MY LEFT FOOT <i> by Christie Brown (Mandarin: $6.95) </i>

In his celebrated autobiography, handicapped author Christie Brown portrays himself as a more gentle and thoughtful figure than the bibulous scamp in Jim Sheridan’s Oscar-nominated film. Without playing on the reader’s sympathy, Brown describes how he learned to paint and write with his left foot, the only limb he could control.

The most poignant chapters of the book focus on Brown’s adolescence, when he “discovered” his handicap. As a child, his play with his brothers had seemed so natural and unaffected that he never realized he was different. But his first teen-age crush brought the bitter realization that other people saw him as a cripple and an object of pity--a revelation that profoundly altered his self-image. The remainder of the book chronicles his struggle to achieve an independent, normal life. A moving study of an indomitable will utilizing limited resources to the utmost.