Category: True Story

In 2010, Stacey Haney and her neighbors in Amity, Pennsylvania, signed agreements with Range Resources, a Texas-based energy company, to mine natural gas on her family’s land through fracking. Almost immediately, Haney and her two children get sick. Their animals and pets start to die, and chemicals show up in their air and water. They enlist the services of a husband-and-wife legal team to figure out what’s going on, a fight that pits neighbors against neighbors in their small community. This 2019 Pulitzer Prize winner is a stunning read, using in-depth reporting to show the humanity behind our energy needs, what happens when institutions fail to protect, and the complicated questions that can arise between economics and the environment. 

When Danielle Henderson was 10 years old, her mother left her and her brother with their grandparents so she could run away with her drug-addicted, abusive boyfriend. While that’s obviously a dark central experience to center a memoir on, one of the things I loved about this book is how well it balanced that darkness with moments of levity and observant insight. Henderson’s grandparents weren’t perfect parents, by any means, but they tried to give her the stability she needed to eventually make it on her own. This memoir is also about being “Black, weird, and overwhelmingly uncool” in a largely white community, and the lessons that helped Henderson find faith in herself and what she was capable of achieving. This is a great, great memoir. Content warnings for drug use, violence, and childhood sexual abuse.

Matt Rowland Hill grew up in a working class Welsh family constantly on the move as his father, a pastor, moved from congregation to congregation. While Hill felt deeply devout as a child, he began to doubt his parents’ faith when he grew older. As his identity as a Christian unraveled, Hill fell further and further into his addiction.

Hill discusses his struggle to stay clean and make it through recovery programs, but to do that, he has to confront the religious and family trauma that drew him to drugs in the first place. He doesn’t shy away from the horrible things he’s done for drugs or the reality that his memoir can’t have a happy ending. Living in recovery always means that a relapse could be just around the corner. All he can do is hope.

As a huge fan of Viola Davis, I started her memoir as soon as it hit my audiobook app. Davis described her childhood growing up as an economically disadvantaged girl in Rhode Island. Boys bullied her on her way home from school, rats ate the faces off her dolls, and her parents constantly argued.

After a tumultuous upbringing, she found escape in performance, and became determined to make it as an actress. Knowing about her career now, it was lovely to learn more about her work in younger years and the different people who helped her out along the way. Plus, Davis performs the audiobook edition, so Finding Me is perfect for audiobook lovers too.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, two perspectives she weaves together beautifully in this book about the lessons we can learn from other living beings. While not specifically about growing food, this book argues that we need to expand our environmental consciousness to connect more deeply with the rest of the living world. This book has gotten nothing but rave reviews from everyone I know who has read it.

Originally published in 2007, this memoir from novelist Barbara Kingsolver shared her family’s experience moving to a farm in southern Appalachia and their personal quest to spend a year only eating locally-produced foods. Reprinted in 2017, the 10th anniversary edition expands on the original with new contributions from each member of the family sharing how their original, year-long effort has expanded or changed their lives since then. This book is so charming, and a true inspiration if you want to think more deeply about your food.

Many people in the US are unfamiliar with the nation’s history of disability, and Kim E. Nielsen’s book seeks to rectify that problem. From the ugly laws that could get people with bodily differences arrested for being in public to the countless number of institutions across America, the United States has been all too happy to make it known that disabled people are not welcome. But as the disability rights movement started to take hold, disability rights activists paved the way for further legislation that protected disabled people and ensured that society accommodated our needs. Eventually, this led to the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.

In Care Work, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha points out that queer femmes of color have always been at the forefront of Disability Justice. Disability Justice is a key component of understanding disability rights. Disability Justice focuses on an intersectional approach to mutual aid and community care, centering on the disabled people who sit at the many intersections of disability identity. Care Work does a great job expanding one’s understanding of disability theory and the role it has to play in everyday disabled people’s lives.

The Tarahumara Indians of Mexico are famed distance runners. Isolated from the rest of the world by the Copper Canyons, many can run hundreds of miles without stopping or getting injured. To understand how they do it, journalist and runner Christopher McDougall visits science labs and runners across the country to understand the mindset and physicality of ultra-runners of all ages and experience levels. There is SO MUCH in this book I would never want to experience, but it’s a fascinating read.

Noé Álvarez grew up in Yakima, Washington, working at an apple-packing plant alongside his mother for many of his teenage years. After earning a college scholarship, he struggled to adapt and fit into university life. At 19 he learned about Peace and Dignity Journeys, a Native American movement of extended marathons “meant to renew cultural connections across North America.” He dropped out of school to run in a four-month marathon from Canada to Guatemala, connecting with the other runners and his own history in the process. Again, this is nothing I would ever want to try, but it’s an engaging and thought-provoking memoir.

Chloé Cooper Jones finds herself in a bar listening to two men argue whether or not a disabled person like her should even exist. Jones was born with a condition that results in her being short of stature with a change in her gait. Moving through the world as a visibly disabled person, Jones knows what it’s like to feel like she has to prove herself. But isn’t that just her internalized ableism speaking, she wonders. Easy Beauty follows Jones on her journey to finding meaning and peace in a world that all too often reminds her that it wasn’t built with her in mind.

Haben Girma is a DeafBlind disability advocate who’s traveled the world, graduated from Harvard Law School, and met President Obama. She grew up visiting her family in Eritrea, learning about how her grandparents lived through the war where Eritrea fought for their independence from Ethiopia. She always wanted to embody her family’s courage, so she decided to bravely face the world. She didn’t accomplish these things by overcoming her disability. Instead she embraced it, inventing new accommodation technology and advocating for better disability inclusion.

Ariel Henley and her twin sister Zan were born with crouzon syndrome, a condition where their skulls fused too soon. Throughout their childhoods, they had dozens of procedures to save their lives and to make their faces more cosmetically “pleasing.”  A journalist who interviewed them said that they had a face for Picasso. This stayed with Henley, and she mulled over the meaning of the phrase for years. As she grows into her own, she begins to accept her body, and her reflection, for what it is. A Face for Picasso was named A Schneider Family Honor Book for Teens.

Carly Findlay was born with Ichthyosis, a rare skin condition that causes her skin to appear red. When moving through the world, random strangers have responded to seeing in her with hatred, repulsion, or even hostility. She really just wishes that they would just “Say Hello.” In her memoir, she describes her work advocating for people with facial differences, and raises awareness for their unique experiences. You can learn more about her work over on her website.

Since she was a child, Sue Leaf has been mesmerized by canoeing. This book is a collection of essays about rowing along the waterways of North America with her family, everywhere from the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota to the bayous of Louisiana and the deserts of the American West. I cannot even tell you how much I love this book. It was an impulse purchase while I was on vacation near Lake Superior a few years ago, and I have been pushing it on people ever since. It is charming, funny, and inspirational all at once.

Rowing crew is not quite the same thing as rowing in nature, but this book is so interesting we’re just going to go with it. Arshay Cooper grew up on the west side of Chicago in the 1990s. An isolated kid trying to stay out of trouble, he was intrigued by a notice on his school bulletin board looking for crew team members. Cooper and his teammates had never even been on the water, but with the guidance of a dedicated coach, they became a decorated and formidable team in a largely white and Ivy League sport. This book is a classic inspirational sports story, so grab it if that’s your jam.

If you’re new to the world of disability literature, Demystifying Disability is a great place to start. Emila Ladau does a great job of instructing people on disability etiquette 101. She also gives readers an introduction to disability history, language, and culture. This has become my go-to book whenever I want to introduce someone to the world of disability—it’s the perfect place to start!

Disability activist Alice Wong has gathered together some of the best disabled writers of the last few decades. This collection features authors from a wide range of backgrounds, each with their own unique experience of disability. Each essay gives a different perspective on what it’s like to live as a disabled person in the U.S. Plus, there’s even more resources in the back of the book.

I am not alone in being drawn to the water. Humans swim all over the world, from Arctic waters all the way to tropical locales. In this book, swimmer Bonnie Tsui travels the globe to tell stories of how swimming has changed and connected people. She visits a swim club in Baghdad, samurai swimmers in Japan, and several other locations to try and understand what about the water is so important to people. This book is a very soothing read, if you need something calm and quiet in the middle of your summer craziness.

This book is another ode to swimming, this time looking more deeply at the history and biology of why we love the water. She explores how swimming has shifted from a solitary to social activity, as well as things like the history of buoyancy and the science behind how we evolved to swim. While less contemporary, this book also has many of the same chill, low-key vibes as other swimming books in this edition.