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Disability/Anti-Ableism Booklist

Books on disability rights, activism, and theory. Check out our children's disability titles as well.

The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes and Mourning Songs By Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha Cover Image
$19.95
ISBN: 9781551528915
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Published: Arsenal Pulp Press - October 4th, 2022

In The Future Is Disabled, Leah Laksmi Piepzna-Samarasinha asks some provocative questions: What if, in the near future, the majority of people will be disabled―and what if that's not a bad thing?


Disability Pride: Dispatches from a Post-ADA World By Ben Mattlin Cover Image
$29.95
ISBN: 9780807036457
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Published: Beacon Press - November 29th, 2022

An eye-opening portrait of the diverse disability community as it is today, and how disability attitudes, activism, and representation have evolved since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)


Black Disability Politics By Sami Schalk Cover Image
$28.69
ISBN: 9781478025009
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Published: Duke University Press - October 31st, 2022

In Black Disability Politics Sami Schalk explores how issues of disability have been and continue to be central to Black activism from the 1970s to the present. Schalk shows how Black people have long engaged with disability as a political issue deeply tied to race and racism.


Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist By Judith Heumann, Kristen Joiner Cover Image
$16.99
ISBN: 9780807002803
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Published: Beacon Press - February 23rd, 2021

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year for Nonfiction

"...an essential and engaging look at recent disability history."— Buzzfeed

One of the most influential disability rights activists in US history tells her personal story of fighting for the right to receive an education, have a job, and just be human.


We've Got This: Essays by Disabled Parents By Eliza Hull (Editor) Cover Image
By Eliza Hull (Editor)
$22.00
ISBN: 9781957363257
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Published: Scribe Us - May 2nd, 2023

The first major anthology by parents with disabilities.

How does a father who is blind take his child to the park? How is a mother with dwarfism treated when she walks her child down the street? How do Deaf parents know when their baby cries in the night?


Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman's Fight to End Ableism By Elsa Sjunneson Cover Image
$17.99
ISBN: 9781982152406
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Published: S&S/Simon Element - November 1st, 2022

A Deafblind writer and professor explores how the misrepresentation of disability in books, movies, and TV harms both the disabled community and everyone else.

As a Deafblind woman with partial vision in one eye and bilateral hearing aids, Elsa Sjunneson lives at the crossroads of blindness and sight, hearing and deafness—much to the confusion of the world around her.


There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness By M. Leona Godin Cover Image
$18.00
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ISBN: 9781984898401
Published: Vintage - August 30th, 2022

From Homer to Helen Keller, from Dune to Stevie Wonder, from the invention of braille to the science of echolocation, M. Leona Godin explores the fascinating history of blindness, interweaving it with her own story of gradually losing her sight.

“[A] thought-provoking mixture of criticism, memoir, and advocacy." —The New Yorker


Crip Up the Kitchen: Tools, Tips, and Recipes for the Disabled Cook By Jules Sherred Cover Image
$30.00
ISBN: 9781771513968
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Published: Touchwood Editions - May 16th, 2023

"I've never felt so understood and supported as I did reading Crip Up the Kitchen. Sherred is the kitchen whisperer for chronic pain folks like me who have avoided that room in the house for most of my life." --J. Albert Mann, author of The Degenerates and Fix


Floppy: Tales of a Genetic Freak of Nature at the End of the World By Alyssa Graybeal Cover Image
$18.95
ISBN: 9781636280974
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Published: Red Hen Press - May 30th, 2023

One of the first books to explore the emotional landscape of living with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome from a patient's perspective; a playful story of falling down, getting back up again, and realizing you should have gone to the hospital sooner.


American Breakdown: Our Ailing Nation, My Body's Revolt, and the Nineteenth-Century Woman Who Brought Me Back to Life By Jennifer Lunden Cover Image
$32.00
ISBN: 9780062941374
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Published: Harper Wave - May 9th, 2023

A Silent Spring for the human body, this wide-ranging, genre-crossing literary mystery interweaves the author’s quest to understand the source of her own condition with her telling of the story of the chronically ill 19th-century diarist Alice James—ultimately uncovering the many hidden health hazards of life in America.


Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century By Alice Wong (Editor) Cover Image
By Alice Wong (Editor)
$18.00
ISBN: 9781984899422
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Published: Vintage - June 30th, 2020

“Disability rights activist Alice Wong brings tough conversations to the forefront of society with this anthology. It sheds light on the experience of life as an individual with disabilities, as told by none other than authors with these life experiences. It's an eye-opening collection that readers will revisit time and time again.” —Chicago Tribune


Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life By Alice Wong Cover Image
$17.00
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ISBN: 9780593315392
Published: Vintage - September 6th, 2022

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • ONE OF USA TODAY'S MUST-READ BOOKS This groundbreaking memoir offers a glimpse into an activist's journey to finding and cultivating community and the continued fight for disability justice, from the founder and director of the Disability Visibility Project


All Our Families: Disability Lineage and the Future of Kinship By Jennifer Natalya Fink Cover Image
$18.95
ISBN: 9780807008133
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Published: Beacon Press - March 21st, 2023

A provocation to reclaim our disability lineage in order to profoundly reimagine the possibilities for our relationship to disability, kinship, and carework


A Certain Loneliness: A Memoir (American Lives ) By Sandra Gail Lambert Cover Image
$19.95
ISBN: 9781496207197
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Published: University of Nebraska Press - September 1st, 2018

After contracting polio as a child, Sandra Gail Lambert progressed from braces and crutches to a manual wheelchair to a power wheelchair—but loneliness has remained a constant, from the wild claustrophobia of a child in body casts to just yesterday, trapped at home, gasping from pain.


Crip Kinship: The Disability Justice & Art Activism of Sins Invalid By Shayda Kafai Cover Image
$17.95
ISBN: 9781551528649
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Published: Arsenal Pulp Press - December 7th, 2021

In recent years, disability activism has come into its own as a vital and necessary means to acknowledge the power and resilience of the disabled community, and to call out ableist culture wherever it appears.


Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be an Ally By Emily Ladau Cover Image
$16.00
ISBN: 9781984858979
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Published: Ten Speed Press - September 7th, 2021

An approachable guide to being a thoughtful, informed ally to disabled people, with actionable steps for what to say and do (and what not to do) and how you can help make the world a more inclusive place
 


Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body By Rebekah Taussig Cover Image
$16.99
ISBN: 9780062936806
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Published: HarperOne - July 6th, 2021

A memoir-in-essays from disability advocate and creator of the Instagram account @sitting_pretty Rebekah Taussig, processing a lifetime of memories to paint a beautiful, nuanced portrait of a body that looks and moves differently than most.


The Architecture of Disability: Buildings, Cities, and Landscapes beyond Access By David Gissen Cover Image
$24.95
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ISBN: 9781517912505
Published: Univ Of Minnesota Press - January 24th, 2023

A radical critique of architecture that places disability at the heart of the built environment

Disability critiques of architecture usually emphasize the need for modification and increased access, but The Architecture of Disability calls for a radical reorientation of this perspective by situating experiences of impairment as a new foundation for the built environmen


The Wounds That Bind Us By Kelley Shinn Cover Image
$21.99
ISBN: 9781952271861
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Published: West Virginia University Press - June 1st, 2023

The improbable and powerful true story of a single mother with prosthetics for both legs who travels the globe with her young daughter in a Land Rover.

“A harrowing memoir. . . .


Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice By Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha Cover Image
$19.95
ISBN: 9781551527383
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Published: Arsenal Pulp Press - October 30th, 2018

In this collection of essays, Lambda Literary Award-winning writer and longtime activist and performance artist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha explores the politics and realities of disability justice, a movement that centers the lives and leadership of sick and disabled queer, trans, Black, and brown people, with knowledge and gifts for all.


Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space (Exploded Views) By Amanda Leduc Cover Image
$16.95
ISBN: 9781552453957
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Published: Coach House Books - March 3rd, 2020

A CBC BOOKS BEST NONFICTION OF 2020
AN ENTROPY MAGAZINE BEST NONFICTION 2020/21
A NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY BOOK OF THE DAY (07/23/2022)


Fairy tales shape how we see the world, so what happens when you identify more with the Beast than Beauty?


Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole By Julia Watts Belser Cover Image
$29.95
ISBN: 9780807006757
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Published: Beacon Press - September 12th, 2023

A transformative spiritual companion and deep dive into disability politics that reimagines disability in the Bible and contemporary culture

An essential read that will foster and enrich conversations about disability, spirituality, and social justice


“What’s wrong with you?”


A Quick & Easy Guide to Sex & Disability (Quick & Easy Guides) By A. Andrews, A. Andrews (Illustrator) Cover Image
By A. Andrews, A. Andrews (Illustrator)
$9.99
ISBN: 9781620106945
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Published: Limerence Press - June 23rd, 2020

A quick, easy, and educational comic book guide that will help change the way we talk about sex and sexuality for all bodies. 

"This guide can help disabled people (and their partners) on their journey toward self-love, better communication, and confidence." –– Alice Wong, Founder and Director, Disability Visibility Project


All different kind


Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity By Devon Price, PhD Cover Image
$26.99
ISBN: 9780593235232
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Published: Harmony - April 5th, 2022

A deep dive into the spectrum of Autistic experience and the phenomenon of masked Autism, giving individuals the tools to safely uncover their true selves while broadening society’s narrow understanding of neurodiversity


Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities By Nick Walker Cover Image
$26.00
ISBN: 9781945955266
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Published: Autonomous Press - December 1st, 2021

The work of queer autistic scholar Nick Walker has played a key role in the evolving discourse on human neurodiversity.

Neuroqueer Heresies collects a decade's worth of Dr. Walker's most influential writings, along with new commentary by the author and new material on her radical conceptualization of Neuroqueer Theory.


Feminist, Queer, Crip By Alison Kafer Cover Image
$27.00
ISBN: 9780253009340
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Published: Indiana University Press - May 16th, 2013

In Feminist, Queer, Crip Alison Kafer imagines a different future for disability and disabled bodies. Challenging the ways in which ideas about the future and time have been deployed in the service of compulsory able-bodiedness and able-mindedness, Kafer rejects the idea of disability as a pre-determined limit.


Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability By Aimi Hamraie Cover Image
$36.00
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ISBN: 9781517901646
Published: Univ Of Minnesota Press - November 1st, 2017

“All too often,” wrote disabled architect Ronald Mace, “designers don’t take the needs of disabled and elderly people into account.” Building Access investigates twentieth-century strategies for designing the world with disability in mind.


A Body, Undone: Living on After Great Pain (Sexual Cultures #8) By Christina Crosby Cover Image
$33.35
ISBN: 9781479853168
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Published: New York University Press - October 3rd, 2017

A compelling account of recreating a life through writing, memory, and desire In the early evening on October 1, 2003, Christina Crosby was three miles into a seventeen mile bicycle ride, intent on reaching her goal of 1,000 miles for the riding season. She was a respected senior professor of English who had celebrated her fiftieth birthday a month before.


Spectrum Women: Walking to the Beat of Autism By Barb Cook (Editor), Michelle Garnett (Editor), Jen Elcheson (Contribution by) Cover Image
By Barb Cook (Editor), Michelle Garnett (Editor), Jen Elcheson (Contribution by)
$27.45
ISBN: 9781785924347
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Published: Jessica Kingsley Publishers - August 21st, 2018

Barb Cook and 14 other autistic women describe life from a female autistic perspective, and present empowering, helpful and supportive insights from their personal experience for fellow autistic women. Michelle Garnett's comments validate and expand the experiences described from a clinician's perspective, and provide extensive recommendations.


A Radical Guide for Women with ADHD: Embrace Neurodiversity, Live Boldly, and Break Through Barriers By Sari Solden, Michelle Frank, Ellen Littman (Foreword by) Cover Image
$21.95
ISBN: 9781684032617
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Published: New Harbinger Publications - July 1st, 2019

Live boldly as a woman with ADHD This radical guide will show you how to cultivate your individual strengths, honor your neurodiversity, and learn to communicate with confidence and clarity.


Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition By Liat Ben-Moshe Cover Image
$36.00
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ISBN: 9781517904432
Published: Univ Of Minnesota Press - May 19th, 2020

This vital addition to carceral, prison, and disability studies draws important new links between deinstitutionalization and decarceration

 

Prison abolition and decarceration are increasingly debated, but it is often without taking into account the largest exodus of people from carceral facilities in the twentieth century: the closure of disability institutions an


Authoring Autism: On Rhetoric and Neurological Queerness (Thought in the ACT) By M. Remi Yergeau Cover Image
$32.14
ISBN: 9780822370208
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Published: Duke University Press - January 5th, 2018

In Authoring Autism Melanie Yergeau defines neurodivergence as an identity--neuroqueerness--rather than an impairment. Using a queer theory framework, Yergeau notes the stereotypes that deny autistic people their humanity and the chance to define themselves while also challenging cognitive studies scholarship and its reification of the neurological passivity of autistics.


Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability: For All of Us Who Live with Disabilities, Chronic Pain, and Illness By Miriam Kaufman, Cory Silverberg, Fran Odette Cover Image
$27.95
ISBN: 9781573443043
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Published: Cleis Press - November 28th, 2007

The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability is the first complete sex guide for people who live with disabilities, pain, illness, or chronic conditions.


Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure By Eli Clare Cover Image
$24.95
ISBN: 9780822362876
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Published: Duke University Press - February 3rd, 2017

In Brilliant Imperfection Eli Clare uses memoir, history, and critical analysis to explore cure--the deeply held belief that body-minds considered broken need to be fixed. Cure serves many purposes. It saves lives, manipulates lives, and prioritizes some lives over others. It provides comfort, makes profits, justifies violence, and promises resolution to body-mind loss.


Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation By Eli Clare Cover Image
$22.95
ISBN: 9780822360315
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Published: Duke University Press - August 7th, 2015

First published in 1999, the groundbreaking Exile and Pride is essential to the history and future of disability politics.


About Us: Essays from the Disability Series of the New York Times By Peter Catapano (Editor), Rosemarie Garland-Thomson (Editor) Cover Image
$18.95
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ISBN: 9781631498589
Published: Liveright - February 23rd, 2021

Based on the historic New York Times series, About Us features intimate, firsthand accounts on what it means, and how it feels, to live with a disability.


The Pretty One: On Life, Pop Culture, Disability, and Other Reasons to Fall in Love with Me By Keah Brown Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9781982100544
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Published: Atria Books - August 6th, 2019

From the disability rights advocate and creator of the #DisabledAndCute viral campaign, a thoughtful, inspiring, and charming collection of essays exploring what it means to be black and disabled in a mostly able-bodied white America.

Keah Brown loves herself, but that hadn’t always been the case.


Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment By James I. Charlton Cover Image
$35.94
ISBN: 9780520224810
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Published: University of California Press - August 30th, 2000

James Charlton has produced a ringing indictment of disability oppression, which, he says, is rooted in degradation, dependency, and powerlessness and is experienced in some form by five hundred million persons throughout the world who have physical, sensory, cognitive, or developmental disabilities.


The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability By Jasbir K. Puar Cover Image
$32.14
ISBN: 9780822369189
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Published: Duke University Press - November 3rd, 2017

In The Right to Maim Jasbir K. Puar brings her pathbreaking work on the liberal state, sexuality, and biopolitics to bear on our understanding of disability. Drawing on a stunning array of theoretical and methodological frameworks, Puar uses the concept of "debility"--bodily injury and social exclusion brought on by economic and political factors--to disrupt the category of disability.


Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability (Cultural Front #9) By Robert McRuer, Michael Bérubé (Foreword by) Cover Image
By Robert McRuer, Michael Bérubé (Foreword by)
$34.50
ISBN: 9780814757130
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Published: New York University Press - June 1st, 2006

Crip Theory attends to the contemporary cultures of disability and queerness that are coming out all over.


Hot, Wet, and Shaking: How I Learned to Talk about Sex: How I Learned to Talk about Sex By Kaleigh Trace Cover Image
$19.95
ISBN: 9781926743479
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Published: Invisible Publishing - August 1st, 2014

This is a sex book. It's a book about having sex by yourself, with one person, or with twenty people if everyone is down. It's about saying words like cunt, fuck, and come. But it's also about the things we don't talk about--the mystery, the expectations, and the bullshit that can go along with sex.


Feminist Disability Studies By Kim Q. Hall (Editor), Ellen Samuels (Contribution by), Rosemarie Garland-Thomson (Contribution by) Cover Image
By Kim Q. Hall (Editor), Ellen Samuels (Contribution by), Rosemarie Garland-Thomson (Contribution by)
$28.00
ISBN: 9780253223401
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Published: Indiana University Press - October 24th, 2011

Disability, like questions of race, gender, and class, is one of the most provocative topics among theorists and philosophers today.


Qda: A Queer Disability Anthology By Raymond Luczak (Editor) Cover Image
By Raymond Luczak (Editor)
$30.00
ISBN: 9781941960028
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Published: Squares & Rebels - November 12th, 2015

Featuring fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and comics by 48 writers from around the world, QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology proves that intersectionality isn't just a buzzword. It's a penetrating and unforgettable look into the hearts and souls of those defiant enough to explore their own vulnerabilities and demonstrate their own strengths.


Not a Poster Child: Living Well with a Disability--A Memoir By Francine Falk-Allen Cover Image
$16.95
ISBN: 9781631523915
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Published: She Writes Press - August 7th, 2018

Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2018 2018 Sarton Women's Book Awards finalist in Memoir Francine Falk-Allen was only three years old when she contracted polio and temporarily lost the ability to stand and walk.


Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body By Rosemarie Garland-Thomson (Editor) Cover Image
$34.50
ISBN: 9780814782224
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Published: New York University Press - October 1st, 1996

Giants. Midgets. Tribal non-Westerners. The very fat. The very thin. Hermaphrodites. Conjoined twins. The disabled. The very hirsute. In American history, all have shared the platform equally, as freaks, human oddities, their only commonality their assigned role of anomalous other to the gathered throngs.