Showing titles in People with Disabilities

If you grow up in a world where wrinkles are practically illegal, going bald is cause for a mental breakdown, and women over size zero are encouraged to shoot themselves (immediately), what the hell do you do if you're, gasp... disabled? Whatever body you’re born into, the pressure to be normal is everywhere. But have you ever met a normal person? What do they look like? Where do they live? What do they eat for breakfast? And what the **** does normal mean anyway?

When Emmett de Monterey is eighteen months old, a doctor diagnoses him with cerebral palsy. Words too big for his 25-year-old artist parents and their happy, smiling baby. Growing up in South East London in the 1980s, Emmett is spat at on the street and prayed over at church. At his school for disabled children, he's told he will be expelled if the rumours are true, if he's gay; at his mainstream school, teachers refuse to schedule his classes on the ground floor, and he loses a stone from the effort of getting up the stairs.

Blindness in the 1950s was a social stigma. Stephen's mother wanted a normal life for him, so he fought desperately to uphold the illusion of sight. For a child frantic to fit in, each day was an exhausting pretence. He managed to ride a bike, when even reading involved pressing his nose to the page and painfully forcing his eyes to concentrate. Head up, he strode through a carefully memorized labyrinth of streets, hoping to fool passers-by that he could actually see.

Dive headfirst into the urban symphony of "Smelling the Taste of Sound", a riveting memoir of a newly diagnosed, neurodivergent trainee lawyer. Her sensory issues are compounded by the sirens that punctuate the daily grind of a tough, inner-city law firm. Amidst encounters with eccentric characters and surreal personalities, our protagonist navigates the chaos and unorthodox office dynamics with comical observations and resilience.

Brought to you by Penguin. There is no meant to be but the love I’ve known has made it hard to believe that An inventive, funny and deeply moving family epic: a love story, an elegy and a reminder that even in the mess of family and memory there is something to laugh about Jarred McGinnis was...

On July 4th, 2013, Connor Sparrowhawk, also known as Laughing Boy or LB, was found dead in a specialist NHS unit. Connor, who had autism and epilepsy, had a seizure while in the bath, and no member of staff was on hand to stop him from drowning. An entirely preventable death. Sara Ryan presents a frank, sometimes funny and touching account of her son's early life and preventable death and the unfolding #JusticeforLB campaign.

Blinded at age three, Mike May defied expectations by breaking world records in downhill speed skiing, joining the CIA, and becoming a successful inventor, entrepreneur, and family man. He had never yearned for vision. Then, in 1999, a chance encounter brought startling news: a revolutionary...

Driven by the pursuit of perfection and the desire to truly be loved and accepted, Cynthia battled an eating disorder for thirteen long years. “Starving, Bingeing, Purging” is her raw, authentic story, told firsthand; a story not just of suffering, but of resilience, victory, and hope against all odds. In this book, Cynthia openly explores the complex issues of anorexia, bulimia, purging, and food addiction, and shares the intimate details of her journey to reclaim her life.

A witty and honest account about Lorraine Ansell’s journey with chronic pain due to Hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. This genetic life long condition cannot be cured, only managed. Lorraine talks about her life in constant pain and how that has created her personality and even clothes choices. Lorraine’s life is a continual compromise of activities and choices. This book explores her journey as well as the issues with tissues which she now realises were actually a thing and how much pain she has been in. Listen to how she comes to face up to pain and learns to accept and work with pain.

Lauren Windas is one of the estimated 250,000 people suffering with CFS in the UK. Whilst at university in 2012, she fell ill with a viral infection and was later diagnosed with CFS. Since then she has devoted herself to reclaiming her health and being able to live a full life, drawing on the knowledge of experts to help manage her often mysterious and hard-to-manage condition. In Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Lauren recounts the highs and lows of her own health journey and experiences,.

Drawing insights from the hard-won wisdom of disabled folks who've forged difference into fierce and luminous cultural dissent, Belser offers fresh and unexpected interpretations of familiar biblical stories, showing how disability wisdom can guide us all toward a powerful reckoning with the complexities of the flesh. She talks back to biblical commentators who traffic in disability stigma and shame, challenging interpretations that demean disabled people and diminish the vitality of disabled lives. 

A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR In the vein of the Costa-winning Dadland, with the biographical elements of H is for Hawk, The Fragments of my Father is a powerful and poignant memoir about parents and children, freedom and responsibility, madness and creativity and what it means to be a carer...

A Short History of Falling – like The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and When Breath Becomes Air – is a searingly beautiful, profound and unforgettable memoir that finds light and even humour in the darkest of places. We keep an old shoebox, Gill and I, nestled in a drawer in our room...

Have you ever wondered how a blind person pours a cup of coffee? Or how they and their guide dog know when it's safe to cross a busy road? When Lois Strachan lost her sight at the age of 21 years, she had to learn the answers to these and countless other questions of how to live as a blind person in a sighted world. In this delightfully quirky and entertaining book, Lois shares some of the secrets she discovered about how to live an “ordinary” life in an extraordinary way despite her disability.

Author Eiren Caffall is the inheritor of a family legacy of two hundred years of genetic kidney disease and the mother of a child who may inherit that legacy. A literary memoir on loss, chronic illness, and generational healing, Caffall’s The Mourner’s Bestiary is also a meditation on grief and survival told through the stories of animals in two collapsing marine ecosystems—the Gulf of Maine and the Long Island Sound—and the lives of a family facing a life-threatening illness on their shores.

My Autistic Fight Song is a memoir that follows Rosie Weldon’s journey from a college drop out as she tries to achieve her dream of being a qualified accountant. With the odds stacked against her and the stakes high, she refuses to give up on her dream. Of two things Rosie was sure. First, she wanted to be an accountant. Second, she was destined to be alone. But when life threw at her an autism diagnosis and a mystery girl, she was left asking: Who would employ her and was she capable of falling in love?

In April of 2004, the long downward spiraling of Amy Bingaman's mental illness could no longer be hidden or ignored much less written off as a side-product of a colorful and quirky character. With no family able to help and no resources, she was involuntarily locked up in the draconian, archaic labyrinth that is the Wyoming Mental Health System. Armed with only a pocket dictionary and any paper she could find to write on, Amy wrote not only as a journal but at times as her only coping mechanism to salvage what was left of a breaking mind in a love/hate relationship with her alter-ego.

Imagine if you were to lose your sight? Would it feel like the end of everything worthwhile? There is a way forward. Once you realise that blindness is a word and not a sentence, life takes on a new perspective. There are ways to thrive with vision loss. This book reveals how to turn such a life-challenge into a lifestyle you can fully manage and enjoy.

Monday, March 11, 2024, was remarkably uneventful—indeed, frankly dull—until around 5 p.m. that evening when Carl Davies collapsed in a heap. It was a day that would change his life forever. Stroke Me! Recounts the story of his recovery from a near-catastrophic brain haemorrhage. The author details, in often graphic detail, every step of his journey, from the stroke itself to the pain of physical and occupational therapy. He leaves no stone unturned as he describes the impact his illness has had on him and his family. Stroke Me!

An insider history of the Blind Boys of Alabama, the longest running group in American music, and the untold story of their world, written with band members and key musical colleagues. The Blind Boys of Alabama are the quintessential Gospel vocal group, and the longest-running musical...