Care Work is the only anti-ableist book I've ever read. It was not an easy book, but it was still mind-blowing just for:
a) revealing subtleties of accessibility struggle,
b) setting unflinching accessibility standards,
c) describing mutual aid care networks, and
d) inspiring me to think about my own disabilities, past/present/future. ( )

I read this as part of my Crips on Couches Quarantine Book Club; it was a perfect pick. This book is largely about the disability justice movement, the lives of disability activists, and an analysis of ableism. But the core of it is intersectionality; an understanding of the overlapping identities and struggles that people face. If you are a queer and disabled femme of color (as the author is) very few activist spaces are really safe for you: homophobia, racism, sexism. ableism, are all rampant across the entire political spectrum.

This book is a collection of essays, focusing on various components of these issues. It's a great exploration of underappreciated labor and activism, in a field of under-recognized issues. The tone is inconsistent (a common issue with essay collections that vary formatting often), and not all of the conclusions feel as ground-breaking as others, especially reading it as a member of the disabled community.

However, when the essays are good, they're great. Some of these are worth hanging up on your wall.

It took about a month to read, off and on, but as my first real "quarantine" book it certainly delivered. ( )

Just powerful, and with so many resources and great ideas. Piepzna-Samarasinha does an amazing job of drawing together QTBIPOC crip brilliance and really exploring care from this perspective. Even just being exposed to ideas around different ways that care happens between disabled people, especially in disabled, working class queer and trans communities of color, is both theoretically rich and practically useful and hugely important. They also include actual resources on things like accessible venues, and recognize all of that work, of organizing those resources and then enacting them, among others, as labor that needs to be addressed and reciprocated within our means. Strongly, strongly encourage folks to read this, as it's given me a lot to chew on and more places to go from reading it. ( )