18th November - 20th December 2021
UK Disability History month is an annual event, celebrating and creating discussions around the history of disability rights and experiences in the UK and around the world. This year, the themes are sex and relationships and hidden impairments.
This Year's Selection
This year's selection consists of both books and ebooks by disabled authors. They are on display on Level 1 of the main library. A further selection of books are on display near the lifts on Level 1. All books are available to borrow.
Disfigured: On Fairytales, Disability and Making Space
Amanda Leduc
A look at how fairytales influence expectations and beahviour towards disability
Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness and Liberation
Eli Clare
Essays exploring home as place, community, body, identity and activism
Unwell Women: A Journey Through Medicine and Myth in a Man-Made World
Elinor Cleghorn
Unpacking the roots of perpetual misunderstanding and misdiagnosis of women's bodies
Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg
Emily Rapp Black
A personal examination of how the experiences, art and disabilities of Frida Kahlo shaped her life as an amputee
Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Collection of essays exploring politics of disability justice, with the lives of sick and disabled queer, trans, Black and brown people at the centre.
The Mind's Eye
Oliver Sacks
Oliver Sacks tells the stories of people (including himself) who are able to navigate the world despite losing senses and abilities related to sight
The Amazing Edie Eckhart
Rosie Jones
This debut children's book from comedian Rosie Jones is the endearing and laugh-out-loud story of the eponymous Edie; a schoolgirl with cerebral palsy and a love of performance.
Reading and Writing Disability Differently
Tanya Titchkosky
Unpacks the marginality of disabled people by addressing how our existence is configured in everyday literature society
Books by Disabled Authors
Here are a selection of books by disabled authors from the UK and around the world. These are available to loan on Primo, just click on the book cover to see it on Primo.
Please note: this is not an exhaustive list. If you are looking for something specific, search in Primo.
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Alison Bechdel
The Sad Ghost Club
Lize Meddings
Keith Haring Journals
Keith Haring
Diary of Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo
Up in the Air: Collected Film Scripts
Derek Jarman
Eye
David Bailey
Theatres of Learning Disability
Matt Hargrave
Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs
Henri Matisse
Winding Paths
Bruce Chatwin
Chuck Close Prints
Chuck Close
Modern Nature
Derek Jarman
The Reason I Jump
Naoki Higashida
Sitting Pretty
Rebekah Taussig
My Brief History
Stephen Hawking
Fingers in the Sparkle Jar
Chris Packham
Being Heumann
Judith Heumann
Always Looking Up
Michael J. Fox
Laughing at My Nightmare
Shane Burcaw
The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly
Jean-Dominique Bauby
The Story of My Life
Helen Keller
Ernest Hemingway on Writing
Ernest Hemingway
My Left Foot
Christy Brown
Zami: A New Spelling of my Name
Audre Lorde
Life and Suicide Following Brain Injury
Alyson Norman
Kindred: a Graphic Novel Adaptation
Octavia E. Butler
The Bell Jar
Sylvia Plath
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Philip K. Dick
The Catcher in the Rye
J. D. Salinger
The Time Machine
H. G. Wells
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky
A Shadow on Summer
Christy Brown
A Moveable Feast
Ernest Hemingway
The Complete Stories
Flannery O'Connor
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Truman Capote
Paradise Lost
John Milton
Ficciones (Fictions)
Jorge Luis Borges
A Room of One's Own
Virginia Woolf
Dawn
Octavia E. Butler
Mystery and Manners
Flannery O'Connor
Beauty Is a Verb
Jennifer Bartlett
Pygmalion
George Bernard Shaw
Plays: 1
Sue Townsend
Ariel
Sylvia Plath
Don Juan
George Gordon Byron
I Am Not A Label
Cerrie Burnell
Break the Mould
Sinead Burke
Disability Visibility
Alice Wong
First, We Make the Beast Beautiful
Sarah Wilson
Crippled
Frances Ryan
Illness as Metaphor
Susan Sontag
The Autistic Brain
Temple Grandin
Disability Rights and Wrongs Revisited
Tom Shakespeare
Disability Research Today
Tom Shakespeare
Disabling Barriers - Enabling Environments
John Swain
The Problem of Pain
C. S. Lewis
That's the Way I Think
David Grant
Seeing Voices
Oliver Sacks
The Gift of Dyslexia
Ronald Davis
Aspergirls
Rudy Simone
Animals in Translation
Temple Grandin
A Brief History of Time
Stephen Hawking
I Had A Black Dog
Matthew Johnstone
Motivational Interviewing in Diabetes Care
Marc P Steinberg
Building the Inclusive City
Victor Santiago Pineda
Inclusive Growth
Toby Mildon
Books about Disability
The following are a selection of books about disability, but not necessarily written by disabled authors. All are available to loan on Primo. This is not an exhaustive list. Search on Primo if you are looking for something more specific.
The Power of Neurodiversity
Thomas Armstrong
Loneliness and Its Opposite
Don Kulick
Sexuality and Disability
Maddie Blackburn
The Problem Body
Sally Chivers
Disability
Colin Barnes
Diversity in Disney Films
Cheu Johnson
Illness: The Cry of the Flesh
Havi Carel
Crip Theory
Robert McRuer
What about us? Sex Education for Children with Disabilities
Ann Craft
Sexuality and Disability: A Guide for Everyday Practice
Elaine Cooper
Creative Approaches in Dementia Care
Hilary Lee
Pain Is Really Strange
Steve Haines
Disability and Qualitative Inquiry Methods for Rethinking an Ableist World
Ronald J. Berger
The Routledge Handbook of Disability Activism
Sickness, Disability and Work
Culture - Theory - Disability
Sexual and Disability
The Review of Disability Studies
