Disability Pride Month: 10 Books That Celebrate Our Communities

A stack of the books mentioned in this blog post.

Disability pride is the conviction that disability is an ordinary and valuable part of human diversity -- not a deficit to be hidden. About 1 in 6 people in the world live with a significant disabilty, yet our spaces, stories, and institutions still center able-bodied norms. The progress we have made as a society is in large part due to the sacrifices of our disabled forebears and the communities of resistance they built.

The following books (followed by links to Storygraph descriptions) are my personal recommendations for books that celebrate our communities -- the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between.

(Recommendations are from the writer and not necessarily an endorsement from CU Able.)

Recommended Books on Disability Culture:

• Black Disability Politics. By Sami Schalk.

  • https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/8dc575bc-3820-434c-ba71-4a841e5069e9

    
    

• Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire. Edited by Alice Wong.

  • https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/5546ec6f-de25-4db2-af01-045d6963b335

• Sipping Dom Perignon Thru a Straw: Reimagining Success as a Disabled Achiever. By Eddie Ndopu.

  • https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/c9c24125-14e2-4d0b-b2d4-7b2c23b8d5c9 

• Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice. By Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha.

  • https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/f1814ff6-f052-4149-8bdd-d9174890dbe9

    
    

• Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity. By Devon Price, PhD.

  • https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/7d14e30d-4181-45f6-8f23-72a448850a8a

• Disability Visibility: First Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century. Edited by Alice Wong. 

  • https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/145c6ad5-2a22-46ac-9e30-dea20249e696

    
    

• What Doesn’t Kill You: A Life with Chronic Illness - Lessons From a Body in Revolt. By Tessa Miller.

  • https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/23a390d6-6105-4efa-a2a2-1f20180af734

    
    

• A Disability History of the United States. By Kim Nielsen. 

  • https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/150fdd43-3dd0-4366-a39d-679b0b4062ec

    
    

• The Future is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs. By Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. 

  • https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/4914cc6a-be56-4988-9162-f64cf49c10f9

    
    

•  I Identify as Blind: A Brazen Celebration of Disability Culture, Identity, and Power. By Lachi. 

  • https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/846c2176-a9ff-4198-bdfc-0f9750be49e7

    
    

Reading these books won’t erase barriers, but they can change how we see disability — from something to pity to an identity to be embraced and fought for. After all, it was our disabled forebears who fought for the rights we have today; may we honor that fight with our own.