What to read if you love RuPaul’s Drag Race

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (1602)

Drag in Britain is often traced back to the late 16th Century, when rules in the Church meant that only men could perform on stage, and so had to play the female roles in theatre. This was the case in many of William Shakespeare's plays that were performed at the time they were written.

Yet Twelfth Night really is the original drag story, since the entire plot revolves around a brother and sister who are mistaken for one another, swapping gender roles. One of Shakespeare’s lighter plays, it’s a rom-com (if you will), and follows what happens after twins Viola and Sebastian are separated in a shipwreck. Viola impersonates her brother to work for a Duke called Orsino, who she falls in love with. Then, when Orsino sends Viola to court a countess for him, the countess falls in love with Viola. Then Sebastian shows up, and everyone thinks he is Viola – you get the idea. This one still looks queer today. 

Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. (1964) 

Met with outrage in America, subject to an obscenity trial in the UK, and banned in Italy, Last Exit to Brooklyn really pushed the envelope when it was first released in the 1960s. A look at working-class lives in the New York borough of the title, it’s written in vignettes, with six stories focussing on six key characters.

One of these sections, 'The Queen Is Dead', meets Georgette (who at the time of writing, and in the book, is described as a "transvestite hooker") as she is thrown out of her family home and heads to a party where she spends the night wired on Benzedrine while trying to seduce a man named Vinnie. Hubert Selby Jr.'s writing reflects Georgette’s mental state: speedy, with dialogue and action melding into one another. Brusque and full of slang, Last Exit to Brooklyn feels harsh, but the characters are totally convincing. 

Notes on Camp by Susan Sontag (1964)

You know how there’s no smoke without fire? Well, there’s no drag without camp, which makes Susan Sontag’s famous essay feel important here. Notes on Camp is credited with being the piece of writing that best puts into words what the slippery concept of camp means. Sontag explains that camp is a sensibility, "a private code" and "a badge of identity, even". She writes: "Indeed the essence of Camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration," continuing, "camp sees everything in quotation marks." Camp is at the core of all good drag because it ties together theatricality, irony, and sometimes, a certain self-awareness. It is that knowing kind of humour and silliness that pervades RuPaul’s Drag Race, and really, much of queer culture more broadly. 
 

Orlando by Virginia Woolf (1928)

What is perhaps most remarkable about Virginia Woolf’s gender-shifting and time-traversing experimental novel is that, at over 90 years old, it still feels utterly radical today. Often described as a “romp”, Orlando follows our eponymous protagonist from Knole (the family home of Woolf’s lover, Vita Sackville-West) through 400 years of history, multiple continents, and across genders (Orlando morphs from male to female).

It’s a fantastical exercise in what happens when you take away the constraints of identity or limits placed on gender (particularly, how a woman should act or the spaces she can enter). In that sense, it’s a must-read for any drag enthusiast, but is an especially powerful reference point for any drag kings out there, who – like Orlando – deconstruct the idea of male privilege through the performance of gender. It has also just been reimagined as Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, a brilliant new book from Andrea Lawler that transposes some of the story and ideas of Orlando into '90s punk America. 
 

Diary of a Drag Queen by Crystal Rasmussen (2019)

Tom Rasmussen is a London-based journalist, musician and performer. In Diary of a Drag Queen – written, unsurprisingly, like Bridget Jones’ Diary if she were a drag queen – Tom seamlessly interweaves their own life story with that of Crystal, their drag queen alter ego. Tom is a broke, working-class, gender-nonconforming person from Lancaster; Crystal is a wealthy and gorgeous Russian heiress with a taste for the finer things in life. Together, they are able to find self-acceptance, some degree of fame and even true love. This is, in parts, a truly heartbreaking queer memoir (by a non-binary writer – an experience we still don’t hear much about) but it’s also cry-laugh-inducingly funny, and one of the best love letters to drag that exists.

Out of the Shadows by Walt Odets (2020)

In this moving 2020 book, Walt Odets draws on his lifetime of experience as a clinical psychologist – as well as his own experiences of love with other gay men – to explore the nuances of gay life in the modern world: out of stories of tragedy and trauma, oppression and suppression, Odets wrings meaning and definition to what it has meant, what it means, and what it can mean to live as a gay man. That it’s written so beautifully, with warmth and empathy, makes it all the more resonant and compelling.

All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson (2021)

It’s hard enough to grow up queer; in this crucial YA ‘memoir-manifesto’, destined to be a classic, LGBTQ+ activist George M. Johnson illuminates just how much harder it can be to grow up under the duality of being queer and Black. From stories of being beaten up to the loving, vulnerable relationship they developed with their grandmother, Johnson paints a moving portrait that engages with gender identity, toxic masculinity, inequality and consent while making room for brotherhood, family, and Black joy.

Blame It on Bianca Del Rio by Bianca Del Rio (2018)

Fans of Drag Race: why not hear about it from someone who experienced the competition first-hand? In Blame It on Bianca Del Rio, the no-holds-barred insult comic and winner of the show’s sixth US season takes up Joan Rivers’ mantle, letting her snarky opinions on day-to-day life fly. The first drag queen to ever headline Wembley, and one of the most recognised queens alive – she was dubbed “the most powerful drag queen in America” by New York Magazine in 2019 – it’s a lighter, funnier book that illuminates the wry side of drag.

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK by Christian Guiltenane (2021)

Just in time for the UK show’s third series comes this official companion to RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, a helpful and informative guide that includes a behind-the-scenes look at the Werk Room, interviews with the latest batch of queens and a compendium of the best moments from Series 1 and 2. Whether you’re a new convert to RuPaul’s Drag Race or a veteran viewer –or looking for a perfect gift for the fanatic in your life – there’s a plethora in these pages to offer any viewer. Remember: reading is fundamental!

(Drag) Queen of Scots by Lawrence Chaney (2021)

Hot on the heels of their RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Series 2 victory comes (Drag) Queen of Scots, the first memoir from Scotland’s own Lawrence Chaney. Subtitled The Dos and Don’ts of a Drag Superstar, Lawrence’s book details their life before, during and after Drag Race, from moving around the UK with their family as a child and enduring bullying for being different to finding the drag community and, eventually, winning the title of Drag Superstar. Mixing Lawrence’s famous wit with poignant telling of their life’s more challenging episodes that made them into the queen we know today, (Drag) Queen of Scots is a must-read.

Release the Beast: A Drag Queen’s Guide to Life by Bimini Bon Boulash (2021)

And speaking of must-reads: there have been few more unique and complete queens in the history of Drag Race than Bimini Bon Boulash, a runner-up from Series 2 and now a beloved international drag superstar. In Release the Beast: A Drag Queen’s Guide to Life, Bimini tells the story of how drag took them “from the brink of self-destruction to the mainstage”, where they captured the hearts of viewers everywhere by preaching the importance of loving oneself. Told with all the charm, humour and kindness we’ve come to expect from Bimini, Release the Beast is a captivating read from one of the world’s most interesting queens.