Reading list

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Here are a list of books, stories, articles, and other reading material that may be of special interest to asexuals.

Please expand this list!

This list is for reading material that is nontechnical and directed to a general audience. For scientific papers, see Research Relating to Asexuality. For movies and television, see Asexuality in TV shows and movies.

Featuring asexual or suspected-asexual characters

Non-fiction

  • Donna Williams - Somebody Somewhere: Breaking Free from the World of Autism
The biography of a successful autistic woman, describing her asexuality towards the end.

Novels

  • Kate Atkinson - Case Histories: A Novel (Amelia, Philip)
  • Pearl S. Buck - The Pavilion of Women (Madam Wu)
  • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Sherlock Holmes Mysteries (Sherlock Holmes)
  • Kathrine Dunn - Geek Love (Miss Lick)
  • Henry Fielding - Tom Jones (Blifil)
  • Emma Forest - Namedropper: A Novel (Viva Cohen?)
  • E.M. Forster - A Room With a View (Mr. Beebe and Cecil Vyse)
  • Thomas Hardy - Jude The Obscure (Sue Bridehead)
  • Keri Hulme - The Bone People (Kerewin Holmes)
  • John Irving - The World According to Garp (Jenny Fields)
  • Susan Isaacs - Lily White (main characters lead asexual relationship)
  • Caren Lissner - Carrie Pilby (Carrie Pilby)
  • Caren Lissner et al. - Scenes From A Holiday (Carrie Pilby, see novella titled "Carrie Pilby's New Year's Resolution")
  • Tim O'Brien - July, July (Marla Dempsey)
  • George Orwell - A Clergyman's Daughter (Dorothy Hare)
  • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman - Herland (the women)
  • Fernando Pessoa - The Book of Disquiet (Bernardo Soares)
  • Barbara Pym - Crampton Hodnet (Barbara Bird)
  • Bill Richardson - The Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast (Virgil)
  • Willy Russell - The Wrong Boy (Raymond Marks)
  • Michael Bilka - Operation Hurdler, and Operation Outside Hitter (Faye and Linda Cooper)
  • Virginia Woolf - To The Lighthouse (Lily Briscoe) (described as asexual by Market Drabble in the introduction to the Oxford University Press edition and also here)

Science fiction and fantasy

  • Brian W. Aldiss - White Mars (Cang Hai)
  • Isaac Asimov - I, Robot (Dr. Susan Calvin)
  • Greg Egan - Diaspora
  • Greg Egan - Distress
  • Robin Hobb - Fool's Errand, Golden Fool, Fool's Fate (Amber/Lord Golden)
  • Tanya Huff - The Fire's Stone (Chandra)
  • Alexandro Jodorowsky - The Metabarons: Aghora the Father-Mother & Immaculate Conception (Aghora)
  • Mercedes Lackey - The Oathbound (Tarma)
  • Mercedes Lackey - Oathbreakers (Tarma)
  • Mercedes Lackey - Oathblood (Tarma)
  • Patricia A. McKillip - Ombria in Shadow (Mag the Waxling)
  • Elizabeth Moon - The Deed of Paksenarrion: A Novel (Paks)
  • Caroline Stevermer - When the King Comes Home (Hail Rosamer)
  • Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle (Mona Aamons Monzano)
  • Kurt Vonnegut - Deadeye Dick (Rudy Waltz)
  • Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman - Rose of the Prophet Trilogy: The Will of the Wanderer, The Paladin of the Night, The Prophet of Akhran (Azriel)

Short Stories

  • Samuel R. Delaney - Aye, and Gomorrah
  • Theodore Sturgeon - The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff

About celibacy and other asexual-friendly subjects

  • Elizabeth Abbott - A History of Celibacy: From Athena to Elizabeth I, Leonardo Da Vinci, Florence Nightingale, Gandhi and Cher
Although asexuality is not mentioned outright, asexuals may find the descriptions of diverse nonsexual lifestyles enlightening, and some celibate historical figures mentioned may have been asexual.
  • Lillian Faderman - Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present
Focuses on romantic, non-sexual relationships between women.
  • Geraldine Levi Rich Jones - L'amour sans le faire : Comment vivre sans libido dans un monde où le sexe est partout?
A book about nonlibidoism by the founder of the Official Nonlibidoism Society.
  • Esther D. Rothblum & Kathleen A. Brehony - Boston Marriages: Romantic But Asexual Relationships Among Contemporary Lesbians
A book discussing sexless romances between women and their implications on the theory of female sexuality and relationships in general.