This book was an extremely personal and thorough look at vision loss and the many philosophies, biases, innovations and challenges associated with blindness and the process of losing one's sight. At times it was a bit too detailed for me, but I respect Andrew Leland in his dedication to detail and openness to new ideas. I learned SO much from reading this excellent book

Easily one of the best NF books I’ve read this year. I’m very involved in the world of disability, but I loved learning more about the differences that exist in the blind subculture. There was so much of a focus on intersectionality that I really appreciated.

DNF

This was less memoir and more educational or advocacy oriented. Although I understand his learning process shaped his experience, all the history began to bore me at times.

I put this book on my TRL after hearing the author on a podcast. The book was great - informative and a portal into a range of life experiences that I have no access to (so far). I found myself stopping often to look up the artist, company, or organization that was mentioned in the book.

This is excellent. "More" then a memoir, but a great non-fic book (idk, history? ethnography?) about many aspects of blind life. It's similar to one of my faves, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, in this "memoir-plus" regard.

I got plenty of disability sparkles throughout!

Since this book was billed as a memoir, I was hoping that it would be more focused on the writer’s personal experience in his blindness journey. There was a lot of info dumping about the NFB and other US organizations representing and assisting blind and visually impaired Americans. As someone already in this orbit, there was nothing much new or interesting in that regard. The only thing it did was make me madder and madder at the NFB’s bully mentality where they think that there is only one best way, and that is their way, thereby stripping blind folks of their own personal choices. But that’s obviously not the author’s fault.

When the author did share personal stories of his life, I appreciated that it was his personal thoughts. He came across as judgy and defensive, and seemed to disrespect other groups of disabled folk, but it was his emotional journey, and in that way, was interesting to me. It just didn’t make up very much of the book, a supposed memoir.