Over the past ten years, I’ve read over a thousand books, hundreds of them nonfiction. But like most book lovers, there are always books that I can’t stop thinking about, that I can’t stop recommending. Typically, these books sit in a permanent place on my side table, always within reach. Their pages are highlighted and underlined, and have my kindergarten-like scrawl in their margins. Every time I reread these favorites, I find something new, something that makes me rethink my perspective on the text in their pages. These are the books I will never stop recommending.
Disability Visibility, edited by Alice Wong
Many nondisabled people think good allyship means giving disabled people a pass for “not doing things the right way” when it’s actually realizing that the “right way” isn’t fair for disabled people in the first place. Disability Visibility shows disabled people facing down a society built without their existence in mind. With Wong’s expert guidance, the writers in this anthology center disabled people’s perspectives and celebrate disabled bodies/minds. Wong passed away in 2025, and I will treasure my marked-up and well-loved copy for always.
Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks by Crystal Wilkinson
There are just some books that defy genre and traditional storytelling conventions, and Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts is one of them. Crystal Wilkinson, former Kentucky Poet Laureate and member of the Affrilachian Poets, shares the story of her family history through her favorite recipes. Together, these recipes trace Wilkerson’s story through time and celebrate the people who made Wilkerson the writer she is today. I love revisiting this book, reviewing my favorite recipes, and lingering over new things about the text I hadn’t noticed before. There’s always something to learn in its pages.
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
Elisabeth Tova Bailey spent months in bed watching her pet snail in its pot next to her bed. When I first started recommending this memoir, I, too, lived life mostly from my oversized couch. But over the years, I’ve begun to recover—like Bailey—slowly rejoining the world beyond my doorstep. I still keep this book next to my couch, ready and on hand for whenever I need it again, because you never know. After all, though my world is bigger now, I still love snails.
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You can find me over on my substack Winchester Ave, over on Instagram @kdwinchester, or on my podcast Read Appalachia. As always, feel free to drop me a line at [email protected]. For even MORE bookish content, you can find my articles over on Book Riot.
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