Books for the new year
Happy New Year everyone!
Like every book lover I know, I've got a towering (and growing) pile of books waiting to be read. I thought I'd share a brief list of some books from that pile that I plan to read in 2007. All of these are disability-related and currently wedged between my full bookshelf and dresser. If you've already read them, are interested in discussing them, or happen to be the author, this is your heads-up to what I hope will be interesting future discussions here on wherever these books take us.
The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon -- Moon won the Nebula Award in 2003 for this novel told from the perspective of a young autistic man. Normally a writer of military sci-fi, this story apparently differs from the author's usual genre and was prompted because she has a child with autism.
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn -- This will be a reread for me, but I haven't been back to it since I first found it at the fabulous feminist bookstore Women and Children First in Chicago when it was originally published in 1983. An amazing novel about carnival freaks and disability told in first-person by Olympia Binewski, a bald, humpbacked albino dwarf.
Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability by Robert McRuer -- From the Amazon description: "McRuer examines how dominant and marginal bodily and sexual identities are composed, and considers the vibrant ways that disability and queerness unsettle and re-write those identities in order to insist that another world is possible."
Planet of the Blind by Stephen Kuusisto -- Fellow disability blogger Stephen's first memoir.
My Body Politic by Simi Linton -- Author of the excellent Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity tells her personal story.
Blackbird Fly Away by Hugh Gallagher -- A personal memoir.
By Trust Betrayed: Patients, Physicians, and the License to Kill in the Third Reich by Hugh Gallagher -- A definitive book detailing the eugenics movement against disabled people in Nazi Germany. Gallagher also wrote FDR's Splendid Deception.
Wicked by Gregory Maguire -- I read this while in the hospital and unable to blog about it. An alternative telling of The Wizard of Oz from the Wicked Witch Elphaba's point-of-view. Disability and physical difference everywhere.
I also hope to read Jen Burke's A Life Less Convenient and Stephen's newest book, Eavesdropping, but I haven't bought them yet.
4 comments:
Oh how good of you to mention Steve's books. Thank you Blue!
Quite a while ago, when our blog was too new to have any readers, I offered to send a copy of "Eavesdropping" to any blogger who might be willing to read and discuss it on their blog. Since you don't own the book yet, and since you've indicated a desire to discuss books, the offer still stands.
Next time you visit www.planet-of-the-blind.com feel free to leave us your snail mail address. We'd be happy to send you a copy. Happy Reading!
Happy New Year!
I received Planet of the Blind as a birthday gift and am enjoying it. I'm in the middle.
I read Geek Love my freshman year in college (1983) and absolutely loved it. Even though the situations and characters are "over the top", the way they feel about each other... Well, I agree that it's a must read/or "re-read" in some of our cases.
Since there seems to be so much iterest in these books, I'll try to remember to make note when I begin actually reading each book so as many people as possible can read or reread and participate too. Right now I'm finishing up Isabel Allende's Inez of my Soul. Then I want to talk about Jay Sennett's book, Self-Organizing Men: http://homofactuspress.com/store/index.php?main_page=index
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