People with Disabilities

When Abraham Verghese, a physician whose marriage is unraveling, relocates to El Paso, Texas, he hopes to make a fresh start as a staff member at the county hospital....

In 2011, three years after leaving the NFL, Steve Gleason was diagnosed with ALS, a terminal disease that paralyzes the entire body. Doctors gave him three years to live. He was thirty-four years old. As Steve says, he is now ten years past his expiration date....

From the author of the groundbreaking anthology Disability Visibility comes another revolutionary collection of first-person writing on the joys and challenges of the modern disability experience, and intimacy in all its myriad forms....

A moving account of resilience, hope, fear, and mortality and how these things resonate in our lives, by actor and advocate Michael J. Fox....

We meet Andrew Leland as he’s suspended in the liminal state of the soon-to-be blind: he’s midway through his life with retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that ushers those who live with it from sightedness to blindness over years, even decades....

Ido in Autismland opens a window into non-verbal autism through dozens of short, autobiographical essays each offering new insights into autism symptoms, effective and ineffective treatments, and the inner emotional life of a severely autistic boy....

Weeks after giving birth, Holly Frances went from being a healthy 26-year-old new mom to paralyzed and on life support—in less than 72 hours. Diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder called Guillain-Barre Syndrome, Holly was trapped in her body, unable to move, speak, or hold her newborn daughter.

This intimate memoir reveals the woman inside one of autism’s most prominent figures, Jennifer O'Toole. At the age of 35, Jennifer was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, and for the first time in her life, things made sense....

In a memoir that is as wildly funny as it is emotionally shattering, Selma Blair tells the captivating story of growing up and finding her truth....

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....

Katherine and Jay Wolf were a young couple living the dream in Southern California, but all was nearly lost when Katherine suffered a shocking near-fatal brainstem stroke and struggled to find hope in a life that looked nothing like the one they had before....

My name is Joseph A. Peragine, and I am a paranoid schizophrenic. On October 22, 2000, I tried to kill myself in a severely hallucinogenic state due to undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenia....

In this unprecedented book, Grandin delivers a report from the country of autism....

The Christian classic detailing the remarkable events surrounding the 1967 diving accident that left Joni Eareckson Tada paralyzed. This special 45th anniversary edition of Joni commemorates the worldwide impact of her life story to people living with disabilities....

Ever since he was small, John Robison had longed to connect with other people, but by the time he was a teenager, his odd habits had earned him the label "social deviant"....

Thousands have been wounded in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Five have survived quadruple-amputee injuries. This is one soldier's story....

A story of fighting to belong in a world that wasn't built for all of us and of one woman's activism - from the streets of Brooklyn and San Francisco to inside the halls of Washington - Being Heumann recounts Judy Heumann's lifelong battle to achieve respect....

Amy Purdy, who inspired a nation on Dancing with the Stars and has been called a hero by Oprah Winfrey, reveals the intimate details of her triumphant comeback from the brink of death to making history as a Paralympic snowboarder....

So begins Chloé Cooper Jones’s bold, revealing account of moving through the world in a body that looks different than most. Jones learned early on to factor “pain calculations” into every plan, every situation....

They all thought he was gone. But he was alive and trapped inside his own body for ten years....

Diagnosed with pathological demand avoidance (PDA) in his teenage years, Harry Thompson looks back with wit and humour at the ups and downs of family and romantic relationships, school, work and mental health, as well as his teenage struggle with drugs and alcohol....

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....

Before becoming the actor, producer, advocate, and model that people know today, Nyle DiMarco was half of a pair of Deaf twins born to a multi-generational Deaf family in Queens, New York....

A riveting and candid account of a young journalist's awakening to a life of chronic illness, weaving together her personal story with reporting to shed light on how Americans live with long-term diagnoses today....

An inspirational, life-affirming memoir from the great-grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien....

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Splendid Agony is an informative, illuminating, and encouraging book that offers valuable insights for people with dyslexia, parents and teachers of people with dyslexia, and anyone who wants to know more about what it's like to go through the American educational system with dyslexia.

DEMENTIA and OUR LOVE, Caregiving as spiritual practice, is the story of Gary and Heather's love that sustained them through an unusual and courageous life across continents, including tending Gary and his onset of dementia at 73 years. The story helped them remember their love and use this energy to move through the hard times. We will always remember us this way, a song by Lady Gaga, was pivotal in keeping Heathers focus.

In "How I Survived and Thrived with ADHD," author Anais Fournier offers a heartfelt and insightful journey through her life as a 19-year-old college student with ADHD. With a refreshing and empathetic approach, Anais shares her experiences, thoughts, and reflections about living with ADHD, aiming to redefine how we perceive neurological disorders and, ultimately, ourselves.

How do you build a life when all that you know is changing? How do you conceive of love when you can no longer recognise those who mean the most to you? A phenomenal memoir, Somebody I Used to Know is both a heart-rending tribute to the woman Wendy Mitchell once was, and a brave affirmation of the woman dementia has seen her become.

What is intimacy? More than sex, more than romantic love, the pieces in this stunning and illuminating new anthology offer broader and more inclusive definitions of what it can mean to be intimate with another person. Explorations of caregiving, community, access, and friendship offer us alternative ways of thinking about the connections we form with others—a vital reimagining in an era when forced physical distance is at times a necessary norm.

In 2011, three years after leaving the NFL, Steve Gleason was diagnosed with ALS, a terminal disease that paralyzes the entire body. Doctors gave him three years to live. He was thirty-four years old. As Steve says, he is now ten years past his expiration date. His memoir is the chronicle of a remarkable life, one filled with optimism and joy, despite the trauma and pain and despair he has experienced.

After the Flames is about one of the world's most famous burn victims: his incredible survival, his nightmarish path to recovery that helped revolutionize medical treatment for burn victims worldwide, the fame thrust upon him after he was declared a hero from the media, and the tumultuous years that followed, most of which were spent under the microscope of an unforgiving public eye.

A journey from darkness to acceptance is a raw and compelling memoir chronicling one woman's harrowing personal struggle with mental illness. When a severe psychotic break abruptly derails Elisa's stable life as a wife and mother, she finds herself plunged into an unpredictable world ruled by the terrifying whims of her mind. This powerful personal account traces Elisa's odyssey through the fragmented mental health system, oscillating from psychiatric holds to outpatient programs and back again as doctors struggle to control her volatile mood cycles.

This collection of autobiographical tales answers many readers' questions regarding the lives of those needing service dogs. What sorts of challenges do the legally blind face? How does one go about obtaining a guide dog? How can disabilities affect relationships? How does one cope with being diagnosed with a chronic and degenerative condition? Can an animal really become a dear friend? Not only are these stories engaging and heartwarming, but 100% of the profit from each purchase will be donated to Guide Dogs for the Blind in order to raise funds for those who need a canine companion. ...

In this candid, humorous, and insightful book, author, political science lecturer, and “Dudeist Priest” Arch Grieve provides listeners with a first-hand account of the many lessons he has learned (often the hard way) as a person living with bipolar disorder. This guidebook is a must-listen for anyone who has recently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder or knows someone who has.

When Jackie Schuld’s therapist suggested she might be autistic, she scoffed. She knew there was no way she could be autistic. She was in her mid-30s and ran her own therapy private practice. Everything she learned about autism in her Master’s program in mental health counseling didn’t apply to her. She could make excellent eye contact. She could engage in deep conversations. She could attend social gatherings. She could make it through abrupt changes and remain flexible. How could she be autistic? The more she learned about autism — how it internally impacts autistics and how it can...

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.

This book is a reflection of a mother’s experience when her daughter, after a sudden severe headache, was diagnosed with a torn brain aneurysm and arteriovenous malformation in the cerebellum. TJ, Evie’s brother, also shares his experience.

Subverting an ableist India’s expectations from a disabled person to be ‘inspirational’ and an ‘underdog who made it’ despite their illness, Abhishek Anicca writes about everyday stories of living with disability and chronic illness in this memoir-in-essays.