Where It Starts

Isn’t it funny how technology has changed our relationship to the written word? And more importantly, especially over the last ten years or so, how much it has changed our ability to consume it in vast quantities. Whether we choose to partake of that glorious bounty is up to us, and for various reasons many opt to read few if any books.

Me? Prior to 2009, I had probably only read 100 books in my entire life. Options were so limited to blind folks, with us only being able to access something like 1 percent of all available titles. And for most of us, the access was a lot less.

But just counting since the beginning of my tracking books completed on Goodreads I’ve read 422 books. And this year I’m making a good run at 100.

This was the genesis of my idea to try and capture the ethos of disability in modern and even historical literature. And I guess it's a sort of "seeing it because you're paying more attention," but I've started to notice more titles that fit this bill. Last year's big one was "The Sideways Life of Denny Voss," by Holly Jackson. It follows an individual with developmental disabilities as he navigates the criminal system after being accused of a crime. I also read and especially enjoyed the Young Adult novel all The Noise At Once, by DeAndra Davis, which follows a teen with autism as he attempts to make his high school's football team, and the somewhat bumpy relationship between him and his brother.

In nonfiction, other than the two titles I mentioned in the prior entry, I have read surprisingly few books about folks with disabilities. Some of these include "The Country of the Blind," by Andrew Leland, one of the best pieces about the history of blindness I've ever read. I also read (or listened to) "The Deaf Girl," by Abigail Herringer, wherein she primarily talked about her experience on The Bachelor. She narrates the audio, by the way.

All that to give an idea of the wide variety of titles that are now available and that help to bring us more into full view of society.

This provides a sample of the kinds of books I'm looking for, as I prepare to launch my podcast. I already have more than 20 authors on an Excel spreadsheet, so that when I get started I'll have a good selection from which to choose. Have you read anything you think might be interesting regarding disability, no matted the angle it's taking?

In the next two articles, I will talk first about what it was like growing up blind, then about my adjustments to hearing loss, using the sorts of questions I hope to put to these authors to gain more insight. We still just don't talk about life that falls out of the so-called "normal" enough, which is, I think, why so many of us fear these involuntary changes that may happen to our body. I’m going to take a crack at making us all, myself included, feel a little better about being different.