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Sitting Pretty: A Short Disability Reading List by Rebekah Taussig
4 participants (6 books)
Overview
At the end of her wonderful book Sitting Pretty, Rebekah Taussig shares a disability resource list. I’ve turned the short list of books into a challenge here, with her brief thoughts on each selection. (Click the small i above each cover.) She writes,
This list is not exhaustive or focused, but it is entirely personal—I’ve included only creators/creations that I’ve spent time with and continue to think about today. My hope is that as we seek out these voices and draw them into our minds and communities, their insights will wash over us; change the way we look at, evaluate, and categorize each other; and prompt us to question our methods of determining human worth. I believe there is a kinder, more supportive, creative version of us out there, and listening to these voices is one way to move in that direction.
I’ve included bonus books that were published or will be published after Sitting Pretty, from disabled authors she lists as important voices.
“Taussig, who has been paralyzed since the age of three, is a mom, wife, author, disability advocate and educator with a Ph.D in creative nonfiction and disability studies.”
Poor Miss Finch is free to read from Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3632
Poor Miss Finch is free to read from Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3632
Sitting Pretty: A Short Disability Reading List by Rebekah Taussig
4 participants (6 books)
Overview
At the end of her wonderful book Sitting Pretty, Rebekah Taussig shares a disability resource list. I’ve turned the short list of books into a challenge here, with her brief thoughts on each selection. (Click the small i above each cover.) She writes,
This list is not exhaustive or focused, but it is entirely personal—I’ve included only creators/creations that I’ve spent time with and continue to think about today. My hope is that as we seek out these voices and draw them into our minds and communities, their insights will wash over us; change the way we look at, evaluate, and categorize each other; and prompt us to question our methods of determining human worth. I believe there is a kinder, more supportive, creative version of us out there, and listening to these voices is one way to move in that direction.
I’ve included bonus books that were published or will be published after Sitting Pretty, from disabled authors she lists as important voices.
“Taussig, who has been paralyzed since the age of three, is a mom, wife, author, disability advocate and educator with a Ph.D in creative nonfiction and disability studies.”
Poor Miss Finch is free to read from Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3632
Poor Miss Finch is free to read from Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3632
Challenge Books
1
Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation
Eli Clare
“Storyteller, activist, theorist, and poet who explores the intersections of disability, race, gender, sexuality, and class. I can't teach anything related to disability without bringing Clare into the conversation.”
3
Poor Miss Finch
Wilkie Collins
“A hearty Victorian novel that tells a sensational story with a blind protagonist at the center. Collins very well might have been the first writer to place a disabled woman in the center of a story whose resolution is not found in a return to sight and who's portrayed as a desirable love interest, eventual mother, and powerful force. Hell, 150 years later, and he's still one of the only writers to tell this kind of story.”
4
Autobiography of a Face
Lucy Grealy
“American poet and memoirist who wrote the story of her lifelong pursuit to correct her facial deformities through reconstructive surgeries. Thank you, Grealy, for giving us the gift of your unwavering insight before you left this world.”
5
Feminist, Queer, Crip
Alison Kafer
“Theorist who writes stunning prose critically examining the relationship between disability and pop culture, current social and political events, and theoretical constructs. There is a before reading FQC and after reading FQC—I saw the world differently after reading this book.”
6
Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity
Andrew Solomon
“Nonfiction writer and activist who follows his own openhanded curiosity to explore the intersections between marginalized identities. I am so grateful for the relentless nuance Solomon brings to the world; he takes nothing for granted, and I feel both brave and easy when I look at the world with his voice in mind.”
