In my opinion this article is offensive. ( Cut for ablism )

Hi; sammason asked me to post my review of this book here. It deals with dementia, love, and caregiving.

Iris and Her Friends: A Memoir of Memory and Desire, by John Bayley. W.W. Norton & Co; 2000 “Iris and Her Friends” is the second book John Bayley wrote about his wife, novelist and Oxford don Iris Murdoch, and her decline from Alzheimer’s ( Read more... )

Have you watched The Theory of Everything yet? It took me a while to watch this biopic about the great physicist Stephen Hawking because he's a role model for me. ( Cut for spoilers )

The new British Bisexual book being crowdfunded has a good chapter on disability.
(I co-curated the non-monogamies chapter and am reading the draft)
Purple Prose

I like this blog post about fictional bodies. If I had access to tell the author that I'm linking to the post here, I'd do that. Please do that if you want to ( Read more... )

Sir Terry Pratchett, author of fantasy novels, died yesterday. If you were a fan of his, I'm sad for you. Many people loved his tales of Discworld and other places that he imagined. Me, I'm sad about his death because he campaigned for the Right to Die after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

Here's a tribute to Sir Terry and his high- ( Read more... )

A recent comment in this comm by plasticsturgeon led me to this article about Marcel Proust. Apparently 'Proust's life followed an unusual neurological itinerary, which has been largely overlooked, but which is in fact critical for an understanding of his literary work.' He had asthma and irregular sleep, and he knew (and was related to) several important medical ( Read more... )

http://www.howtobeadad.com/2012/10772/marvel-superheroes

Bullfighting still goes on. I suppose it's no surprise to read that a matador called Álvaro Múnera Builes stopped fighting bulls after one of them broke his neck. The injury made him paraplegic and he later became an animal rights activist. Here is a blog post about him. Previously, I'd read Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway. Like all ( Read more... )

I like the novel 'Sacred Country' by Rose Tremain, reviewed here. Both the author and this reviewer keep referring to the book's central character as 'she' and I don't like that, but in other ways I find this a good portrayal of gender dysphoria. What do you think?