Where our data comes from

Book data

• Open Library — much of our bibliographic data (titles, editions, subjects) and many covers come from Open Library, an Internet Archive initiative. Their open data made this catalog possible.
• Google Books — we use the Google Books API to refine metadata and source additional cover images.
• Queer Books Database — some titles and their detailed representation tags come from this community-curated database, maintained by its own creator. We're grateful for their work and don't claim to have created it.
• ISBNdb — additional edition details, descriptions, and cover images on some book pages are licensed from ISBNdb — you'll see “via ISBNdb” where their data appears.
• Publishers — book descriptions are the publishers' own copy, shown as written.

Editorial & review sources

Our “Our take” notes are AI-assisted drafts reviewed by a human editor (see About for how they work). When a note characterizes a book's reception, that's grounded in published reviews we may consult: the review quotes publishers license onto their own product pages (which is how trade reviews like Kirkus reach us), community outlets such as Lambda Literary, Wikipedia, and occasionally an established book blog. We paraphrase reception in our own words and never reproduce review text. None of these outlets are affiliated with us, and listing them doesn't imply they endorse this site. Our crawler is documented at /bot.

Community

Beyond databases, this catalog is built by its members: book suggestions, corrections, reviews, and shelves all come from readers. Suggest a book to add to it.