2025 Pride Month Treasure Hunt

It's Pride Month, and that means our annual Pride Treasure Hunt is back!

The object of the game is to solve our clues (in verse!) and go to the LibraryThing page each clue is talking about.

Go HERE for the hunt.

You have just under two weeks—until Monday June 30th at 11:59 pm Eastern Time—to find all the rainbows hidden around the site and gather them all into one shower.

Use this thread to brag, ask for and give hints, etc.

We'll be awarding profile badges to anyone who finds at least two rainbows, and anyone who finds all twelve will be entered into a drawing for some LibraryThing swag.

Helpful tips

Please, use the spoiler tag when posting hints or suggestions. Here's how:

To use the spoiler tag, type the following before whatever you'd like to hide:

<spoiler>

And this, at the end of what's hidden:

</spoiler>

I found three for my badge.

I've found 3 so far. #4 is giving me a little trouble so I'll likely come back to it after seeing what the other clues are! This is my first hunt and it's so, so fun!

Hurray, a new hunt! 😍🌈

I found 9 rainbows, but I need some help with 4, 8 and 11. Any hints?

Got my two.

>4 Ennas: I'm also stuck on 8 and 11, but for 4, look for an award named after a kind of secret language

>4 Ennas: #11 is by Susan Sontag.

>6 queen_ypolita: Thanks! Now I just need #8.

I'm stuck on #4, no award I enter brings a rainbow. Also, what's #10, I want to read that! :D

>9 Seitenhain: #10 is a book by Ellen Kushner.

Five found fairly quickly, and have some ideas on a couple more

>6 queen_ypolita: Thanks, but I'm still stuck. 🤷‍♀️

#4 Lambda? I found that one myself, but it doesn't give me the rainbow.

>7 amanda4242: Thanks! It took a lot of clicking, but I got the rainbow.

>12 Ennas: That's a good guess for 4, but it's not that one - It's a UK based award that uses the word

For #8, you don't want to use the word queer to find the tag.

Got them all! That was fun, thank you!

I'm stuck on #2 and #8. I am pretty sure I know what #2 should be, but I can't seem to find it correctly on the site (which means I'm probably wrong).

Stuck on 8, 11, and 12. Tried different tags for 8, but I'm still missing it.

This is fun! I solved 8 so far. No rainbow badge on my page, though - does it take time for it to show up?

(Still searching for 4, 8, 10, 12.)

Got all except #8. Any more hints welcome.

>7 amanda4242: thanks for the hint!

>20 andbirds: "Special case: badges for Treasure Hunts are awarded manually by LibraryThing staff, and appear simultaneously for all qualifying users. This can be up to several months after a hunt concludes."
https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/Helper_badges

Also need help for #8. I must be going all around it.

>24 perennialreader: Same! I got every other one.

How did I miss it this morning. I will work on it right now. Thanks for the hunt again! :-D

>17 ballet7439: #2: Honestly finding it on the site was harder for me! After failing to hit on the right one a bit on site, I searched the internet for Manchester City queer book store and the first thing I tried here from results was the answer.

I'm also stuck on #8 though! I've tried all the tags I can think of and followed clues but I'm lost!

#8 Is a two word tag, sounds like it could be the name of a university paper or even department, you'll need to try variants on synonyms for queer to hit the correct one

Finally got all of them!

#8 was the hardest. The clues in >15 KikiTuna: and >28 Aquila: were the ones that helped the most. All I can say is keep the acronym short.

Anyway, thanks to everyone at LT for a great hunt, and to all the members in this thread for the hints!

>29 tardis: thank you! Now got them all.
ETA: I found @tardis's hint, plus >28 Aquila: , did the trick.

>28 Aquila: Thanks! It took me a few tries to find the right string of letters, but I got it!

>29 tardis: Thanks for that tip for #8, that finally led me to the right one!

>29 tardis: Thanks, tardis.

>13 queen_ypolita: and >28 Aquila: and >29 tardis:

That helped. Thanks!! I got them all now. 🌈🥳

>14 Bookbrained: >15 KikiTuna: Would you mind adding a <spoiler> tag to avoid giving anything away?

Whew! I used up all my free Talpa searches for today, but I finally got them all. Thanks for another fun hunt!

>27 Kalira: @Kalira thank you so much! It was absolutely what I thought, I just couldn't find it on the site. I finally did.

>29 tardis: @tardis your clue absolutely helped!!! Thanks so much!

Found them all! That was a pleasant break from work.

Thanks for another fun treasure hunt!

Got them all! Thanks for everyone's help.

Found them all! As a librarian & new user, this hunt has been super helpful in learning how to navigate and use LibraryThing's resources :D

Okay. I got 10/12 but am still stuck on #4 and #11. I've read all the clues and hints (at least 10 times) and got nothing but dead ends. For #4 I came up with the Nibbie, Lambda, and Gaylactica awards to no avail. For #11 I came up with Sontag and Buckner but neither got me a rainbow. Helllllp....

Still stuck on #8. I'm not understanding the one clue that it sounds like a university paper. I think I'm using the right letters but stuck on the second word to use as a tag.

>29 tardis: Add my thanks to the masses who are grateful for your hint on #8! BTW, the acronym must be in all caps, but the second word in lower case to work!

>43 NurseBob: #4 is an award named for an argot that was primarily used in the UK.

#11 is a work, not an author.

For #4 I searched debut lgbtq and selected awards in the search

>44 booklover3258: Try turning the problem upside down. it's a two word tag so it must have been used on a book by someone, so find a book on say queer history and look for it in the tag cloud of the book you choose. And if you don't find it on the first book you look at pick another, etc.

I'm still stuck on 12. 🤔 I looked at the list for May, but I didn't find anything.

Nurse Bob - you got the author right though.

>49 cmbohn: It's there, just keep scrolling thru the list It's about half way thru

Removed since the question was removed.

I keep trying to get the May giveaways but it keeps going to the June. Any suggestions?

>50 rastaphrog: I found what I'm sure is the book, but it's not giving me a rainbow. It's by Gwin S

>52 Aquila: There's a link to Previous Batches on the June page.

>53 mnleona: Go up to right under the rainbow banner where it says available now. Click on that and then find where it says previous batches.

>54 cmbohn: You found the right book, make sure you clicked the title and not the author or series

I found 9 out of 12. Can not figure out 2, 8 and 11. These are fun to do.

I need help on #8. Please some new and helpful hints.

>36 Charon07: I cannot remember how to get to Talpa search. Can you provide directions? Thanks.

>60 Micheller7: https://www.talpasearch.com/

>60 Micheller7: Click More at the top of the page.

Any more hints for #8? That one is a toughie! It seems to be asking for a location, like with #2, but I'll be darned if I can't figure it out. I've read the hints here, but nothing is working for me.

>63 ClassicalLibraryGuy: See >29 tardis:. When @tardis said "keep the acronym short", she meant 4 letters. And in the right order, which for me is not the "natural" one.

>63 ClassicalLibraryGuy: It's a tag, not a location

>65 bnielsen: Thanks, but I still don't really understand tags on LibraryThing, so I don't know what else to do. I'm not even sure how to find tags. I don't seem to be able to search for them. When I search for the word, "tag," it just shows me books named, "Tag". It'd be nice if LT had an improved/advanced Search function where you could search do some better searches.

>66 ClassicalLibraryGuy: When you do a search in the top righthand search it defaults to Works. You can then change the search category by selecting anything from the lefthand column to search within, Tags is an option three below Works. If you're on a phone or other narrow screen use the Works dropdown at the top to change what you are searching.

ETA: There's a lot of help here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/353338

>64 haydninvienna: Pretty sure that order became gained popularity because people objected to the idea that the other was a "natural" one.

>66 ClassicalLibraryGuy: And if you want to search two tags at once, just type them in with a comma between them. As >67 Aquila: says, you then have to switch to tag search. Near the top you will then see an option to do a 'tag mash' which will give you the top works ( I think 500) that have both tags.

It would make it easier to find hints if the massage said which clue the hint is about and not just which question is being amswered.

>66 ClassicalLibraryGuy:

General clue to #8

This is a very general hint, so I'm not hiding it in spoiler tags.

if you look at a specific book (actually a work, i.e. a collection of all the editions of the book that's been catalogued on LT) like this:

https://www.librarything.com/work/605788/book/288704454

You can see a bunch of tags that people have used on that book. In this case it says:

Tags:

!Springer @reference looked _import200429 Academics/Research AMA-364 Box #K4 Counting & Numeration DLBDSSIS DLBDSSPDS generalized linear regression GregDesk machine learning math Mathematical & Statistical Software Mendeley non-parametrics physics-and-math printing:2 prob wish science wish science-computer-science-r science-mathematics-probabilities Springer ebook Statistica inferenziale STATISTICA MATEMATICA statistical-theory statistics stats-machine-learning topic:statistics undergraudate

So if you were looking for a tag with something to do with Artificial Intelligence you could see here
that others use the tag machine learning

Specific clue to #8

So I suggest that you find a book about say Queer History and see if one of the tags look like something that could be the name of a university paper

>54 cmbohn: >55 Aquila: Thanks.

>70 bnielsen: When you say 'paper', do you mean like a thesis or a newspaper? Never mind, I found it with your excellent clue.

>70 bnielsen: that was a tortured hint but it worked for me, finally. Now I have them all. Thanks.

This has been an amazing hunt. but #2 is eluding us something terribly fierce.

I don't know if it's just me, but I'm having trouble with the #12. I was looking through the May 2025 ER and I couldn't find it. I'm not sure if I accidently skipped it or wasn't looking right but I have no clue where it is, I'm completely stumped! Any help is greatly appreciated (:

>74 EugeneTBI: You’re looking for a bookshop, which will be on the venues page. Click Local, in the top menu bar. Then scroll down the page to the Find Venues section. Enter the appropriate city, make sure to click the ### more venues button to display them all . The correct one should be fairly obvious when you see it.

>75 annaBethChase32: I used the find function of my browser to look for vampire on the page, since that was mentioned in the clue.

>77 Charon07: Thank you so much! I don't know why I didn't of that before!

>70 bnielsen: Thanks for breaking it down for me. I realize you’re being as on-the-nose as you can, but I am simply not getting it. To be fair, I’ve always sucked at puzzles. LOL I get that it’s supposed to be a two-word tag, the first word of which is likely GLBT and the second word must somehow make the entire tag relate to or sound similar to a university paper, but for the life of me, I cannot wrap my head around this one. I’ve done as you said and looked up ”queer history” and “gay history” and then clicked on books, then search the tags for those books, but I’ve come up with nothing. I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

>79 ClassicalLibraryGuy: Hint 1: You've got the right letters, but in the wrong order.

Hint 2: The second word of the tag is more like a university course or field than a paper.

>79 ClassicalLibraryGuy: #8 You are looking for a word used for subjects at universities that are about studying particular things. A word you can put after African American or Gender or Computer or Biblical and get a stage 1 class or faculty department, that people might then tag the books they have on that subject?

(paper in this context means class or course, like chemistry 101, that you go to lectures on for a semester, not a written paper, and I'm realising it's a much more localised usage than I'd previously been aware of)

>29 tardis: _thank you,_ this finally got me my twelfth rainbow!

>81 Aquila: Oh, for the love of…grr! Thank you. There’s nothing worse than stumbling over a puzzle only to have someone give you the answer and then kicking yourself. I am thoroughly and most completely kicking myself right now. I was searching for something like "GLBT Semiotics: A Study of Alternative Symbology" .

Got 9 of 12 in about an hour (while listening to a baseball game, so not fully focused :), but much searching re 8, 10, and 11 got me nowhere. Will take a break and then explore the hints above . . . Glad to see I'm not alone in some of my struggles!
Thanks all!!

after seeing the title for #11 i feel dumb for strugglign to figure out which book it was

Thanks to the clues here, found all of them! #8 was especially gnarly for me, but all is fine now! :D

I'm stuck on 4, 8, and 12. Pleaase Help my brain isn't able to figure them out from the hints listed above. 😭

>87 PuffLib: What have you tried?

>88 Aquila: I just figured out 4.
For 8, I've tried LGB, GLB, this is my first time doing this and I'm new to librarything so I'm still navigating the site.
For 12, I feel like this is easy but I'm missing it. I've looked for new books and found nothing.

>76 Charon07: OMG... that is awesome. We were absolutely failing to see that we could search venues. TY.

>89 PuffLib: For 12 you have to look at the Early Reviewers list for May You have to scroll about half way thru it and the description is part of the clue

>91 rastaphrog: Thank you! I had that one but I guess I didn't click on the book.

8 is just really grinding my gears.

>89 PuffLib: Very few things will be tagged LGB and GLB, since they've mostly only been used recently by people trying to split the rainbow community by purposely leaving out trans people.

ETA: You will probably get a lot of Little Golden Book results though.

>93 Aquila: I used both of those with a T as well. I guess I had misspelled the second word and that's why it wasn't working. THANK YOU ALL

>83 ClassicalLibraryGuy: I thought I'd be criticized for the hint being too obvious :-)

>10 amanda4242: Thanks!

Took me a few days, didn't come here until now. Wonderful helpful hints here, thanks very much! I enjoyed the hunt and learned a lot.

Stuck in3

>98 rooparithvik: For #3: It's a joke on the title of another book Flann O'Brien's book: at swim ....

I finally got #8.
Thanks for all the hints.

Thanks LT for another great Hunt. There is always a beautiful drawing.

Thanks for the hunt. Thanks for hints. I learned new things from both.

I have to complain about #11 I immediatly went to Sontag because the clue implies it is about the AUTHOR not the book/work. When that didn't work I spent way too long searching for other Susan authors who might have written on similar subjects. Now I'm just pissed off that the clue was so confusing that I never clicked on the original Sontag work. Finally gave up and tried that but REALLY? Could you proofread these clues to make sure they're clear-ish?

>104 LucindaLibri: *shrug* I thought it was a work right off.

>17 ballet7439: same for #2!

Help. The only one I am missing is # 5 but I just can't get it. Please give me a clue ! Thanks

>107 book58lover: If you search for the most unusual word in that clue in various categories you should find it.

>104 LucindaLibri: I feel your pain and empathize with you; a lot of these clues are maddening, and I’m frankly grumpier now that I’m finished than when I started (I had a whole rant about #8, but it’s just not worth it…).

>107 book58lover: For #5, I used Talpa search, and looked for the words from the clue that I thought were most distinctive, “banned” and “invert.” The solution was the first thing that came up.

I've solved all but the infamous #8!!! any help welcomed. I've toyed with several ideas but none of them have panned out.

>111 bubbles48: For #8, I used Talpa search, and looked for the words from the clue that I thought were most distinctive, “Susan” and “camp.” The solution was the first thing that came up.

>110 Charon07: thank you so much. I have now found it. I never think about Talpa.

>112 Charon07: THAT HELPED!!!! i finally finally finally dug deep and on my last attempt before giving up saw the ribbon link at the top of the page!!!! wow, that was a bit of a doozie!!! But, for the first time, I got them all!!!

Hey still stuck on 8th

I can ‘t find 4th and 12th 4th I believe is LGBT studies and 12th is indecent by gwin s but none are working . Please help!!!!!

Sorry 8th and 12thpleeeeeeeeeeeese

8th is LGBT studies I think

>118 rooparithvik: See if #80 helps.

Took me a while to get #4. I ended up figuring it out by googling "UK LGBT book award".

Done and Done! Numbers 5 and 8 were hard for me! But it is over. Another fun Scavenger Hunt!

I now have them all thanks to >110 Charon07: for #5 and all the clues for #8 did not help until >118 rooparithvik: made it obvious. I was stuck on history for some reason and kept trying different variations on that.
Thanks for the clue help.

#8 took way too long. Otherwise, a fun treasure hunt as always.

Tried please tell the answer. Am I right for 12#being indecent by gwin savage cause it is not working

>125 rooparithvik: Please put spoiler code (instructions in the first post) around your answers in here. You can edit your older posts.

#12 Click the title of the ER book to get the ER book page, not the author or the series

>104 LucindaLibri: There are a few hints in #11 that point towards the actual answer. You need to read the whole clue, which make the answer obvious.

>76 Charon07: THAT was the clue I needed. I knew the name of the bookshop, but couldn't figure out where to find it.

1 thru 7 was smooth sailing. Thanks for help with #8. Guessed #11 right away but the author while I should have looked up the essay. For #12, I used google to search the site for "vampire" and one of the hits got me the right answer.

I got some on my own with LT and some with Google's help, but found the rest here with help from others. Thank you all for the hints.

>48 bnielsen: Finally got #8 Thanks!

For people still stuck on it I got hung up on it being a tagmash of two tags, instead its a single tag that's two words

Was stuck on #12 for a long while but >126 Aquila: finally made it clear, thanks!

>6 queen_ypolita: This clue did not help me since I did not know that word and what it means, but thank you for mentioning this since now, after finding the rainbow, I googled it and learned about this secret language!

I am still baffled by #2. I gather from previous clues that I should look into tags and I did a google search to find a bookshop in Manchester city.
Beware mega spoiler here, I'm just telling you what I tried (this is not a clue): I went with queer lit, because this seems to be the big bookshop in Manchester, and this tag exists but when I clicked on it no rainbow flag... so I am doing it right but I did not get the right word, and do I have the right word but not looking in the right place on the website?
Thanks in advance?

>134 Zofiam90: It's not a tag, it's a location.

I'm confused by number one- as you can tell im awful with this sort of thing TwT

>136 Jynx_on_pawz: #1 When you have two names, it is worth searching tags and/or characters. Plug in the two names, maybe with a comma. Maybe using tagmash (link on the tag search page)

>134 Zofiam90: to clarify it's NOT a tag, but a VENUE

See message # 76 above for clearer instructions on how to find the right page.

By the way ... I did NOT get a banner announcing the hunt. But I check this group at least weekly, so that's how I found it.

Woo Hoo - successfully found the rainbows yesterday :)

Love these hunts - thanks so much to all who created them

Cheers

Consolidated hints up to this point are here.

Please have a look at this post for general strategies on searching for answers to Hunt clues.

And please remember to put the spoiler code (instructions in >1 AbigailAdams26: the first post) around your hints - and questions, if it might give away an answer / or rule out an answer - in here and in the Treasure Hunt threads so that it doesn't spoil the game for other Hunters.

You can go back and edit your older posts if you've forgotten.

#8 aauurrgh! I've read every hint many times, tried every 4 letter combo I can think of in caps along w/ the 2nd word being sim to a dept or paper research? I know it's a tag... help!

>142 NotABookHoarder: Major spoiler! First word of #8 is LGBT.

>143 amanda4242: Finally!! Just now got it!! This was THE hardest riddle to get so far!! all 12 completed. Thanks!!

Super fun game, and thanks to everyone here who helped with hints for some of the tricky ones! I've added a few books to my wishlist, too...

Found all 12! #12 was the hardest. Thanks to everyone who gave clues!

>53 mnleona: I'm having the same issue. Are prior month's ER list posted somewhere??

Edit: I found it! (insert face palm emoji). on that same page of the current list it says previous batches ....

>147 Hannahm2022: I finally found it also. I always find something new (to me) on the Hunts.

Re #8

I have to laugh or I'd cry. This is an example how difficult it can be when your brain takes things too literally sometimes. Someday it will truly be funny.

Someday.

Where do you find books? At a library, of course.

I spent over an hour plugging in one LGBTQ library after another - local and tags. I was getting really freaking annoyed because there weren't enough clues to tell me which library!

I finally gave up and came to this thread to find out the answer and what clue I missed to which library was being referenced.

...

Oh.

...

Right.

...

Nevermind!

>135 PawsforThought: Thank you very much, I had missed the clue about locations and never used that functionality of LT before, it's amazing!

Got 12 rainbows now! Thank you all for your clues here! Happy Pride Month!

>4 Ennas: Susan Sontag's book about camp

>6 queen_ypolita: Thank you.

>76 Charon07: Thank you for sharing.

>146 andbirds: can you give me a better spoiler hint for # 8 or #10? Those are the only two I have left

>6 queen_ypolita: Thank you. That worked.

>10 amanda4242: Thank you.

>16 Aquila: Can you help with the last one for me #8.

aaaah! I accidentally deleted my treasure hunt banner and link! How do I get it back? Thanks.

Thank you, Aquila, for the hint for #8. Much gratitude to everyone else who helped with my last 3. I've now achieved all 12 for the first time since joining LT.

>159 Sistah_Eve: There's a link to the hunt in the first post always
https://www.librarything.com/hunt/37

Finished in record time. Thanks for all the help! Now to wait for the last 4 badges to magically appear. I know Tim has to do them by hand (please don't 'splain' that to me). I hope we don't have to wait for Halloween for the next one or "horrors" until December! :)

Thank you! That was fun. I did need help with the last three (8, 10, and 11), though. Thanks for those who left hints.

Thank you for the hints! I got a little stuck on 4, 8, and 10, but now I've got them all!

Finally finished with help from all of you for #4, 5, 8, 10 and 11!
This was a tough one!
Thank you!!

>12 Ennas: though Lamda is excellent it is not correct, i start with a P or i am not erect

Finished this one with lots of help from the hints for #s 4 and 8. This was hard. Thanks to everyone who posted hints, couldn't have done it without you.

Hi All! The 2025 Pride Month Treasure Hunt has now ended. Thank you to all who participated!

We had 1,289 players for this hunt, and 789 players finding at least five clues. The average number of clues found was seven.

Our randomly selected winners for the hunt are:

itsbowsertime
zombiecat
wjbrown
kylebrewer13
psalva

Winners: I will be messaging you about your mailing addresses, so we can get your prizes sent out to you!

Participants who found at least two rainbows: Please be aware that badges are awarded manually, and may not appear in your badges for some time.

GOOD NEWS regarding the banner: the developers believe that they have resolved the ongoing problems with the banner's appearance. Going forward it should now appear for each hunt, even if dismissed in a previous one. Let us know when the next hunt commences, if this is not the case for you.

>127 MarthaJeanne:
I read the whole clue many times. I also used to get paid to proofread text to make sure it wasn't leading readers down garden paths. I maintain my criticism.

Regarding badges for the pride hunt, could you give an estimate for how long "some time" is?

>171 MarthaJeanne: They often come in batches when there are two or three due.

>170 MicheleWhis: Less than a year?

>172 paradoxosalpha: thanks!

>171 MarthaJeanne: thanks!