Beautiful Lives
On sale
5th June 2025
Price: £24.99
Genre
Autobiography: Arts & Entertainment / Autobiography: General / Films, Cinema / Individual Actors & Performers / Memoirs / Political Activism
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Audiobook Downloadable / ISBN-13: 9781035424764
‘A beautiful book – powerful, persuasive, illuminating, moving.’ – Gyles Brandreth
‘This book is both heart-rending and gorgeous. It crosses the line many times but ultimately it’s about love. He teaches us humanity.’ – Miriam Margolyes
‘A powerful, multi-faceted, myth-busting account of the most marginalised and belittled out-group in modern society.’ – Simon Jarrett, author of Those They Called Idiots
For much of history, people with learning disabilities have been regarded as unworthy of interest – often seen as a threat to the social order and sometimes dismissed as barely human. While recent years have seen an improvement, learning-disabled people are still treated as fundamentally different.
Beautiful Lives is a personal and pragmatic account, told through the eyes of a father whose son has severe learning disabilities. From early civilisation to the chilling realities of twentieth-century eugenics, this powerful book uncovers a startling and rarely told history – one deeply embedded in the challenges still faced today.
Unwin shapes this history into a powerful story of love, lived experience and the long struggle for a better future.
‘This book is both heart-rending and gorgeous. It crosses the line many times but ultimately it’s about love. He teaches us humanity.’ – Miriam Margolyes
‘A powerful, multi-faceted, myth-busting account of the most marginalised and belittled out-group in modern society.’ – Simon Jarrett, author of Those They Called Idiots
For much of history, people with learning disabilities have been regarded as unworthy of interest – often seen as a threat to the social order and sometimes dismissed as barely human. While recent years have seen an improvement, learning-disabled people are still treated as fundamentally different.
Beautiful Lives is a personal and pragmatic account, told through the eyes of a father whose son has severe learning disabilities. From early civilisation to the chilling realities of twentieth-century eugenics, this powerful book uncovers a startling and rarely told history – one deeply embedded in the challenges still faced today.
Unwin shapes this history into a powerful story of love, lived experience and the long struggle for a better future.
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Reviews
A beautiful book - powerful, persuasive, illuminating, moving.
This book is both heartrending and gorgeous. It crosses the line many times but ultimately it's about love. He teaches us humanity.
This is a superbly written, even entertaining treatment of a sombre topic - how people with learning disabilities are marginalised and ignored. This has a long history, going back to classical times, a story well told here. If you have never asked yourself whether calling someone an 'idiot' is as bad as using the 'n' word, you will certainly do so after reading this book. I could not recommend it more highly.
Unwin's marvellous, elegant, moving book is a major contribution to both the history and the understanding of this thing we call learning disability. Interspersed with the story of his complex, deeply loving relationship with his son Joey, it is a powerful, multi-faceted, myth-busting account of the most marginalised and belittled out-group in modern society.
From a place of intense personal experience Beautiful Lives confronts the myths of learning disability with a startling clarity. It's a profoundly affecting book that also provides a manifesto for the future. Just as he has done with his playwriting Unwin has not only made the "strange, familiar" but tackled every myth and every spectrum of debate with a delicate touch. No reader will be left unchallenged by this incredible and important book. No reader will be left untouched.