SHSU Common Reader Program


Introducing the 2022-2023 Common Reader!


The Book Selection

“The goal is to be seen, asked, heard, believed, valued as we are.” - Rebekah Taussig, Sitting Pretty

Photo op book cover

A memoir-in-essays from disability advocate and creator of the Instagram account @sitting_pretty Rebekah Taussig, processing a lifetime of memories to paint a beautiful, nuanced portrait of a body that looks and moves differently than most.

Growing up as a paralyzed girl during the 90s and early 2000s, Rebekah Taussig only saw disability depicted as something monstrous (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), inspirational (Helen Keller), or angelic (Forrest Gump). None of this felt right; and as she got older, she longed for more stories that allowed disability to be complex and ordinary, uncomfortable and fine, painful and fulfilling.

Writing about the rhythms and textures of what it means to live in a body that doesn’t fit, Rebekah reflects    on everything from the complications of kindness and charity, living both independently and dependently experiencing intimacy, and how the pervasiveness of ableism in our everyday media directly translates to everyday life.

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Disability affects all of us, directly or indirectly, at one point or another. By exploring this truth in poignant and lyrical essays, Taussig illustrates the need for more stories and more voices to understand the diversity of humanity. Sitting Pretty challenges us as a society to be patient and vigilant, practical and imaginative,kind and relentless, as we set to work to write an entirely different story.

The SHSU Common Reader program supports faculty and staff with a robust framework of options to bring the book tolife for students.

For more information contact us at commonreader@shsu.edu.