Beauty Is a Verb‘s preface seriously intimidated me, with academic terms & references to disabled poets I‘d never heard of. I‘m very glad I stuck with it! Each poet has their own introduction, and I connected to so many who showed me brand new ways of thinking and experiencing. Flipping back through, I‘m amazed at how much I learned and felt in this one collection. It‘s like the poetic version of how I felt after the 5⭐️ essay anthology About Us.

For a few reasons, including that I‘m not at all hip to current YA, it‘s hard for me to judge this book. But I don‘t think I need to: if this story sounds up your alley, I‘d bet it is! One for All is a gender-bent retelling of The Three Musketeers, with not only dueling but dancing; equal parts sword fights and seduction. The central characters are four girls who all have boundless courage, tremendous loyalty, and weapons under their skirts. ⤵️

Judith Heumann‘s autobiography is written in plain language, but with those everyday words she and her co-writer tell a damn good story. Heumann helped spearhead the longest sit-in protest in a US federal building, when - in the year of our lord 1977 - the US government was, in their own words, considering creating a “separate but equal” standard for disabled citizens. As a polio survivor used to fighting for her rights, Judy wasn‘t having it.

Today I have 4 recommendations from my favorite books that fulfill quite a few challenges in April‘s #DisabilityReadathon!

•The group read is Disability Visibility, which contains some of the best disability writing I‘ve ever read.

•A poetry collection, from a deaf author: The Perseverance by Ray Antrobus. Explores biracial identity, a difficult father relationship, & deaf experiences. The most memorable contemporary poetry I‘ve read in a while.

The Sirens of Mars interweaves the memoir of planetary scientist Sarah Stewart Johnson with the history of our search for life on Mars, charting the great leaps in our knowledge of the planet, both thrilling and devastating.

It‘s brief, and I didn‘t learn as much as I wanted to about our red neighbor, but I did enjoy the rather poetic peek at why planetary scientists have for so long devoted themselves to studying places they could never reach.

The April #DisabilityReadathon is coming, and I can‘t wait! Link to the official site and unofficial StoryGraph challenge in the comments. The goal is to connect with the voices of disabled creators, however that works for you. #OwnVoices!

The prompts I chose:
•A poetry collection, Beauty Is a Verb.
•About invisible disability, The Invisible Kingdom.
•Written by an autistic author, Diary of a Young Naturalist.
•And a romance, Seven Days in June!

After fourteen intense hours, I‘m proud to say I read The Iliad! I‘d not been exposed to it before, and I was as intimidated as I was intrigued. I thank y‘all who read things like Homer and Shakespeare so casually here on Litsy; you make me feel like I can, too.

Caroline Alexander‘s translation was much more readable than I expected, and I found the extended similes exquisitely beautiful. My favorite part was meeting the disabled god Hephaestus.

A breakdown of the convergence of racism and sexism experienced by black women across US history. I‘m blown away by the clarity of the writing. hooks wrote this, her first feminist work, as a student with her uninitiated mom in mind. She‘s so successful in opening her ideas to a wider readership that I think you could‘ve handed this to me as a teen just starting to understand feminism, and I‘d have gotten it. Plain statements of complex ideas.

I expected to love this: classic JPN lit, fiction plus nonfiction, up for Studio Ghibli adaptation. I was excited by the idea of an ethics book for young readers within a relatable middle grade story. It‘s all those things, but it didn‘t live up to my dreams. The dazzling opening and a moment with mom near the end touched me, yet other chapters lost sparkle and one was so wishy-washy I wasn‘t sure it was saying anything at all. Uneven but unique.

Crippled, recording the extreme impact of Britain‘s welfare cuts on its disabled population, is the kind of reporting that‘s so damning it should‘ve changed everything.

The UN has called the situation “a human rights catastrophe”, and this short book illustrates clearly, with both personal stories and data, that when a range of services are cut, it creates a cumulative effect in which the most in need will experience the greatest deprivation.

This book‘s lush writing and nonlinear flashbacks had me slowing way down. That paired wonderfully with its subject matter: Japanese gardens, tea making, reflections on memory. I learned so much history and culture, all while engrossed in its simmering story. Nestled in the gardens, in the memories, is a story of war - ways people are complicit, the human wreckage it creates, and how to live on after the worst has happened. Rich and tender.

Despite loving the work on disability I‘ve read, last year I was often swept up by more popular books. So, I‘ve resolved to read a book by and about people with disabilities or disfigurements every month. And here are the nominees! 👏🏻

A diverse anthology, a meditation on blindness, an activist‘s autobiography, candid essays on schizophrenia, a painter‘s life with spina bifida born 1958, and a ‘YA memoir‘ on coming of age with facial difference.

Take a walk, have a luncheon, and re-examine history with Virginia Woolf in A Room of One‘s Own.

Despite holding awfully lofty ideals on writing, Woolf here takes a grounded look at the realities of (note: white) women‘s lives, from her 1920s to Shakespeare‘s day. She advocates for women‘s financial independence and, perhaps, even basic income! I‘m enjoying her nonfiction, as she is fabulous company, with her love of literature and sparkling wit.

A partially autobiographical first novel, Quicksand is very raw in its telling of Helga Crane‘s increasingly desperate search for belonging.

Larsen described this short book as “the awful truth”, and whether it‘s Helga or Nella speaking, it‘s gripping and honestly heartrending reading such an articulate woman‘s words on being biracial in the 1920s. I wouldn‘t pick this over Passing, but its powerful ending may haunt me even longer.

Most of this fantastical novel made me awfully melancholy. The protagonist is sensitive, and I related to how well he did in his own world, and how easily his equilibrium was dismantled by the outside. But by the book‘s ending I felt healed, one of my favorite reading feelings.

Reflecting on the author‘s long illness gave this work many shades of meaning. How vivid was the House, the mystical, marble setting - its ins and outs, tides and seasons!

I‘m late to the fabulous party; here‘s my #Top21of21. It‘s been too fun to browse! Thank you tagging me, @Nute!

Size very, very vaguely corresponds to ranking. Honestly, it was so hard to figure out who made the cut that it could be a different list on a different day. (See many others‘ top hits for books that could have been included, like Project Hail Mary, The House in the Cerulean Sea, and multiple Becky Chambers!) What a great reading year.

Ill Feelings is part illness memoir, part diary of famous women‘s illnesses, part investigation into the medical controversy around chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).

It‘s messy, circular, ruminating. It‘s also the first thing to ever move me to write for myself about my own illness. It put words to things I haven‘t known how to, those words coming not only from Hattrick, but across time, from Elizabeth B. Browning, from Virginia Woolf. Magical.

As one of the oldest vampire fictions, this novella predates Dracula! Hugely gothic, with a picturesque and isolated setting, Carmilla describes a surprisingly sapphic central relationship. Though there are precious few frightful scenes, they lit up my imagination like a cat‘s eye in the dark. Not a mystery, as any modern reader will understand what‘s happening from the start, so just come for the fun. (I read this aloud, and we had so much fun.)

Special arrival! I was introduced to both Virginia Woolf and Audre Lorde this year and couldn‘t believe my luck when I bumped into this unique collection from Dutch publisher HetMoet. 🙏🏻 It reprints Woolf‘s essay On Being Ill and Lorde‘s intro to The Cancer Journals with essays on illness from contemporary writers, some translated.

Hopefully I‘ll have thoughts (and links to read some of these pieces online?) worth sharing in a follow-up post.

A #Victober surprise! I picked this up after reading a few of its lines on the Welsh countryside- ah, the gorse and heather. Its nature imagery is luscious, and the land is truly the heart and soul of the novel.

The simple religious and romantic plots are enriched by the care taken in developing the full family dynamics of the Owens of Garthowen. A gentle story that weighs up thoughtful questions about duty, longing, and our faith in one another.

Our #NewYearWhoDis matches are out, thanks to host @monalyisha, and I‘m delighted by my list from @jenniferw88. Like, one of my favorite niche topics is nonfiction about the author‘s relationship with birds, and you hit it. What are the odds? I can‘t wait for the new year!

These 6 reads are just scratching the surface for options to pick up in January; it‘s such a deep list, I‘d like to keep reading from it as the year goes on. I feel spoiled 😌

Time for a readathon! I‘m going to join #NovelNovember with a simple goal: read at least one hour a day. I‘ve been neglecting reading for other hobbies.

I‘m delighted the Bookly app has added a readathon feature! Screenshot above, extra autumnal flavor not included. You enter the details yourself, and it will track pages, books, and/or hours read, and will keep a list of prompts. Love that app.

Thanks for hosting @Andrew65 🍁 Let‘s read!

Here are 6 books I‘d love to read for #NonfictionNovember but maybe won‘t, due to an imminent Animal Crossing update 😅

Vanguard is our #SheSaid bookclub read, spotlighting black women who fought for the vote! Underland is “an exploration of Earth‘s underworlds”. Hideous Progeny examines disfigurement in classic horror film. The Home Place is a birding memoir on black identity. Rising is climate journalism & Science Friday‘s book club read. 👇🏻

My second Wilkie Collins, and though it didn‘t live up to The Woman in White, there‘s a lot here to enjoy for the detective fan! As one of the earliest in the genre, it helped codify many tropes, like the reenactment of the crime. A good mystery.

Once again Mr. Collins‘ characters express sexism, racism, & ableism throughout, yet once again he has written “exceptional” characters into the novel that defy these stereotypes. An interesting author.

Dropping my usual TBR for Booktube‘s #Victober! It‘s my fav month, and my Victorian October read last year, The Woman in White, was a highlight of 2020.

We‘ll see how many I get to; most count for multiple prompts. For ‘Popular‘, I wanted to read a book more popular then than now and thought Anne Brontë‘s book fit the bill. I learned Charlotte stopped its later reprinting! For the bonus “read aloud” challenge, I‘ll read Carmilla to my mom ?

I finally picked Mrs. Dalloway up after falling in love with Woolf‘s essay On Being Ill. This novel‘s stream of consciousness is like what living is like, for me at least, where the clock chime pulls me from a memory, and a character is stumbling into the biggest questions while just waiting to cross the street. Somehow so relatable while incredibly specifically set in London, in 1923, in the shadow of the Great War. I liked this a lot! #Bookspin

I may like the idea of this book more than the reality of it. My teenage self set my Goodreads URL to /psychohistory, as I was fascinated by that fictional branch of mathematics which sets these stories in motion. On this reread, Asimov‘s predicted decline of the galactic empire by stagnation of investment in science felt more possible than ever, yet for every spark of my interest there was an equally deep waning as we skipped across time.

I read Frankenstein with an online class last week and was surprised by both the breadth of its themes and the depths of its tragedy. As an old epistolary monster tale, I expected suspense like Dracula, and this instead was like being beaten against a rocky shore by wave upon wave of misery! I enjoyed the interludes of alpine nature writing and comparing my 1818 edition w/ Shelley‘s edited 1831, in which she seemed to tone down her radical ideas.

I don‘t feel ready for September, but here it comes anyway! I do have a list, and I did read my #BookSpin (Wordslut) and #DoubleSpin (O Pioneers!) in August, but I didn‘t get a chance to gather my thoughts to post reviews.

Here are my 10 nonfiction & 10 fiction picks. Thinking about quickly swapping in a U.K. Le Guin. 😂 I‘ll definitely read Foundation by Asimov, in anticipation of the TV show, and Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde with #SheSaid!

I‘ve been enjoying watching the Paralympics and wheelchair basketball this week, so much so I started craving a book pairing. Found it!

The subtitle, “How Paralyzed Veterans from World War II Invented Wheelchair Sports, Fought for Disability Rights, and Inspired a Nation”, is so darn long in an effort to cover the many movements that trace roots back to these US & British veterans, including, it seems, the Paralympics! Can‘t wait to learn more.

Accessible and very brief at under 200 pages minus footnotes! Each chapter could be fleshed out into its own book, for better and for worse. Takes care to illuminate history using individual people‘s stories, using quotes when possible, beginning at the earliest written record of the land. Intersectional, focused on communities and movements, with a mildly sardonic tone that took for granted that the reader respects disabled people. I liked that.

My August #BookSpin list, 10 fiction & 10 non-fiction. I‘m still deep in the airplane-mode-library-hole where all the ebooks I think I have are actually illusory.

I read 5 books off July‘s list and am meandering through 2 more, Miyazakiworld and Arsène Lupin. In August I‘m definitely reading the longest listed book, Children of Time 600p, with my scifi-loving mom, and Wordslut with the Litsy bookclub #SheSaid. Hoping to get to several more! ??

This is what I‘ve been looking for! Our Nobel-winning author stretched, altered, and enriched my conception of myself and our universe through a simplified exploration of ten choice insights from physics. Some of the bits on quantum particles have since leaked out my ears, but the sheer delight in how unusual matter is has remained. And though I‘m not much of a rereader, I think I‘d enjoy experiencing this short, fascinating book again. #BookSpin

I‘m, again, surprised and delighted by U.K. Le Guin. This hypnotic tale, in which dreams alter reality, explores a power struggle about whether and how that ability should be used. The characters are embodiments of ideologies and the plot is a thought experiment, but this short novel ramped up the stakes so quickly and turned its twists so sharply that it was also very compulsively readable sci-fi! I especially recommend it to Philip K. Dick fans.

When The Vanishing Half wasn‘t one of my top reads last year, I felt left out! It made me want to try more takes on the central topic; this one was just my speed. I love a short book, and Passing, a 1929 work out of the Harlem Renaissance, packs a wallop for its slim size. A complex drama about the reunion of two childhood acquaintances whose lives have diverged across “the color line”, it also explores anxieties of marriage & class. #DoubleSpin

An energetically written overview of what we know (and speculate) about the intellect of birds. Covering skills from spacial navigation to social manipulation, we meet many different species and many scientists‘ equally ingenious designs to test our feathered friends. I learned a ton, including delights like pigeons can learn to distinguish between the styles of famed impressionist painters, but the jumpy, short-winded style wasn‘t my favorite.

I‘ve gotten myself in a book mess, where I‘ve accumulated 20-odd e-books from the library, then had to disconnect my e-reader from the Wi-Fi so that it doesn‘t realize the library‘s taken them back. 😵‍💫 It started as a panicked way to hold onto a bookclub read, and it‘s gotten out of hand! I‘m going to join in on July‘s #BookSpin & #BookSpinBingo to put a dent in this collection. I‘m thrilled by these 10 fiction & 10 NF titles and happy to play!

A brief (130 p.), moving memoir from Pulitzer-winning poet Philip Schultz about his life with dyslexia, undiagnosed until he was over fifty and his son was evaluated. He describes how school shattered his self-worth, how utterly and inexplicably hard ‘simple‘ things were, and shares the turning points of first being celebrated for his writing, and then, meaningfully, celebrated for sharing his dyslexia. A raw and open journey to self-acceptance.

This collection solidified UKLG as one of my top authors!

Set primarily in her famed scifi and fantasy universes, it deals with coming & going, learning & unlearning, finding your place and leaving your home behind. Space travel, politics, and magic are tools to investigate the right to know things could be different, how one discovers they could be different, and what it‘s like when your idea of the world shatters open, revealing something new.

A range of disabled writers share the variety of emotions, from fear to joy, humor to frustration, sparked by their circumstances.

An essay on living with Tourette‘s had me questioning medications not to improve health, but to make a patient palatable to society. ‘Intimacy Without Touch‘ had me in tears at the beauty in being disabled.

When disabled people express themselves, society often covers its ears. This collection is a chance to listen.

I‘m back from outer space just in time for April and the #DisabilityReadathon! The only requirement to join is to pick up an #OwnVoices book inclusive of disability during the next month.

Here‘s what I‘ve got checked out in anticipation:
About Us: Essays from the Disability Series of the NYT, Being Heumann, a memoir from Judith Heumann (who you may have seen in Netflix‘s Crip Camp), The Pretty One, and My Dyslexia, from a Pulitzer-winning poet.

A semi-autobiographical novel, sharp and dryly funny recounting a childhood under religious extremism. As the story progressed and Jeanette interspersed fairytale & legend to convey her mythic journey to self-acceptance, I was wanting deeper cuts, something less tidy.

But Winterson has said she “wrote a story I could live with. The other one was too painful. I could not survive it.” and a survivable lesbian story was invaluable then and is still.

A star-studded and heartfelt book by and about black women writers, and one of the more consistently strong essay collections I‘ve read. My reading habits have changed for the better because of the messages here; I‘m inspired by the idea of not passively receiving what is hopefully representation, but curating a narrative to counter the one society‘s written for you. A celebration of writing and reading and black women guaranteed to grow your TBR!

I worried this was only retreading ground covered in Soseki‘s earlier novels - a naive youngster out of college fumbling in the big city - but this ended up being surprisingly experimental in structure. Covered my pet favorite topic of being unable to take action outside of one‘s mind, but also touched on familial loss that was clearly personal to the author, and explored the thoughts of a unique set of characters. I can‘t help but love Soseki.

An unexpected scifi story, better left unspoiled by the blurb! When her planet‘s colony is forced to leave, elderly Ofelia decides her best chance at peace and quiet is to stay behind. Alone. Examines capitalism and patriarchy to ask: why do we think so little of old women? She wonders: is a community that disrespects you preferable to isolation?

In turns tense, humorous, surreal, and (datedly) feminist in a mix that reminded me of Mrs. Caliban.

When a young black telepath being groomed by a powerful father activates her latent powers, other loner psychics are suddenly drawn together, leading to conflict and growth.

This slim book juggles eugenics, corruption, ableism, racism, and mental illness without drawing many conclusions; I couldn‘t draw one, either. Although standalone, it‘s neither first written nor first chronologically of a loose quartet; further reading may be more rewarding.

Not every day a New York Times best-selling author messages you back! I shared with Sonya Renee Taylor that her book, The Body Is Not an Apology, was the first nonfiction (especially activism/self-help) book not exclusively about disability that made me feel genuinely included in the audience. I often feel like a niche, unrelatable, or unmentioned subject. She‘s a star.

The 2nd edition - expanded, revised, introduced by Ijeoma Oluo - is out now!

This month I read a historian‘s grappling with the horrifying mass drowning of disabled Africans on the slave ship Le Rodeur, only to find this novella about the weight of remembering that history.

The Deep imagines the sea-dwelling descendants of enslaved people thrown overboard, exploring their choice to elect one ‘historian‘ to carry all the memories of their kind. Is being without history, especially one so devastating, a freedom or a loss?

“Nobody knew anything about any time when things had been different. Nobody knew there was any place where things might be different. We were enslaved by the present time.”

I‘m halfway through this collection and completed the set from Le Guin‘s Hainish universe. She creates far-off planets and societies with a common ancestor to ours, then lets us teach them & them teach us other ways to be. I love her work in this vein. #ChunksterChallenge2021

- Langston Hughes

I found A Raisin in the Sun both tender and brutal. The level to which Hansberry develops each unique character, each adult family member‘s dreams, lets her tackle an amazing breadth of social issues without seeming forced at all. Segregation, poverty, beauty, feminism, religion, more. It‘s masterful.

In my edition, the intro discussed what was cut for the stage & film. I was shocked - it all seemed vital! Vital in every sense.