news | Saturday July 4, 2026

Disability Pride Month 2026 Reading List

July is Disability Pride Month! It’s always a good time of year to read books by D/disabled authors. If you’re looking for some recommendations from recent years, Talonbooks has got you covered with cutting-edge works of poetry, fiction, and hybrid forms to immerse yourself in. Be sure to check out:

1. Save Your Prayers – Send Money by Jónína Kirton

The new poetry-and-prose book by Jónína Kirton digs into disability politics and takes aim at the wellness industry. Rooted in her experiences as a 70-year-old Métis woman with chronic pain and a recovering New Ager, Kirton’s Save Your Prayers – Send Money looks at how intergenerational trauma may play out in the body. With wit and ferocity, Save Your Prayers – Send Money looks at how we might find peace whether or not we heal. Pick up your copy here.

2. Growing My Way Home by Jenn Ashton

New work of autofiction Growing My Way Home by disabled, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh author Jenn Ashton is based on the writer’s teenage journals. We follow our protagonist through abuse, early involvement in the criminal justice system, dealing drugs as a youth, becoming a parent as a teenager, and all the way up into adulthood as an award-winning artist. With a moving leit motif of plant life and what we nurture, this book is a perfect read for Disability Pride Month. Order your copy here.

3. allostatic load by Junie Désil

allostatic load lives at the intersection of racialization and chronic illness. At times grounded in the personal and regularly looking at the structural, Désil looks at the impacts of systemic injustice and the commodification of care. Get your copy here.

4. th book uv lost passwords 1 by bill bissett

th book uv lost passwords 1 is a novel of poems from one of Canada’s most beloved literary icons, bill bissett. Taking readers around the globe, out into the universe, and straight to the breath of the poem, bissett’s latest offering dissolves poetic boundaries and embraces the great mysteries, wondering how after all of this time, we might still commune lovingly with one another. Pick up a copy here.

5. Pearl by George Bowering

Pearl is the new book by author, educator, and Canada’s first Parliamentary Poet Laureate, George Bowering. With both humbling depths and sparkling levity, this collection sprawls in search of the next glimmering insight, tugging at different threads with a multifarious large-heartedness. Touching, ribald, and cheeky, Pearl reflects on a life well-lived and well-written. Copies are available here.

6. No Town Called We by Nikki Reimer

No Town Called We brings wit, insight, anger, and care to questions of how we can show up for each other in times of emergency and climate crisis. Written through the lens of a multiply disabled, female-coded body approaching midlife, No Town Called We swings at the petrostate and the greed and complacency that foster cultures of neglect and disregard. Get your copy here.

Happy reading! We hope this Disability Pride Month brings you lots of enriching new art, thought, and connection.