I started submitting material requests to my local public library in late 2024 after hearing about it on a podcast episode about queer romance books; the podcast guest Adib Khorram mentioned it offhand. I’d never even known this was a possibility, and I immediately started requesting books.

In the past 1.5 years, I’ve requested 14 books. 9 were purchases; 5 were rejected because they were unable to purchase them. I submit a material request online, and I always get a response within a few days. To me this feels super quick for such a large system! (I live in a dense, highly educated metropolitan area. My local library system is composed of 9 libraries and serves 200,000+ residents.)

Book Author Decision Date of Request
A Room Above a Shop Anthony Shapland Not Available in Requested Format Aug 5, 2025
A Room Above a Shop Anthony Shapland Not Available to Purchase Aug 10, 2025
Births, Deaths and Marriages Laura Barnett Not Available to Purchase Jan 16, 2026
Crisis Karin Boye Purchased Aug 5, 2025
It Had To Be Him Adib Khorram Overdrive Purchase Jan 18, 2026
Jill Amy Dillwyn Purchased Jan 7, 2025
Riders Jilly Cooper Overdrive Purchase May 27, 2025
The Best of Everything Kit de Waal Not Available to Purchase Apr 20, 2026
The Country Girls Edna O’Brien Purchased Jan 2, 2025
The Glass Lake Maeve Binchy Purchased Feb 4, 2026
The Jump-Off Creek Molly Gloss Purchased Nov 17, 2025
The Mercy Step Marcia Hutchinson Not Available to Purchase Apr 20, 2026
The Quarry Wood Nan Shepherd Not Available to Purchase Dec 26, 2025
Two Hours Alba Arikha Purchased Dec 18, 2024
Waist Deep Linea Maja Ernst Purchased Jun 4, 2026

In the past years I’ve taken pains to generally restrict my book buying habit to books I’ve already read and liked, and use my library to read books (especially new releases) and vet them before I buy. I mostly adhere to this rule unless I really want to read something and it’s either 1. Not available at the library, or 2. There’s a really long waitlist at the library (see: Whistler by Ann Patchett). It’s very gratifying to check out a book that wouldn’t b able to be checked out except for me.

The books I request are often written by British or otherwise non-US authors (or not initially published in the US) that I heard about via Pandora Sykes’ newsletter. Sometimes it’s new books published in the past year that didn’t get a wide release outside of the UK. Other than that, it’s mostly LGBT fiction.

I also think it’s cool that the only reason they don’t purchase my recommendations is because the book isn’t available from the library’s vendors. (…or at least that’s what they say! Are there other reasons?) It does seem to track, though:

  • The Quarry Wood (1928, UK), I bought this myself but admittedly it was hard to find. I bought it on Amazon after literally being unable to find a decent copy anywhere else.
  • The Mercy Step (1962, UK) is also like this. I didn’t buy it, but can’t find it available anywhere other than Amazon. Is it out of print or something? Can’t really tell.)
  • The Best of Everything (2025, US). Feels like this should be available?
  • Births, Deaths and Marriages (2025, UK). No US release.
  • The Room Above the Shop (2025, UK). Same as above, no US release.

Screenshot of a library material request

It’s so interesting to me that in this global world you still have to import a recently-published UK book to the US via Amazon; and that because of that my local library cannot buy it.