Perfect gift ideas

For those of you that like to plan ahead, and already are busy thinking of ideas for Christmas gifts, here are four recommended books that would make a perfect gift for any bookworm!

Food for Thought: A combination of life, karate, cooking and disability
David Croft

SIA member, David Croft, tells how he rebuilt his life, since his diving accident at the age of 21 years old. The book highlights how to cater for disabled people during London 2012, as well as celebrating the achievements of ten sporting tetraplegics. Each SCI person featured, has been suggested who their ideal dinner party guests would be, and a menu has been created for them by some very competent and well known chefs.

So, Julie Sawyer, if there is room at the table when you invite Sir Paul McCartney, Benjamin Zaphaniah, and Victoria Wood  to dinner, then please can we come too? The menu created, by chef Tom Aitkens, looks and sounds as good as the company! Pea and chervil risotto with pea shoots and goats’ cheese followed by vanilla crème brulee.

Books cost £10 each, and they can be purchased from www.davidcroft.com

Boundless: An Adventure Beyond Limits
Karen Darke, T3

Another SIA member shares her experience what is possible when we set our hearts and minds to something, as well as having the support of a good team – enabling us to go beyond limits.

Karen’s initiation to disability was at the age of 21, when she fell off a cliff whilst rock-climbing. In retrospect, Karen feels it probably wasn’t surprising that she became paralysed from the chest down, as her exposure to danger ever increasing as an attraction to adventure developed.

Karen didn’t know that, with the help of friends she hadn’t even met yet, she would be back in the mountains learning to use a sit-ski. Karen couldn’t know then the adventures that she would be fortunate to go on and have – like handcycling across the Himalayas, sea kayaking from Canada to Alaska, sit-skiing across the Greenland icecap or training for the London 2012 Paralympics!

Copies of Boundless cost £14.50, and can be ordered from www.karendarke.com

Napoleon Xylophone
Frank Lambert

Napoleon Xylophone is a disabled hero who doesn’t let his disability get in the way of fighting the supernatural creatures that come to life in the Underworld beneath Newcastle City Centre. Fortunately he has a wheelchair that can fly and a quirky inventor grandfather.

The story was borne from a series of creative writing workshops with disabled children, held in Newcastle and was designed to give them a voice to help them express how they fit into society.

Aimed at 12 to 16 year olds the book costs £11.99, and is available from www.Amazon.co.uk

What NOBODY sees
Anne-Pia Nygard

Translated from Norwegian this is the story of a young woman born with a form of scoliosis and how she has coped which each stage of her life and her efforts to discount her disability and get on with life. Born in 1977, the story may be of interest to others with a similar spinal condition from birth, who were born around the same time. There are tales of long hospital stays, humiliation and pain but always a theme of triumph over adversity.

It’s easy to read, so if anyone would like to review this book for future edition of our magazine forward please contact the editor Lynpunchard@btconnect.com

This book costs £9.95, and can be purchased from www.loaghtanbooks.com