queer, as in I queer’d this, as in, I made it beautiful.\ \ "Once, you hear a lesbian say I don t believe in transsexuals. And Daphne cries heaven forbid I believe in myself. I believe myself." \ \ “Against the impossibility of it all, joy persists. [...] I think, look at us. Witness us. In a world that wishes for our annihilation, here are our bodies, spectacularly colliding. [...] Look at our family. Look at our joy, our glorious, glorious joy”\ \ “it is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in a language chiefly made by men to express theirs.”\ \ Join for free or login](https://2spiritbookshelf.binderybooks.com/item/rUfKUcIpN5T70y22QNYO/)

A language of limbs review ✨

1 book

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • Dec 19 2025

G I V E A W A Y : By the Fire We Carry- Rebecca Nagle

If you haven’t been paying attention this is one of my new fav nonfiction +1000⭐️

To enter: Become a member of my Badass Besties @ 2spiritbookshelf.binderybooks.com Like my this post on there

*Alternative entry: share this to your story and 3 friends!*

Winner announced on Xmas!

Happy Holidays Comrades!!!🍓🤝

1 book

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • Dec 17 2025

2026 Global Indigenous Books

Indigenous authors saw the 2025 Goodreads nominations and said, “Hold my bepsi.”

Every year is a whole ass scavenger hunt to find enough titles for this list but for the first time ever I can say there is overflowing abundance of Indigenous books on the horizon!!!!. 🍓🌈🌻📚 And this is only part 1.

⁉️ tell me what your Indigenous reading goal is for 2026!!!!! ‼️

14 books

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • Nov 20 2025

Holding space on this TDoR with love, gentleness, and stillness.\ \ Sending strength and tenderness to those mourning, to those carrying weight.\ \ You are held and loved beyond measure.\ \ You matter\ \ You belong\ \ Your survival is revolution. \ \ Those in your orbit are changed by your existence. May we meet that gift with protection, with solidarity, with care that breaks systems open. Our liberation is tied to one another, our paths woven together. I will always show up for those who are fighting to stay whole.\ \ Today, I am out on the land with my furry pal, connecting with the old growth trees while honouring our grief, our memories, our love in action 🫂🫀\ \ Join for free or login

Trans Day of Remembrance 🍓🫐🏳️‍⚧️

20 books

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • Nov 19 2025

Where it all began!

Indigenous bookstagram tour! I haven’t gone to bed yet so it’s technically still my day right? 🙃

Here are the books that started this account, the books I am reading now, and the ones I hope to start soon!!

What are y’all reading for Native American heritage month???? Who is reading Indigenous all year long??????

Check out my bindery for more bookish things 2spiritbookshelf.binderybooks.com 😊

25 books

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • Nov 11 2025

\ \ BLEAK.\ \ And tbh not as radical as I was expecting.\ \ I went in completely blind re: the plot, but had heard this was politically poignant. And honestly, I have very mixed feelings.\ \ The writing is undeniably skillful. It’s minimalist, emotional, and existential. The author builds this overwhelming despair without using violence or spectacle. It’s just an entire atmosphere of emptiness - little plot, no action, yet totally fuckin soul crushing. IMO it puts The Handmaid’s Tale to shame. I who Have Never Known Men achieves a deeper horror and sadness through quietness alone. Nothing is resolved or explained, and it still feels whole.\ \ But the more I sit with this book, the more uneasy I feel towards its messaging.\ \ It’s very clear that Jacqueline Harpman was writing from a Jewish perspective. There’s this recurring idea that the guards are also prisoners, trapped in the same invisible system. On first read, it felt like commentary on how power structures replicate themselves, how people end up enforcing the very systems that crush them. But upon reflecting, the framing seems more like absolution than critique. A cop out?? Everyone’s trapped, so no one’s really responsible. And in thinking about the world’s current events I can’t help but wonder if Harpman would extend that same empathy to Israeli soldiers, to colonizers?\ \ Something I didn’t love was the stance on ownership. The narrator never had property, never been taught about possession, but the second she finds stuff it’s hers. She finds a bunker, arranges it, and claims it. And it’s treated as human nature instead of learned colonial violence.\ \ Another thing that cheesed me was the topic of sexuality. As a queer ace person I found it weird that the narrator is immediately attracted to the one young man despite having literally zero exposure to romance, attraction, or gender roles. She’s literally never known men. Her puberty happened in captivity and her development was completely fucked by trauma but there’s still this automatic heterosexuality with no questioning/ ambiguity. Just the default setting. Why?\ \ And lastly, there’s the book’s engagement with death, dignity, and assisted dying. It’s rare to see those topics handled with such acceptance and pragmatism as in this novel. I respected that the narrator could help people die when they asked. BUT then she refuses to help the one woman who isn’t physically ill????? The narrator has no religion or inherited morals so where’s that line coming from? It seems like the author’s own unspoken values.\ \ SO the more I think about it the more this book feels like a missed opportunity. It’s packaged as radicalism, but sorta reinforces the status quo. But maybe that there is the point after all ????\ \

“What does it mean to have lived, once you’re no longer alive?”\ \ Join for free or login](https://2spiritbookshelf.binderybooks.com/item/fDVTm9GL7UpZ6JeHRV9Y/)

1 book

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • Nov 3 2025

[Congrats @ tmdreads!! \ \ Dm me on Instagram your mailing info please :)\ \

SGJ special edition winner!

2-Spirit Bookshelf\ \ (@Indigenousbookshelf)\ \ • Oct 30 2025

\ \ I’ve been working on some book reviews, but TBH I’m a really slow processor so it’s taking a bit of time. \ \ Just wanted to post this with some of my book mail from last week. Still waiting on quite a few — the post strike has been brutal. \ \ Feel free to tell me in the comments what you’ve been reading. I’d love to chat books with y’all!\ \ Join for free or login](https://2spiritbookshelf.binderybooks.com/item/cy6AVVqZujxm779Hqigb/)

Book Mail~~

9 books