Book #12 was "Too Late to Die Young: Nearly True Tales from a Life" by Harriet McBryde Johnson. I try to include a couple books by disabled authors in my "to read" list every year, and I'd heard good things about this book. I knew going in that Johnson was a lawyer specializing in rights for the disabled, so I expected this book to be more political than most disability memoirs I've read, and it was. However Johnson's Southern charm and warmth comes through, as does her sheer humanity and resistance to being pitied, and each of the essays that make up this memoir was beautifully written, thoughtful and moving. I found myself angry and wanting to smack Peter Singer through the pages of the book when he debates Harriet about the value of allowing disabled children to live. I found myself laughing at her sheer audacity, as when she is an official delegate at the Democratic National Convention and is in physical danger in her wheelchair from the crush of the crowd and threatens the security team that she will call Louis Farrakhan and ask him to bring his "Fruit of Islam" (security force) to the convention. I found my face streaming with tears at the end of the memoir, not because she's an "inspirational crip," which she would hate, but because of the beauty of her writing and observations about the pleasures of the body. Excellent, excellent book in every way. The world lost a truly amazing woman when she passed away.
1. Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time" [nonfiction]- David Oliver Relin and Greg Mortenson (unabridged audiobook)
2. The Detroit Electric Scheme [fiction]- D.E. Johnson
3. Classic Philip Jose Farmer 1964-1973 (Volume 5 in the Classics of Modern Science Fiction series) [fiction/short stories]- PJ Farmer
4. "The Aspern Papers" and "The Turn of the Screw" (omnibus volume with notes and commentary) [fiction]- Henry James
5. Ever After (11th in "The Hollows" series) [fiction]- Kim Harrison (unabridged audiobook)
6. On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family [nonfiction]- Lisa See
7. Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama [nonfiction/ graphic memoir]- written and illustrated by Alison Bechdel
8. My Year with Eleanor: A Memoir [nonfiction/memoir]- Noelle Hancock
9. House of Leaves [fiction]- Mark Z. Danielewski
10. Ready Player One [fiction]- Ernest Cline (unabridged audiobook)
