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A Body Undone: Living On After Great Pain (A Memoir) by Christina Crosby Reviewing this deeply personal account of life after impairment, Sophie Partridge finds some things with which she can identify and others which trouble her more. As a Born (a disabled person with a full-on congenital impairment), I’m often nervous approaching something written by `an …
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Sci-fi fan Mik Scarlet has discovered three authors in the genre who have integrated believable and rounded disabled characters into their stories. I have had a lifelong love of science fiction. Writers like Isaac Asimov and Philip K Dick saw me through my teenage years and I have been hooked ever since. Then I found …
Ahead of the publication of his new book, All Our Welfare Professor Peter Beresford talks to Ian Macrae about his childhood, racial identity, mental health, an academic career spanning more than 25 years, what welfare should mean today and boxing. Download transcript of Head to Head Peter Beresford
Penny Gotch finds shared experience in this guide to growing up with autism. Although I had heard of Luke Jackson, I had not – and still haven’t – read his first book Freaks, Geeks and Asperger’s Syndrome. So when I sat down with his latest I did so with no preconceived notions of Jackson and his …
Continue reading “Sex, Drugs and Asperger’s Syndrome (ASD): A User Guide to Adulthood”
Lucy Howard reviews a new book by a disabled author, Susan Nussbaum. Good Kings Bad Kings tells the story of daily life in a care home for young disabled people, the Illinois Learning and Life Skills Centre (ILLC). This story is told from the perspectives of a range of characters, including the residents (or ‘inmates’ …
To mark World Book Day, aspiring author Penny Gotch takes a look at books which claim to feature central characters who are autistic. What she finds is disappointing and somewhat inaccurate… I hate books about autistics. I realised this a few months ago when I was waiting for a train at Stratford International and a …
Continue reading “The curious incidence of autistics in fiction”
Despite enormous self-awareness, Ian Macrae says it’s what, not who Pete Townshend is that’s at the heart of this unusual account of the rock star existence. The broadcaster Danny Baker (who is shortly to release his own autobiography) once complained that keyboard legend Keith Emerson’s book about himself was self-aggrandising and egotistical. To which the …
It might seem a long way for a disabled woman from the streets of Gateshead to the idyllic and idealistic world of children’s TV’s Balamory. But it’s a journey, says Ian Macrae, on which Kim Tserkezie seems to have remained constantly cheery. There is something effortlessly and practically easy-going about Kim Tserkezie’s approach to life. …
Coaching People with Asperger’s Syndrome (Karnac, £20.99) is a specialist book disguised as a general manual by an author who has taught autistics all his life. Regrettably, there are no pictures and the book is sometimes patronising and confusing but it can be helpful in other ways. Page 21 highlights a pitfall for many AS …
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Asperger Syndrome and Employment by Sarah Hendrickx (Jessica Kingsley, £13.99) is full of tips on how people with Asperger Syndrome (AS) can get stable jobs. The best advice for employees comes in the case study of Simon, who was sacked because he found the hours too long. A supported employment scheme badly advised him not …
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