Book Riot Recommends Books by Authors with Disabilities

For Disability Pride Month, which recognizes and honors disabled, chronically ill, neurodivergent, and Deaf people, Book Riot offers recommendations of works by and about people with disabilities.

Contributing Editor Kendra Winchester recommends ten new nonfiction books: Intoxciated: Race, Disability, and Chemical Intimacy Across Empire by Mel Y. Chen; What my Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo; Disability Worlds by Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp; Ill Feelings by Alice Hattrick; But Everyone Feels This Way: How an Autism Diagnosis Saved My Life by Paige Layle; Sex with a Brain Injury: On Concussion and Recovery by Anne Liontas, The Future is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes and Mourning Songs  by Leah Laksmi Piepzna-Samarasinha; Crip Spacetime: Access, Failure, and Accountability in Academic Life by Margaret Price, Crip Up the Kitchen: Tools, Tips and Recipes for the Disabled Cook by Jules Sherred; and Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire edited by Alice Wong. For summaries of these titles, see Winchester’s article, “10 of the Best New Nonfiction Books to Read for Disability Pride Month.”

Associate Editor Danika Ellis recommends “7 Books to Read  for Disability Pride Month,” including Continuum by Chella Man, illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky and Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc.

Book Riot Editor Kelly Jensen offers an article titled, “Books About Disability are Popular Banning Targets: Book Censorship News.” Jensen states that the most recent wave of censorship has focused on “books by and about LGBTQ+ people and people of color, books that explore social and emotional learning, and books that explore sexuality and puberty.” In addition, books about health and wellbeing are frequently targeted. Jensen points out that Project 2025 has its sights on overturning and removing protections for disabled people.

Recently banned books include Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko, Blindness by Jose Saramongo, Bodies Are Cool by Tyler Feder, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk M.D., Body Talk: 37 Voices Explore Our Radical Anatomy edited by Kelly Jensen, Born on the Fourth of July by Ron Kovic, Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwinge Danticat, The Curious Incident of the Dog at Nighttime by Mark Haddon, Cut Both Ways by Carrie Mesrobian.

Books by authors with disabilities often possess a unique depth of wisdom, and are vastly underrepresented in the publishing world. Check out the above Book Riot articles to explore these amazing books.

 

 

 

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