HLAA-TC Book Club met on Tuesday, January 28th to discuss the memoir-in-essays “Sitting Pretty: The View from my Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body” by disability advocate Rebekah Taussig. The author was unable to join us but we did have a nice discussion with our group and welcomed new participants.
Summary of January Book Club:
- Author website: https://www.rebekahtaussig.com/
- Author Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sitting_pretty/
- Author Podcast: https://www.patreon.com/scratchthatpodcast/about (It’s about parenting and the video trailer for it does show Rebekah more present day with kids
- A YouTube Video where she discusses the book
- Rebekah has a SubStack (website/blog) where she writes regular essays (you can subscribe to it for free). This is one entitled “Dear Son of a Disabled Woman” (you can read the essay or listen to her read it: By Visiting this Website.
- As was mentioned during book club, Rebekah has a children’s book that she has written coming out this spring (April 2025) called “We Are the Scrappy Ones”
- During book club we discussed the multiple meanings behind the idiom “sitting pretty.” Here are several definitions and links related, see below:
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- Cambridge Dictionary Definition: “to be in a good situation usually because you have a lot of money (for example: they bought their house when prices were low, so now they’re sitting pretty)
- Dictionary.com discusses the use of the word pretty in this idiom.
- A few interviews on Rebekah and/her memoir:
- An overview of the book by National Endowment for the Arts
- A YouTube Video Podcast called “TELUS Talks” that is a nearly 40 minute interview with Rebekah (with captions).
- Another YouTube Interview with Rebekah on Parenting, Education and Disabilities
Additional items of mention:
- Otter transcription app: https://otter.ai/
- Sound Recognition Accessibility option on iPhone: (runs on iOS 14 and later) called sound recognition. It alerts the user if the iPhone detects a sound you want it to listen out for. (You can customize the sounds you want it looking for: doorbell, water running, sirens, baby crying, etc.)
- Open Caption Movies (we talked about how they are a preferred accommodation for those with hearing loss and yet they aren’t offered widely). Here is a resource for finding Open Caption Movies near you:
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- Big Screen lists open caption theaters and movies throughout the US.
FEBRUARY Book Club is “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store” by James McBride (fiction), BARD: DB 115655. Tuesday, February 25th, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. Central Time. [ZOOM- REGISTER HERE]