{"product_id":"unbound-notes-from-a-reluctant-disability-activist","title":"Unbound: Notes from a Reluctant Disability Activist","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis insightful and often witty collection of essays charts the making of a reluctant disability activist--including his commentary for NPR, the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e and elsewhere.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBen Mattlin was born in 1962 with spinal muscular atrophy, a congenital and progressive neuromuscular weakness. He never stood or walked but grew up expecting a normal life. In this book of essays, he chronicles that life and also charts his growth as a reluctant disability activist and public intellectual.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMattlin's disability was from birth. Raised in a family that insisted that he be educated in a mainstream setting, he never thought about his disability as being an obstacle until adulthood. It was not until he had graduated from Harvard and could not find a job that he began to understand what disability rights activists were talking about.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese collected short pieces chronicle Mattlin's intellectual coming-of-age including his beginnings, difficult conversations about disability, the social aspects of being disabled in a nondisabled world, and a wider perspective as the author looks back on his sixty years of disability. The book contains a variety of essays intermixed with a few edited podcast transcripts. Some of the pieces are deeply personal; others are stridently political. All of them are guaranteed to make readers see life and the world in a new way.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAltogether, this collection is a frank, unsentimental examination of some of the most important and moving issues of our day--always rendered with intelligence, sensitivity, and a liberal sprinkling of humor.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Blair","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48515911975161,"sku":"9781958888520","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/1811\/7625\/files\/imageloader_1f4cf388-5b24-4a8d-bdf5-9f5f071c205b.jpg?v=1781209545","url":"https:\/\/hookeandplotte.com\/products\/unbound-notes-from-a-reluctant-disability-activist","provider":"Hooke and Plotte Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}