Who said non-fiction had to be boring? I really enjoyed this book, it was short and straight to the point while still evoking different emotions within me. I liked going through those different places, it almost felt like a journey through time, in a way. Would recommend, it's a quick, evocative read.

Combining personal experiences with the long history of each of these “venues” was so interesting for me, it is easy to take for granted the safe spaces and experiences we have now. While this gives you a view of how far we’ve come and the hard work these women did to get there I still feel like we haven’t found that many new spaces for queer women specifically outside of bars or sports. Or I’m just not looking in the right places.

A super important book about queer spaces, a really great nonfiction read that I can imagine myself rereading in the future!

“A Place of Our Own” is a great read for anyone interested in Queer (and specifically lesbian) history. It focuses on 6 different locales that have been instrumental in lesbian community building: lesbian bars, feminist bookstores, women’s softball teams, lesbian communes, feminist sex toy stores, & queer vacation destinations. And through this varied exploration, it offers a bit of something for everyone.

As someone who used to review sex toys and now reviews books, I obviously had a couple of favorite chapters. I have carved out a lot of my vacation time around visiting the few remaining feminist bookstores & sex toy shops across America. They are often the places where I feel the most at home, so learning more about their history was a very special experience for me. And June Thomas does a fantastic job of exploring not just the history of these places, but also their successes/impact and their struggles/downfall.

One perfect example of this was the chapter on “Lesbian Land.” Prior to this book, I did not know anything about the landyke movement. Like many millennials, my friends and I dream of forming a little compound of tiny houses - so at first, this chapter was awe-inspiring. But the author does not shy away from the connection between feminist separatists of the 60s/70s and modern-day TERFs. It was disappointing to learn how closed-minded discrimination ruined such a lovely idea of utopia… but it’s also so important to recognize the failings of our elders as we strive to create a better world. June Thomas seems to understand this when she talks about various struggles & conflicts throughout the book. Is there a history of transphobia, racism, or even anti-union sentiment? June brings it out into the open in a very real & unflinching way.

And in the end, that’s what I appreciated most of all. "A Place of Our Own" wasn’t only a book to celebrate historical lesbian spaces - though it certainly was that as well. It’s a very realistic look at how lesbian (and queer spaces in general) have changed over the years, with all their growing pains on display. It absolutely begs the question of how we can keep moving forward, creating even safer & more sustainable spaces for the future of our community.

A beautiful example of the connectedness between the places we've been, the places we are, and the places we could be.

Happy to include this title in a recent round-up highlighting new LGBTQ+ reads for Pride Month, in the Books section of Canadian national culture and lifestyle magazine Zoomer. (see column and mini-review at link)

"Making solitude a choice rather than an unavoidable fate has been the greatest achievement of the gay civil rights movement."

In A Place of Our Own, journalist June Thomas blends personal narrative, in-depth research, and insightful interviews to create a history of six queer women's spaces in the late 20th century:

1. Lesbian bars
2. Feminist bookstores
3. Softball fields
4. "Lesbian land" rural communes
5. Feminist sex toy stores
6. Queer vacation spots

Each chapter is well-researched and fascinating, capturing the joys and tensions of queer women's history in these spaces. Thomas treats the women in each chapter with empathy and nuance, so they come to life on the page. For example, Thomas doesn't shy away from the fact that queer women of color had a hard time finding space in majority-white lesbian bars, or that women-only communes often were trans-exclusionary. Thomas doesn't condone that, of course, but she also explores the historical influences that resulted in those outcomes.

I really enjoyed this book. It opened my eyes to so much more of sapphic history in the 20th century that I didn't really know about. I particularly enjoyed Thomas' blend of personal narrative and interviews; it made it clear that this book was a labor of love, but also one that highlights the voices of our queer elders and peers in addition to the authors'.

Queer history is so, so important these days. We’re in an era where more people “accept” queerness and lesbians more than ever, but they often have a very specific, sanitized idea of what kind of queerness should be permitted and protected. And with the dismal amount of third spaces available for people to go to, this makes it extremely hard for lesbians especially to find community. This book is a beautiful ode to the spaces we once had, and inspires thinking about how are spaces should be moving forward.

While I would consider myself very educated on queer history, there was a lot of new information for me in this book. I had no clue about Landdykes or the inner workings of the separatist movement. In addition to providing solid information about the places lesbians frequented and describing them, Thomas also details why these places were important, how they affected the lives of their owners and patrons, and where we can find similar experiences now. I really enjoyed this book- it was informative, compelling, and well written.

4 out of 5 stars
Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review
What a read. Also, what else is exactly like this book? It's a niche topic in a way and I'm so glad this book exists. This book made me feel more connected to my community and I'll never take a lesbian bar for granted again.

A Place of Our Own describes the history of queer (and especially lesbian) places such as bars, libraries and vacation resorts in the US throughout 20th and 21st centuries.
Although most stories are of bravery, fights to build safe spaces despite all imaginable obstacles, this book is full of uplifting energy. It made me want to research and support as many queer businesses as I can. To keep on fighting to build safe spaces for everyone.
Indeed, thanks June Thomas, for giving more matches to existing fires !

I absolutely love reading books about queer history. It’s so enlightening to learn about queer pioneers, communities, and places from the past. In A Place of Our Own June Thomas writes about six spaces that have had a significant impact on queer women’s history. The spaces are the lesbian bar, feminist bookstore, softball field, rural communes, feminist sex toy stores, and queer vacation spots. The author writes about the history and importance of these places, how they evolved through the decades, and what modern examples are still around.

It was so interesting reading about how feminist bookstores ended up becoming basically like community centers where people came to get information about childcare, jobs, concerts, places to live, and so much more. Or how the women running the sex toy stores didn’t care as much about making a profit as they did about providing education and a comfortable place for women to buy products. It was so sad to read about all these different queer businesses that had operated for decades, but once online retailers took over couldn’t compete and stay afloat.

The book isn’t a memoir, but June Thomas does include bits and pieces of her own experiences. I enjoyed reading about her times visiting some of the bookstores, vacation spots, and her learning about softball’s place in US lesbian culture. Outside of her experiences, there were so many interviews that she conducted with people involved in running the different spaces as well as research from archives, publications, and other sources.

While there is so much love in this book and pointing out the amazing aspects of these spaces, Thomas is also critical of certain facets of some of the businesses, collectives, and teams. She doesn’t shy away from mentioning what spaces were transphobic, racist, or were only interested in catering to well-off white lesbians. I appreciated that the book wasn’t trying to gloss over negative parts of the history.

Definitely check out this book if you’re interested in learning about the history of lesbian spaces, the ways that communities of queer women have evolved over the years, and what spaces by and for queer women still exist today!

Rarely do I wish nonfiction books were longer if they're well-researched, but I definitely wish we saw more than six spaces. I loved this book through and through and highly recommend as a queer woman learning more about lesbian history. Also, Thomas takes time to explain in each setting how non-white/non-cisgender lesbians were excluded (by design often) from these quintessential queer spaces.

Thomas combines research from primary sources and her own, personal experiences to create a factual, but personable, analysis of six spaces in queer women’s culture. She discusses important moments and locations in history with both a critical and personal eye, which I think makes the text approachable.

I liked that the book emphasized how queer owned or queer focused spaces, particularly those for lesbians, trans, and non-binary individuals, face unique challenges on top of those other third spaces face. The book helps to preserve their histories, how they’ve evolved, and the impacts these spaces had and continue to have. Similarly, I think Thomas did a good job highlighting the class and racial disparities that impacted how lesbians interacted with these institutions, whether it be ability to enter a bar or playing on a softball team.

I think those interested in lesbian and feminist history in the United States, particularly from the 1970s onward, will find this an interesting book. The spaces discussed include multiple geographies and aspects of society, and the stories and importance of these third spaces I think will interest many.

I was really excited about starting this one for the exploration of third places navigated and created by queer women!
I went in, however, with the expectation of creative nonfiction and had to adjust my expectations after reading the introduction and beginning the first section for a more academic tone.

I appreciated the acknowledgement of how these spaces were, for the most part, more accessible and accepting towards cis white women, particularly those in a middle class or higher standing.
It touches on intersectionality, but the book could've delved deeper into it all and I wish that it did.

It is a book that I can at least appreciate for its defining, celebrating, and criticizing of these spaces and the institutions that either inform or surround them. The section on feminist sex toy stores was my favorite

Journalist and co-host of Slate’s Working podcast, June Thomas has written a lesbian cultural history like no other. It focuses on six spaces that have played outsized roles in lesbian culture including bars, bookstores, softball diamonds, land, feminist sex-toy stores and vacation destinations. Through witty quips and well-researched stories, Thomas walks readers through each of these, how they became lesbian spaces and what they’ve meant to the community. This hopeful and captivating volume will be a walk down memory lane for some and, for others, an introduction to how lesbians (and all queer people) have had to create safe and welcoming spaces to meet, ideate, unite and celebrate.

This is an excellent book. I really enjoyed reading it and learning more about a piece of oft-overlooked queer history.

As the author acknowledges, queer men's history is often better known than queer women's history, for a variety of reasons. This book seeks to counteract that, while also showing great respect for and making distinct connections to well-known instances of queer men's history as a means of establishing this book's place within male-dominated queer history. As any women's historian or gender studies scholar knows, this is by no means an easy task! But June Thomas does a fantastic job of it.

I also appreciated Thomas's personal insights and her stories of her own experiences as a queer woman of her generation, and the sense of humor she added to the narrative she wove.

My only complaint about this book is that the chapters are SO LONG! There are only six--one for each "place" Thomas discusses. I think the book would have been better if she'd made this into six sections with multiple chapters in each, organized either chronologically or thematically. As it is, the book is still great, but the length of the chapters definitely makes the book seem like it's taking a very long time to read.

I did enjoy this book overall. It was easy to read and gave some good history that is not often discussed or known. The first few chapters of the book were not great but it did pick up as it went. In the first two chapters there were many repeated ideas/thoughts/statements said multiple times each chapter. These were not just the same underlying theme repeated but almost word for word repeats many times a chapter, It felt a little like the author was trying to fill the word count. They also focused more on deep details on specific places but less on movements as a whole. I didn't feel like I got as much about the topic overall as I did one specific place. I do wish the first two chapters tied more to current day. Felt like reading an outdated book. The Bar chapter could have done a lot with how many new ones are popping back up. The Book store chapter had a little on the current time but just a few paragraphs towards the end. It would be nice to see the full picture and impacts from the 1990s beyond the early 2000s

The Softball chapter was where the book picked up for me. I felt a shift in the writing that was giving more details on the topic as a whole and better using the personal stories to tell the big picture. The chapters following were also more like this and were more captivating. I do feel like more current things could have still been added. These chapters did a much better job of showing start to current but there was a lot that could have been added.

Throughout the book some details, people, places, movements were written in a "if you know you know" way without explanation to help the reader understand. For those trying to learn more about this not well known history it can be hard to understand when somethings feel secret coded for those who have been in the community a long time. Many chapters were also rooted in activism/politics/feminism that felt like significant parts of the story but were just repeatedly mentioned vaguely.

I do think this book would be great for both people in the community and those newer to the community who are trying to learn more. I appreciated the additional of details for trans and nonbinary folks throughout.

I really liked this I love reading books about queer history and how it was shaped. I think this book shows the history while also showing the stories of those who have been apart of it

I was really engaged by A Place of Our Own - despite feeling less personal than some texts covering similar histories, it was very interesting, and quite emotionally resonant at the end. I appreciated the small snippets of UK history, alongside a focus on US-based places - however, as is often the case, I would have liked an even wider view geographically. By choosing to focus on specific forms of space, and analysing each mostly chronologically, Thomas creates a really coherent narrative. The interviews with proprietors and attendees made the text feel alive and human, rather than clinical.