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Penguin books that reshaped love and relationships, with insight from Paloma Faith.

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The Penguin books that redefined love and relationships

Books to change your perspective on love (3)

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Books that will change your perspective on love

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The ultimate feminist books reading list

A photo of Shon Faye, author of The Transgender Issue, side-by-side with the interview title, 21 Questions, on a light blue and grayscale background.

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‘It would be fun to take Emily Dickinson for shots’: 21 Questions with Shon Faye

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‘The future is wide open’: How trans literature came of age

An Argument for Justice

The Transgender Issue

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
 'Few books are as urgent as Shon Faye's debut ... Faye has hope for the future - and maybe so should we' Independent 
 
 'Unsparing, important and weighty ... a vitally needed antidote' Observer 
 
 'A moving and impressively comprehensive overview of trans life' Vogue 
 
 Trans people in Britain today have become a culture war 'issue'. Despite making up less than one per cent of the country's population, they are the subjects of a toxic and increasingly polarized 'debate' which generates reliable controversy for newspapers and talk shows. This media frenzy conceals a simple fact: that we are having the wrong conversation, a conversation in which trans people themselves are reduced to a talking point and denied a meaningful voice. 
 
 In this powerful new book, Shon Faye reclaims the idea of the 'transgender issue' to uncover the reality of what it means to be trans in a transphobic society. In doing so, she provides a compelling, wide-ranging analysis of trans lives from youth to old age, exploring work, family, housing, healthcare, the prison system and trans participation in the LGBTQ+ and feminist communities, in contemporary Britain and beyond. 
 
 The Transgender Issue is a landmark work that signals the beginning of a new, healthier conversation about trans life. It is a manifesto for change, and a call for justice and solidarity between all marginalized people and minorities. Trans liberation, as Faye sees it, goes to the root of what our society is and what it could be; it offers the possibility of a more just, free and joyful world for all of us. 
 
 'Fundamentally not a culture-war book. It operates outside the narrow coverage of trans people in the mainstream, and lays bare the inarguable facts' New Statesman 
 
 'Monumental and utterly convincing - crystal clear in its understanding of how the world should be' Judith Butler

Few books are as urgent as Shon Faye's debut ... The analysis is thorough and heartbreaking ... it's a highly fact-based book backed up with statistics and case studies, but she manages to write it in a hugely emotive and powerful way ... Faye has hope for the future - and maybe so should we.

Faye puts forward a powerful case not of what separates us but what brings us together. Above all, her book is a cry for compassion for an embattled community and a plea to be treated with dignity and fairness. It is, surely, the very least anyone can do.

I am profoundly grateful that [this book] exists ... A book such as this one, in which a trans person has the opportunity to speak clearly and compellingly on their own terms, is a vitally needed antidote ... One book cannot, of course, outweigh such a continual outpouring of animosity. Nevertheless, as drops in the bucket go, this book is an important and weighty one.

Enter Shon Faye. The journalist and former lawyer might have gathered a following on Twitter for her wry humor, but her first book offers a cold, hard, and, most importantly, convincing look into the facts surrounding trans rights both past and present, as well as a moving and impressively comprehensive overview of trans life in Britain today. Leavened by Faye's sharp, sparkling writing style ... The Transgender Issue is a vital resource for readers outside of the U.K. to understand just what is happening there in terms of trans rights - and how to bring about a long-overdue change to the conversation.

A detailed overview of the systemic violence and discrimination trans people face in Britain today ... [Faye is] sanguine, relaxed, and funny while eloquently delivering complex philosophical arguments which, as she explains them, sound so obvious that you wonder why you've never thought of them before ... The Transgender Issue is fundamentally not a culture-war book. It operates outside the narrow coverage of trans people in the mainstream, and lays bare the inarguable facts of being trans: that's it's rare, that it's misunderstood, that society makes it dangerous.

A welcome contribution to the trans debate ... Faye has written a clear and concise analysis of the presenting issues for trans people today.

Faye's language is precise and the arguments well evidenced. This will be a challenging book for those lulled by the nonsense that sometimes passes for journalism about trans lives ... I don't recall a work like Shon Faye's that takes the status quo by the lapels and gives it such a shaking.

Draws on wide-ranging research to make her arguments ... Faye is highly intelligent and writes with compassion and clarity about marginalised groups that suffer a lot.

Sets the record straight on a lot of subjects, many of which are hard to misrepresent with the facts in front of you ... Once picked up, the book was hard to set down ... The book isn't just about highlighting problems - there are plenty of solutions offered, many of them radical.

The Transgender Issue, argues this [feminist] inheritance with energy and clarity ... Faye writes well.

Incisive and illuminating in addressing myriad aspects of trans life in the UK, without ever being dogmatic.

An important work of non-fiction that should change the tired conversation we've been having about trans people. Not only that, it's a book for anyone who cares about building a fairer and more just society.

A passionately reasoned defence ... If you know what you think about all this, she - Faye - might move you to think again.

Shon Faye has written a book that models clarity in its writing and its moral vision. Focused on the UK, this book will doubtless have a strong and lasting impact in the world. One learns here how to distinguish between arguments that merit a response and those which should be refused because they are either cruel or stupid. This is a monumental work and utterly convincing - crystal clear in its understanding of how the world should be.

Judith Butler, Professor, University of California Berkeley

The Transgender Issue is an urgent interrogation of the manufactured moral panic which scapegoats and marginalises trans people. With precision, wit, and clarity, Shon Faye exposes how cultural and institutional discrimination against transgender people makes all of us less free. If you're sick of seeing people's humanity reduced to cannon fodder for the culture war, read this book.

This book feels like a moment. In clear and eloquent writing, Shon Faye expands the discussion around trans history and experience, the huge impact on BAME trans people, and how economic and political inequalities intersect with trans experience. It's heartfelt but analytical, in-depth and utterly humane. Faye, with calm intelligence, unpacks so many of the problematic ways trans people are marginalised and discriminated against, with so many acts of violence perpetrated on trans bodies. I learned a lot from this book and it adds hugely to a wider conversation around inclusion of and support for our trans sisters and brothers. A landmark piece of work.

A clear, intelligent, experience-based explanation of why the scapegoating of trans people must stop, while enthusiastically encouraging more trans people to join feminist, anti-racist movements for economic and social change.

There is a full-blown moral panic under way in Britain about trans people, and The Transgender Issue is the wake-up call we need. It is an inspiring call for coalition, across the divides of class, race, sexual identity and gender. Shon Faye shows with courage and clarity that the struggle of trans people is the struggle of us all. This book is a game-changer.

From the very first words of The Transgender Issue, it is clear the reader is in the hands of someone with absolute clarity about the world we live in, and the one we deserve. ... Refusing to water down the radicalism and urgency of her demands, Shon's argument for justice is both a heartfelt outcry against injustice, and an utterly convincing vision for change rooted in analysis and research.

Writing with astonishing patience, clarity, and ethical force, Shon Faye has gifted us an essential primer for our times. The Transgender Issue calls us into a much-needed solidarity, and makes the project of constructing and inhabiting a more free and just world for everyone feel urgent, possible, and exhilarating.

With clarity, precision and great humanity, Faye definitively draws to a close the harmful debate on trans lives, supporting her findings with iron-clad evidence. Truly the final word on the matter, this is a book for anyone who wants our society to be a kinder, fairer, more inclusive one.

With extraordinary clarity and intellectual vigour, Shon Faye cuts through the concern-trolling, the sly bigotry, and the unserious moral panics that so often characterise the discourse surrounding transgender lives. Though she writes out of the authority of experience, her work transcends the personal, making a plain and impassioned case for solidarity and human rights. The result is an invigorating and deeply researched polemic, and a necessary addition to the evolving conversation on civil rights in the twenty-first century.

An extraordinary achievement. A smart, academic and yet totally accessible and patient analysis of what it is to be trans in the UK today and a convincing argument for how we can and must improve ... I urge everyone to read it.

An utterly monumental work. A bullet proof text that places trans people at the centre of the conversation, and puts forth a vision of the world that can liberate us all. A truly exhilarating book.

An important, thorough and excellently written book by the legendary Shon Faye. Buy it. Share it. Support her work. She is a fearless leader in this conversation.

I recommend everyone reads The Transgender Issue, which is a great starting point to learn about what it's like to be a trans person in Britain at the moment. At the end of the day, we simply can't do this work on our own.

A forward-thinking analysis of how capitalist and patriarchal systems backseat trans liberation ... a vital read that clearly communicates the extent of how deeply anti-transness is embedded in our society and how much work is to be done to achieve trans liberation.

This vital, lucid book is so much more than an argument for justice on behalf of transgender people; it's a clarion call for gender liberation, a tonic for our politically reactionary times.

Susan Stryker, author of TRANSGENDER HISTORY

Shon Faye's work [has] so informed me and made me feel hopeful and human ... do read The Transgender Issue if you want someone to clearly and calmly explain UK trans politics in a voice that's both wry and kind.

Alexandra Heminsley, author of SOME BODY TO LOVE

Shon Faye makes a compelling case that transgender issues are inexorably linked with other social justice causes. The result is a bold and pragmatic guide for challenging societal transphobia comprehensively and intersectionally.

It's a manifesto for change, a call for healthier conversations about being trans, and a clear-sighted, landmark book that explains how a more compassionate society benefits us all.

Shon Faye is author of the acclaimed bestseller The Transgender Issue. Her work has been published in, among others, the Guardian, Independent, British Vogue and VICE. She writes an advice column, Dear Shon, for Vogue.com. Born in Bristol, she now lives in London.

Trans people in Britain today have become a culture war 'issue'. Despite making up less than one per cent of the country's population, they are the subjects of a toxic and increasingly polarized 'debate' which generates reliable controversy for newspapers and talk shows. This media frenzy conceals a simple fact: that we are having the wrong conversation, a conversation in which trans people themselves are reduced to a talking point and denied a meaningful voice. 
 
In this powerful book, Shon Faye reclaims the idea of the 'transgender issue' to uncover the reality of what it means to be trans in a transphobic society. In doing so, she provides a compelling, wide-ranging analysis of trans lives from youth to old age, exploring work, family, housing, healthcare, the prison system and trans participation in the LGBTQ+ and feminist communities, in contemporary Britain and beyond. 
 
The Transgender Issue is a landmark work that signals the beginning of a new, healthier conversation about trans life. It is a manifesto for change, and a call for justice and solidarity between all marginalized people and minorities. Trans liberation, as Faye sees it, goes to the root of what our society is and what it could be; it offers the possibility of a more just, free and joyful world for all of us.

Shon Faye

Faye sets out to deconstruct her topics through thoroughly researched and accessibly delivered political and social theory, providing radical ways of thinking... her discussions are expansive and wholly empathetic...The weaving through of memoir is equally compelling... The greatest strength of Love in Exile, though, is Faye's optimism. She is resolute in her belief that human beings are capable of great compassion, both to each other and ourselves.

Much of Faye’s writing is deeply personal, but a political thesis underpins Love in Exile... [it] is sincere in a way that reminds me of bell hooks' 1999 book All About Love... Her writing will shake your illusions about love, but remind you of the value of even attempting it

Seamlessly blending memoir and social theory... Faye examines the elision of love, validation and addiction with such lucidity as to knock the wind out of you

Love in Exile is lyrical and often laugh-out-loud funny... shot through with warmth, solidarity and a kind of expansive, sororal love for the world, it’s a bracing and often sad book – but never a depressing one...

Writing about love is an ancient practice, yet Faye brings a sharp, warm and illuminating analysis to the contemporary state of affairs – with some unexpected diversions, like her relationship with Catholicism… Love in Exile is set to be the must-read book of 2025

Part memoir, part political education, Love in Exile explores Faye’s honest sentiments about feeling lonely and unlovable, her addiction to love and alcohol, and where these feelings stem from... intertwined with rich and thoroughly researched chapters about other aspects of love, such as obligatory love through motherhood, religious love, friendship, forgiveness, and so much more.

Love in Exile is a book that gets extremely honest... it mixes memoir with a broader examination of love – romantic, familial, friendship… The book, like Faye in conversation, is intelligent, funny and never obvious in its exploration of its subject

A deeply personal memoir... the book does not ultimately make for depressing reading. In many ways, it’s a love letter to love – the types of love found in community, among friends, and – if they’re done right – within relationships.

An account of how and why we define our own self-worth in terms of love. Faye has a perspective and style that is distinctly her own but offers insight and enlightenment that is appealingly universal

A brilliantly perceptive manifesto on love in all its forms

Independent's 'Best books to look out for in 2025'

Part memoir, part manifesto, Shon Faye’s second book is a forensic investigation into love: what it means and who it is for… Love in Exile will speak to anyone who has ever felt that this most universal feeling was out of their reach – that they are unworthy, deluded or incapable and reframes what love is

Teaching us to love without boundaries, this new memoir looks at how relationships can expand far beyond the narrow ideals many of us have been taught to chase

ELLE’s ‘Cult Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2025’

A lesson in why love is so much greater than the narrow ideals we have been taught

Service 95’s ‘Most anticipated releases of 2025’

Uncommonly wise and honest. Love in Exile flooded me with a sense of continuity and hope. A masterpiece, from start to finish

Shon Faye can break your heart and change your mind in the same moment. Love In Exile is a parade of these instances, a book that for lovers in this era will be both a comfort and a sword

I loved this smart, searching, and moving book. Love in Exile is an exacting and thoughtful exploration of what it is to relate to men, masculinity, power, and gender norms, as a woman, and as a trans woman specifically, Shon Faye's clear-sightedness and compassion, both in respect to others and to herself, is what makes her writing so powerful. Both disarming and self-possessed, this book is suffused with curiosity — and it's one that I found as thought-provoking as I found it helpful

So beautifully written, my heart almost can’t contain it all

A heartfelt and astute book that encourages us to reconsider our fantasies and assumptions about romantic love. Should be required reading for anyone who wants to join a dating app, love ethically, or experience true partnership with other humans

I loved it! I think. Because after Faye's compassionate, wise and often very funny book, I'm rethinking everything I thought I knew about love. An essential read for anyone who has ever loved, lost or been lonely

Reading this made me sit and ruminate on love, and all its squidgy forms, in ways I hadn’t before. Tenderness and honesty lurk on every page. Shon’s thoughts are at once enthralling and confronting

With a very sharp, brave, dialectical brilliance, Shon Faye takes on the insurmountable question of "who is supposed to love me"? This question is answered both personally and collectively in a series of essays that are gripping, self aware, and (if I may be so frank) radically seductive

I feel I've come out of reading this book a different person. Beautiful and funny and unsparing, Shon teaches us so much about what it really means to love, and how that emotion is marked by the world we live in

The beauty of the writing in Love In Exile verges on the scriptural. It will restore the hope of us pilgrims who have lost love, lost ourselves in love and long for a survivable future

I think Love in Exile is something that is so much better than brave, something that's much harder to achieve - it's honest. Even better, it's consistently honest. Whether Faye is writing about God shamelessly, or shame Godlessly, every chapter left me reflecting deeply on my own experiences of love but even more so, the stories I've told myself about those experiences

Shon Faye grew up quietly obsessed with the feeling that love was not for her. Not just romantic love: the secret fear of her own unworthiness penetrated every aspect and corner of her life. It was a fear that would erupt in destructive, counterfeit versions of the real love she craved: addictions and short-lived romances that were either euphoric and fantastical, or excruciatingly painful and unhinged, often both. Faye’s experience of the world as a trans woman, who grew up visibly queer, exacerbated her fears. But, as she confronted her damaging ideas about love and lovelessness, she came to realize that this sense of exclusion is symptomatic of a much larger problem in our culture. 
 
Love, she argues, is as much a collective question as a personal one. Yet our collective ideals of love have developed in a society which is itself profoundly sick and loveless; in which consumer capitalism sells us ever new, engrossing fantasies of becoming more loved or lovable. In this highly politicized terrain, boundaries are purposefully drawn to keep some in and to keep others out. Those who exist outside them are ignored, denigrated, exiled. 
 
In Love in Exile, Shon Faye shows love is much greater than the narrow ideals we have been taught to crave so desperately that we are willing to bend and break ourselves to fit them. Wise, funny, unsparing, and suffused with a radical clarity, this is a book of and for our times: for seeing and knowing love, in whatever form it takes, is the meaning of life itself.

Shon Faye

Praise for Love in Exile

Faye sets out to deconstruct her topics through thoroughly researched and accessibly delivered political and social theory, providing radical ways of thinking... her discussions are expansive and wholly em ...

Much of Faye’s writing is deeply personal, but a political thesis underpins Love in Exile... [it] is sincere in a way that reminds me of bell hooks' 1999 book All About Love... Her wri ...

Seamlessly blending memoir and social theory... Faye examines the elision of love, validation and addiction with such lucidity as to knock the wind out of you

Faye sets out to deconstruct her topics through thoroughly researched and accessibly delivered political and social theory, providing radical ways of thinking... her discussions are expansive and wholly em ...

Much of Faye’s writing is deeply personal, but a political thesis underpins Love in Exile... [it] is sincere in a way that reminds me of bell hooks' 1999 book All About Love... Her wri ...

Seamlessly blending memoir and social theory... Faye examines the elision of love, validation and addiction with such lucidity as to knock the wind out of you

Faye sets out to deconstruct her topics through thoroughly researched and accessibly delivered political and social theory, providing radical ways of thinking... her discussions are expansive and wholly em ...

Much of Faye’s writing is deeply personal, but a political thesis underpins Love in Exile... [it] is sincere in a way that reminds me of bell hooks' 1999 book All About Love... Her wri ...

Seamlessly blending memoir and social theory... Faye examines the elision of love, validation and addiction with such lucidity as to knock the wind out of you

Books by Shon Faye

Articles featuring Shon Faye

The Penguin books that redefined love and relationships

Books that will change your perspective on love

The ultimate feminist books reading list

‘It would be fun to take Emily Dickinson for shots’: 21 Questions with Shon Faye

‘The future is wide open’: How trans literature came of age

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