The holidays are upon us, which means you’re likely going to spend a lot of time traveling over the next two months, not to mention avoiding that conversation about Donald Trump back home in Ohio with Aunt Sally you have been studiously avoiding.

To make matters easier, and more enjoyable, we’ve compiled a list of reading recommendations.

Whether you’re in the mood for some serious literary fiction, a juicy biography, a funny memoir, or a thoughtful work of nonfiction, here are all the bases.

Scissors, Paper, Rock: A Novel by Fenton Johnson

Along with his siblings, Raphael Hardin left his childhood home in rural Kentucky. Grappling with an AIDS diagnosis, he returns to care for his dying father. Told from the perspectives of Raphael, his family, and their lifelong neighbor, Fenton Johnson’s novel reveals the blood struggles and binding loves of a broken family made whole.

Carol by Patricia Highsmith

Previously titled The Price of Salt, Patricia Highsmith’s novel Carol tells the drama of Therese, a stage designer trapped in a department-store day job, and Carol, a customer who comes in to buy her daughter a Christmas toy. The women fall in love and set out across the United States, ensnared by society’s confines and the imminent disapproval of others, yet propelled by their infatuation for one another.

Big Freedia: God Save the Queen Diva! by Big Freedia

From the eponymous star of the most popular reality show in Fuse TV’s history, this no-holds-barred memoir tells the story of a gay, self-proclaimed mama’s boy who exploded onto the formerly underground Bounce music scene — a hip-hop subgenre — and found acceptance, healing, self-expression and stardom.

Kept Boy by Robert Rodi

Long out of print, Robert Rodi’s 1996 comedy of manners has been re-released in paperback and as an e-book. It tells the story of 31-year-old Dennis Racine, the pampered, gym-toned boy-toy of a powerful Chicago theater impresario, as he struggles to preserve his privileged lifestyle after his sugar daddy falls for a 20-year-old pool boy.

Trans: A Memoir by Juliet Jacques

In July 2012, aged thirty, Juliet Jacques underwent sex reassignment surgery — a process she chronicled with unflinching honesty in a serialized national newspaper column. Trans tells of her life to the present moment: a story of growing up, of defining yourself, and of the rapidly changing world of gender politics.

Visions and Revisions by Dale Peck

Dale Peck’s new memoir takes readers on a journey through the beginning years of the AIDS epidemic, from what he calls the “serial killings” of gay men in New York, London, and Milwaukee, through Peck’s first loves upon coming out of the closet, to the transformation of LGBT people from marginal, idealistic fighters to their present place in a world of mainstream acceptance.

Alexander McQueen: Blood Beneath The Skin by Andrew Wilson

When forty-year-old Alexander McQueen committed suicide in February 2010, a shocked world mourned the loss of a prodigious talent. The first definitive biography of the iconic, notoriously private British fashion designer explores the connections between his dark work and even darker personal life.

The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle by Lillian Faderman

This 800-page magnum opus by Lillian Faderman reads like a novel as it tells the sweeping story of the modern struggle for LGBTQ rights — from the 1950s to the present — based on interviews with politicians, military figures, legal activists and other members of the entire LGBTQ community.

Intimacy Idiot by Isaac Oliver

This debut collection of essays by Isaac Oliver serves up a comedic cornucopia of sketches, vignettes, lists, and diaries from his life as a young, fanciful, and extremely single gay man in New York City. Whether he’s hooking up with a man who dresses as a dolphin, suffering on airplanes and buses next to people with Food From Home, or hovering around an impenetrable circle of attractive people at a cocktail party, Oliver captures the messy, moving and absurd moments of urban life as we live it today.

I Can Give You Anything But Love by Gary Indiana

Not for the faint of heart, radical writer Gary Indiana’s new memoir offers readers a montage of excursions into his life and work — from his early days growing up gay in rural New Hampshire to his escape to Haight-Ashbury in the post-Summer of Love era, the sweltering 1970s in Los Angeles and ultimately his existence in New York in the 1980s as a bona fide downtown personality.

Encyclopedia Madonnica 20: Madonna from A to Z by Matthew Rettenmund

The standard edition of the ultimate book on the Queen of Pop: Madonna! This twentieth-anniversary edition of the book that gets it all down (and gets it all right) is filled with never-before-seen and rare images, as well as fresh interviews. This encyclopedic tome covers every aspect of Madonna’s life and career: music, movies, TV, love life, family, tours and more.