Every July, Disability Pride Month honors the rich history of the disability rights movement and celebrates the achievements and contributions of people with disabilities in our communities, workplaces, and beyond. The month was established to commemorate the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), signed into law on July 26, 1990—a landmark piece of legislation that prohibits discrimination based on disability.
Globally, over 1.3 billion people—about 16% of the world’s population—live with some form of disability. In the United States, that number is approximately 1 in 4 adults. Disability Pride Month is not just a celebration—it’s a reminder of the importance of visibility, accessibility, and equity for all.
To help deepen your understanding and appreciation of the disability experience, here are some powerful nonfiction titles available with your Livingston Library card. From memoirs by disabled authors to thoughtful explorations of disability justice, these books offer authentic perspectives and voices that deserve to be heard year-round.
Access Your Drive and Enjoy the Ride : a Guide to Achieving Your Dreams From a Person With a Disability by Lolo Spencer
Spencer provides a candid and real inside look into the life of being a person with a disability. Lolo shares how she navigates daily life with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). You are more than your limits. Choosing to see herself as more than a person with a disability and wheelchair user, Lolo chooses to live a bold and courageous life now because representation matters. She created this intersectional guide to provide tools for people with disabilities to thrive in personal growth, independence, and community building.
The Anti-Ableist Manifesto : Smashing Stereotypes, Forging Change, and Building a Disability-Inclusive World by Tiffany Yu
Yu takes readers on a revelatory examination of disability–how to unpack biases and build an inclusive and accessible world.
Beautiful People : My Thirteen Truths About Disability by Melissa Blake
Blake, a disability-rights advocate, was born with Freeman-Sheldon syndrome, a rare, genetic bone and muscular disorder. She has had a lifetime of experience dealing with nondisabled people’s bad behavior, made overwhelming when she went viral on social media, and she is fighting for disability representation that incorporates pride in disabilities. What this means is affirmation for disabled people to fight internalized ableism and to take up space, and it should not be confused with the insistence by many nondisabled people on making the disabled inspirational. Through a mix of personal memoir, advice, and data, Blake helps nondisabled readers understand what ableism is and how it manifests in day-to-day life.
Born Extraordinary : Empowering Children with Differences and Disabilities by Meg Zucker
Often the subjects of unwanted attention-ranging from pitying stares to bullying-Zucker and her sons have learned to ignore what others think and live fearlessly. Also incorporating the stories of other families with visible and invisible differences of all kinds, this book gives parents the tools to meet their children’s emotional needs while supporting the whole family unit. Parents learn how best to empower their children to confront others’ assumptions, grow in confidence, and encourage dialogue-rather than silence, fear, and shame-around differences.
But You Look So Normal : Lost and Found in a Hearing World by Claudia Marseille
When four-year-old Claudia Marseille was diagnosed with severe hearing loss and received her first hearing aid, her lifelong journey to fit in began. Here, she reveals how she overcame loneliness and isolation and carved out a fulfilling life for herself somewhere between the mainstream culture and the Deaf world.
The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight by Andrew Leland
A witty, winning, and revelatory personal narrative of the author’s transition from sightedness to blindness and his quest to learn about blindness as a rich culture all its own. Full of apprehension but also dogged curiosity, Leland embarks on a sweeping exploration of the state of being that awaits him: not only the physical experience of blindness but also its language, politics, and customs. He negotiates his changing relationships with his wife and son, and with his own sense of self, as he moves from his mainstream, “typical” life to one with a disability.
Developing Talents : Careers for Individuals with Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism by Temple Grandin
Who knows better about developing the talents of those with autism than Temple Grandin? This updated and expanded third edition of Developing Talents considers the continuing dismal employment statistics for individuals with autism. The authors take an in-depth look at entrepreneurship and many other options.
Disability Intimacy : Essays on Love, Care, and Desire
The much-anticipated follow up to the groundbreaking anthology Disability Visibility: another revolutionary collection of first-person writing on the joys and challenges of the modern disability experience, and intimacy in all its myriad forms. These twenty-five stunning original pieces-plus other modern classics on the subject, all carefully curated by acclaimed activist Alice Wong-include essays, photo essays, poetry, drama, and erotica: a full spectrum of the dreams, fantasies, and deeply personal realities of a wide range of beautiful bodies and minds.
Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century
One in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some disabilities are visible, others less apparent—but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. From Harriet McBryde Johnson’s account of her debate with Peter Singer over her own personhood to original pieces by authors like Keah Brown and Haben Girma; from blog posts, manifestos, and eulogies to Congressional testimonies, and beyond: this anthology gives a glimpse into the rich complexity of the disabled experience, highlighting the passions, talents, and everyday lives of this community.
Fall and Recovery : Raising Children with Disabilities Through Lessons Learned in Dance by Joanne De Simone
The author shares her own life story, where she employs lessons she learned as a modern dancer when parenting her two sons, both living with disabilities.
I’ll Look So Hot in a Coffin : And Other Thoughts I Used to Have About My Body by Carla Sosenko
Sosenko was born with Klippel-Trenaunay Syndrome, a rare vascular disorder that resulted in legs of different sizes, a mass of flesh on her back, a hunched posture, and other idiosyncrasies big and small. She spent years trying to hide under layers of clothing, and then experimented with the opposite: wearing tiny dresses and short shorts, daring people to stare so she could make them regret it. No matter what she did, she was worried that she didn’t measure up. In this candid and funny memoir, Carla shares what existing in an unconventional body has meant for her self-image, mental health, relationships, and ambitions. She writes of having liposuction when she was eight years old, and an adulthood spent obsessively gaming Weight Watchers points. She wrestles with the rise of Ozempic after working hard to reject diet culture. She tries to parse whether it is in spite of or because of her physical differences that she is an outgoing social butterfly who chose a high-profile career in media.
Life on Delay : Making Peace With a Stutter by John Hendrickson
Inspiring and empowering, this thoughtful, well-reported memoir covers the author’s life, including his 2019 experience interviewing and writing about Joe Biden, the world’s most famous stutterer. Hendrickson also weaves in highlights from dozens of others with stutters and sprinkles in such interesting tidbits as “people don’t stutter when they sing.” Like so many people who stutter, he was bullied, including by his own brother, because of his speech impediment. This memoir reaches beyond Hendrickson’s direct experience to advocate for “informative” rather than “apologetic” self-disclosure about an impediment and chronicle new developments in speech therapy.
Losing Music : A Memoir by John Cotter
A devastating account of the author’s experience with the debilitating condition known as Ménière’s Disease that sheds urgent, bracingly honest light on both the taboos surrounding disability and the limits of medical science.
Shattered : A Memoir by Hanif Kureishi
A writer recounts his yearlong recovery in Rome following a fall that left him unable to walk, dictating reflections on his medical journey, parenthood, immigration, and writing, ultimately transforming his pain into a narrative that celebrates resilience, gratitude, and love amidst adversity.
Sipping Dom Pérignon Through a Straw : Reimagining Success as a Disabled Achiever by Eddie Ndopu
Global humanitarian Eddie Ndopu’s rousing memoir about being both profoundly disabled and profoundly successful without trading one for the other. Born with spinal muscular atrophy, a rare degenerative motor neuron disease affecting his physical mobility, Eddie was told that he wouldn’t live beyond age five. But using his razor-sharp mind and grit, Eddie became the first-ever disabled African awarded a full scholarship to the prestigious Oxford University for a master’s degree in public policy, a remarkable feat worthy of a toast. But beyond the challenges that students face-making it to class on time, managing steamy crushes, and being student body president-Eddie faced obstacles as a disabled individual that often go unnoticed and unaddressed, namely a revolving door of care aides. Saddled with the burden of raising money to cover his most basic needs: a care aide, financial aid, and disability accommodations, Eddie writes about his fight for financial aid and his continued advocacy for the rights of people with disabilities.
Soundtrack of Silence : Love, Loss, and a Playlist for Life by Matt Hay
As a child, Matt Hay didn’t know his hearing wasn’t the way everyone else processed sound-and like a lot of kids who do workarounds to fit in, even the school nurse didn’t catch his condition at the annual hearing and vision checks. But as a prospective college student who couldn’t pass the entrance requirements for West Point, Hay’s condition, generated by a tumor, was unavoidable: his hearing was going, and fast. Soundtrack of Silence was his determined compensation for his condition: a typical Midwestern kid growing up in the 1980s, whose life events were pegged to pop music, Hay planned to commit his favorite songs to memory, a mental playbook not only of the bands he loved, but a way to tap his most resonant memories. And the track he needed to cement most clearly? The one he and his new girlfriend Nora-the love of his life-listened to in the car on their first date. Made vivid with references to instantly recognizable songs-from The Eagles to Elton John, Bob Marley to Bing Crosby, U2 to Peter Frampton-Soundtrack of Silence asks readers to run the soundtrack of their own lives through their minds.
Unfit Parent : A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World by Jessica Slice
Navigating the joys, stigma, and discrimination of disabled parenting-and how the solutions offered by disability culture can transform the way we all raise our kids.
Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity by Devon Price
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.
Vision : A Memoir of Blindness and Justice by David S. Tatel
Former civil rights lawyer and federal judge Tatel has spent the last half of his 80 years legally blind. His blindness, a result of retinitis pigmentosa (RP), has shaped his life as much as his scientist father, caring wife and family, and his devotion to the law. In this thoughtful memoir, Tatel recalls his years studying law, working as a civil rights lawyer during the formation and heart of the movement in the 1960s and 1970s, and becoming a judge. As his vision became progressively worse, Tatel managed to hide his disability by virtue of his excellent memory and learned strategies. When he finally had to acknowledge his blindness, he found not only acceptance but also help in the forms of technological developments and a dog named Vixen.
We’ve Got This : Essays by Disabled Parents
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?? More than 15 percent of people worldwide live with a disability, and many of them are also parents. And yet their stories are rarely shared, their experiences almost never reflected in parenting literature. Parents around the world who identify as deaf, disabled, or chronically ill discuss the highs and lows of their parenting journeys and reveal that the greatest obstacles lie in other people’s attitudes.
—Archana, Adult Services & Acquisitions Librarian