Book review: Lifting the lid on how blind neurotypical society is to those on the spectrum

Shame is an unfamiliar emotion for book reviewers. We’re supposed to be dispassionate, analytical aloof. Reading Untypical, however I did feel ashamed – ashamed that I knew so little about autism, ashamed that I’d never troubled to find out, ashamed that in the past I had probably been guilty of the very offences the author describes in this essential primer for unenlightened neurotypicals.

Pete Wharmby received an autism diagnosis at the age of 34. Paradoxically, ...