Audiobooks by Disabled Authors

Losing Music

A Memoir

By: John Cotter
Narrated by: John Cotter
Length: 7 hours 4 minutes

“I was in the car the first time music seemed strange: the instruments less distinct, the vocals less crisp.”John Cotter was thirty years old when he first began to notice a ringing in his ears. Soon the ringing became a roar inside his head. Next came partial deafness, then dizziness and vertigo that rendered him unable to walk, work, sleep, or... Read more

Blind Man's Bluff

By: James Tate Hill
Narrated by: Curtis Armstrong
Length: 7 hours 26 minutes

At age sixteen, James Tate Hill was diagnosed with Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy, a condition that left him legally blind. After high-school friends stopped calling and a disability counselor advised him to aim for Cs in his classes, he used his remaining blurry peripheral vision to pretend he could still see. Feigning eye contact,... Read more

Such a Pretty Girl

A Story of Struggle, Empowerment, and Disability Pride

By: Nadina LaSpina
Narrated by: Jennifer Jill Araya
Length: 11 hours 17 minutes

This is Nadina LaSpina's story—from her early years in her native Sicily, where she contracts polio as a baby, a fact that makes her the object of well-meaning pity and the target of messages of hopelessness, to her adolescence and youth in America, spent almost entirely in hospitals where she is tortured in the quest for a cure and made to feel... Read more

A Life of Service

The Story of Senator Tammy Duckworth

By: Christina Soontornvat
Narrated by: Cindy Kay
Length: 21 minutes

"Given Tammy Duckworth’s personal heroism as an Army veteran, her stunning recovery from injuries sustained in the line of duty, and her subsequent career as an influential US senator, it’s easy to see why Joe Biden earmarked her as a possible running mate during his Democratic presidential campaign. Senator Duckworth has logged a long list of... Read more

Fighting For YES! (Audio Descriptive)

The Story of Disability Rights Activist Judith Heumann

By: Maryann Cocca-Leffler & Judith Heumann
Narrated by: Ali Stroker & Judith Heumann
Length: 31 minutes

From a very young age, Judy Heumann heard the word NO. When she wanted to attend public school, the principal said NO. When she wanted her teaching license, the New York Board of Education said NO. Judy and people with disabilities everywhere were tired of hearing “NO.” In the 1970s, an important disability rights law, Section 504 of The... Read more

Fighting For YES! (Audio Descriptive)

The Story of Disability Rights Activist Judith Heumann

By: Maryann Cocca-Leffler & Judith Heumann
Narrated by: Ali Stroker & Judith Heumann
Length: 32 minutes

From a very young age, Judy Heumann heard the word NO. When she wanted to attend public school, the principal said NO. When she wanted her teaching license, the New York Board of Education said NO. Judy and people with disabilities everywhere were tired of hearing “NO.” In the 1970s, an important disability rights law, Section 504 of The... Read more

Black Disability Politics

By: Sami Schalk
Narrated by: Imani Barbarin
Length: 8 hours

In Black Disability Politics Sami Schalk explores how issues of disability have been and continue to be central to Black activism from the 1970s to the present. Schalk shows how Black people have long engaged with disability as a political issue deeply tied to race and racism. She points out that this work has not been recognized as part of the... Read more

The Cane Kids

Everett and Willow's Journey in Navigating Legal Blindness

By: Kristen Lang
Narrated by: Tristan Snyder & April Watts
Length: 8 minutes

Join Everett and Willow, two remarkable kids just like you, in their debut adventure as The Cane Kids. Discover the extraordinary world through their unique perspective as they navigate life with a special tool-embracing independence and pride.   This heartwarming children's book inspires readers of any age to believe that with determination, no... Read more

How To Tell When We Will Die

On Pain, Disability, and Doom

By: Johanna Hedva
Narrated by: Johanna Hedva
Length: 15 hours 2 minutes

The long-awaited essay collection from one of the most influential voices in disability activism that detonates a bomb in our collective understanding of care and illness, showing us that sickness is a fact of life.   In the wake of the 2014 Ferguson riots, and sick with a chronic condition that rendered them housebound, Johanna Hedva turned to... Read more

The Adventures of Incredi-Wheels & Triple S: The Mysterious Missing Book

By: Rebecca Rubin Seligson
Narrated by: Brian Dewar McNamara
Length: 4 minutes

As superhero good-deed-doers, Zee & Nina transform into Incredi-Wheels & Super Sidekick Sister (or “Triple S” for short) whenever a good deed needs doing. One day, while playing at the park, Zee & Nina hear their friend Zoey call for help. They spring into action, encouraging Zoey to become her own superhero as they work together to... Read more

Bea, a Badger with Type 1 Diabetes

Shine Books

By: Jo North
Narrated by: Jill Cofsky
Length: 8 minutes

Meet Bea, a kind and lovely badger who worries her diabetes makes her different. As we learn more about her condition, her friends help her realize she has nothing to worry about, and that she is brilliant, just the way she is. Read more

Sipping Dom Pérignon Through a Straw

Reimagining Success as a Disabled Achiever

By: Eddie Ndopu
Narrated by: Eddie Ndopu
Length: 5 hours 45 minutes

“This wickedly smart biography had me gasping at each injustice the author had to face, and then cackling at his witty comebacks. I also highly recommend the audio book, from Libro.fm because the author reads it himself! Read more

Beautiful People

My Thirteen Truths About Disability

By: Melissa Blake
Narrated by: Melissa Blake
Length: 6 hours 51 minutes

Well-known disability activist and social media influencer, Melissa Blake, offers a frank, illuminating memoir and a call to action for disabled people and allies.

In the summer of 2019, journalist Melissa Blake penned an op-ed for CNN Opinion. A conservative pundit caught wind of it, mentioning Blake’s work in a YouTube video. What happened... Read more

But Everyone Feels This Way

How an Autism Diagnosis Saved My Life

By: Paige Layle
Narrated by: Paige Layle
Length: 8 hours 53 minutes

Autism acceptance activist and TikTok influencer Paige Layle shares her deeply personal journey to diagnosis and living life autistically. 

“For far too long, I was told I was just like everyone else. But knew it couldn’t be true. Living just seemed so much harder for me. This wasn’t okay. This wasn’t normal. This wasn’t functioning. And it... Read more

Running on Broken Legs

My Journey to Joy

By: Elinor Young
Narrated by: Emily Snow
Length: 5 hours 59 minutes

Take undersized five-year-old farm girl Elinor, give her the polio that not only cripples her but also nearly kills her, then give her an impossible dream. In her childhood and again as a college student she rebels against the plan. Finally, she embraces the dream, and it leads Elinor to one of the most primitive, rugged places on earth and to a... Read more

Jabberwocky

Lessons of Love from a Boy Who Never Spoke

By: Steven Gardner
Narrated by: Scott Wallace
Length: 6 hours 20 minutes

”This is a holy book” —Rabbi Lawrence KushnerGraham Hale Gardner died before turning twenty-three and never learned to walk or speak due to severe cerebral palsy complicated by epilepsy. Yet he left a legacy of love and compassion that deeply moved scores of people from widely different backgrounds.How was that possible?Graham’s story, written... Read more

Without Restraint

How Skiing Saved My Son's Life

By: Robert C. DeLena & Ryan C. DeLena
Narrated by: Tim Getman & Alex Boyles
Length: 9 hours 55 minutes

As a child Ryan DeLena had difficulty controlling his emotional outbursts. This led to placement in therapeutic schools that relied on detrimental methods of behavior modification such as physical restraints.Nothing helped from a team of doctors to heavy medication. Then in 2010, Ryan was voluntarily committed to a mental hospital for further... Read more

The Story of My Life

By: Helen Keller
Narrated by: Amy J. Johnson
Length: 16 hours 51 minutes

This inspiring autobiography by Helen Keller is an account of her life from her family history up to her last years of college, supplemented by her personal letters from age seven to twenty-one. This edition includes letters and reports contributed by her teacher, Anne Sullivan, and the editor, John Albert Macy.Not only does her story... Read more

Look at It This Way

The Blind Leading the Sighted

By: Sammy SweetSpirit
Narrated by: Sammy SweetSpirit
Length: 4 hours 28 minutes

A powerful book that creates a conversation around the topic of blindnessLook at It This Way answers questions we all may have been reluctant to ask, it gives us a glimpse into what blind people experience living in a sighted world, and it breaks through barriers that may cause people to think that differences equate to superiority or... Read more

Never Say Invisible

A Memoir of Living and Being Seen with ALS

By: Jeremy Schreiber
Narrated by: Ramiz Monsef
Length: 5 hours

Jeremy Schreiber was on top of the world—athletic, newly married, successful. And then something went terribly wrong. In this moving memoir, he shares his journey after he received a terrifying diagnosis: ALS.As the devastating disease robbed him of movement and speech, he was abandoned by his wife and betrayed by a society that shuns people... Read more