As a writer, I considered writing a blog about Long COVID once it was clear that I had it. The timing wasn’t right then. Last week, I read Chloe Cooper Jones’s memoir Easy Beauty. Her engaging, honest prose sharing her experiences “moving through the world in a body that looks different than most” (Simon & Schuster) inspired me with renewed courage to move through the world boldly.
Easy Beauty inspired me to write this blog after all and to read more memoirs about thriving with imperfect lives. I asked a librarian how I could find more books like Jones’s memoir when I returned it. The timing was perfect.
July is Disability Pride Month, something that I may have heard of before, but had not remembered. In support of this recognition, one of the library displays featured books “celebrating the diverse experiences and contributions of individuals with disabilities.” (Carnegie Library)
From the display, I selected several titles to try as my next memoir reads and bookmarked more as possibilities. I’ve also flagged the library’s online lists of staff picks for future reference and took home their flyer of Disability Pride reading. I encourage you to explore these titles for yourself, if you are also inspired by others’ stories.
Books listed on the flyer:
- Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert
- True Biz by Sara Novic
- Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
- Sitting Pretty by Rebekah Taussig
- Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law by Haben Girma
- Disability Visibility edited by Alice Wong
- The Collected Schizophrenias by Esme Weijun Wang
- Just by Looking at Him by Ryan O’Connell
- Unmasking Autism by Devon Price
- Against Technoableism by Ashley Shew
- The Future is Disabled by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
- Golem Girl by Riva Lehrer
- The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
Feature image credit: disability rights by syafii5758 from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0)
Carolyn Ristau 
4 thoughts on “Disability Pride Month”