Special Collections
Blindness and Visual Impairment Special Collection
Description: A collection featuring biographies, memoirs, fiction and non-fiction by and about members of the blind community. #disability
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Across Two Novembers
by David Faucheux
Friends and family. Restaurants and recipes. Hobbies and history. TV programs the author loved when he could still see and music he enjoys. The schools he attended and the two degrees he attained. The career that eluded him and the physical problems that challenge him. And books, books, books: over 230 of them quoted from or reviewed. All in all, an astonishing work of erudition and remembrance.
Adam & Eve - The Garden of Sins
by Francesco Falconi and Georgiana BulanceaTwo different worlds, two lonely souls that are going to meet. Sofia is the last descendant of the Spanish family of Alvarez. For years she has lived segregated in a villa in Florence. Rarely does she leave the house, she spies the world from the window of her room. She dreams it, wishes it, and yet she hates it. But mostly she hates The Left Sofia. So does she call that part of her face which was disfigured because of a fire in the garden of the villa when she was just a child. A silly game with her brother Alejandro, a small fire burning near a dry scrub. Terrible consequences that forever changed her future. Because in that garden Sofia has not only lost the perfection of her beauty, but also her brother Alejandro. Lorenzo lives on the outskirts of Florence with his father. At the age of eight he contracted a terrible degenerative disease that, day after day, made him blind. Since then, the world of Lorenzo became a chiaroscuro of light and shadow that vibrate to the music. Music, in fact, is his only reason for living. The cello is his only voice. One day, Lorenzo and Sofia meet in the Boboli Gardens, just in front of the statues of Adam and Eve. They get to know each other, they befriend. Day after day, their relationship turns into something deeper and more complicated. A perfect and inviolable feeling. A blind and sincere love. But the world around them, the desire to see beyond the shadows and enjoy the beauty is too great temptation that can disrupt even that Eden of love ...
Adventures in Darkness
by Tom SullivanIn Adventures in Darkness, Tom Sullivan takes readers through the adventures of his monumental eleventh year. Blind since birth, Tom lived in a challenging world of isolation and special treatment. But he was driven to break out and live as sighted people do. This book is a hair-raising, heart-warming experience that culminates in Tom's reliance upon God to realize his dreams of a "normal" life.
Against the Pollution of the I
by Jacques LusseyranJacques Lusseyran’s experience was both unique and exceptional but his insights are universally applicable and inspiring. Imagine being not only blinded as a child but surviving the Nazis’ Buchenwald concentration camp. And yet Lusseyran writes of how blindness enabled him to discover aspects of the world he would not otherwise have known. His writing vividly depicts senses beyond our "normal” five. In "What One Sees Without Eyes” he describes the divine "inner light” available to all. But, crucially, he finds this light to be under attack. Just as Lusseyran transcended his almost unspeakable experience, his writings give wise, triumphant voice to the human ability to "see” beyond sight and act with unexpected heroism. We can all, he asserts, learn to experience disabilities as gifts and see beyond what we see.
All the Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr*NOW A NETFLIX LIMITED SERIES—from producer and director Shawn Levy (Stranger Things) starring Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Laurie, and newcomer Aria Mia Loberti* Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, the beloved instant New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure&’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum&’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the Resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure&’s converge. Doerr&’s &“stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors&” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer &“whose sentences never fail to thrill&” (Los Angeles Times).
Andrea Bocelli
by Antonia FelixThe author presents text and pictures from Andrea Bocelli's life. Information concerning how different conductors worked with Andrea as he made his entrance in the opera are included.
And There Was Light
by Jacques LusseyranWhen Jacques Lusseyran was an eight-year-old Parisian schoolboy, he was blinded in an accident. He finished his schooling determined to participate in the world around him. In 1941, when he was seventeen, that world was Nazi-occupied France. Lusseyran formed a resistance group with fifty-two boys and used his heightened senses to recruit the best. Eventually, Lusseyran was arrested and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp in a transport of two thousand resistance fighters. He was one of only thirty from the transport to survive. His gripping story is one of the most powerful and insightful descriptions of living and thriving with blindness, or indeed any challenge, ever published.
As I See It
by Tom SullivanAn inspirational memoir of a man's rich life experiences without sight, but with an enormous sense of wonder in the world around him. Bestselling author Tom Sullivan explores life without sight and finds it rich and rewarding. In fact, he's gleaned a number of gifts from his "affliction," including: * I've never assessed my relationship with people according to the limits of labels or assumption. * I've enjoyed a world of senses available to all of us but almost never explored by the majority of those with sight. * I've made challenge my road to limitless opportunity. * I've cultivated a clear sense of my own purpose. * I've learned to be passionate, celebrating my own uniqueness through the expression of that passion. * I've found a powerful faith that has become my foundation for living. * I've learned to love unconditionally through the interdependent relationship I share with my wife, Patty, and my children. Through insightful stories and emotive writing, Tom describes a life of fullness, not lack, as he's made blindness a positive. For Tom Sullivan--author, actor, athlete, singer, entertainer, and producer--a life with blindness has been a life with very few true limits. In this elegant exploration of the senses, he considers the different challenges he's faced and explains the wonder he carries because, not in spite, of his blindness.
As The Twig Is Bent
by Kenneth Jernigan"Table of Contents To Park Or Not To Park What Lynden Has To Hear How Different It Might Have Been How Different It Is Do You Want To Go To The Store, Ted? Partially Sighted, Really Blind Advice From A Seven-Year-Old A Matter Of Attitude A Purchasing Alliance They Didn't Want Me To Go To School Ladies And Gentlemen Of The Jury Sight Unseen To Light A Candle With Mathematics Supremacy." Other books in this series are available from Bookshare.
The Ballad of Blind Tom, Slave Pianist
by Deirdre O'ConnellThe true story of a black musical savant in the era of slavery.
Born into slavery in Georgia, Tom Wiggins died an international celebrity in New York in 1908. His life was one of the most bizarre and moving episodes in American history. Born blind and autistic-and so unable to work with other slaves-Tom was left to his own devices. He was mesmerized by the music of the family's young daughters, and by the time he was four Tom was playing tunes on the piano.
Eventually freed from slavery, Wiggins, or "Blind Tom" as he was called, toured the country and the world playing for celebrities like Mark Twain and the Queen of England and dazzling audiences everywhere. One part genius and one part novelty act, Blind Tom embodied contradictions-a star and a freak, freed from slavery but still the property of his white guardian. His life offers a window into the culture of celebrity and racism at the turn of the twentieth century.
In this rollicking and heartrending book, O'Connell takes us through the life (and three separate deaths) of Blind Tom Wiggins, restoring to the modern reader this unusual yet quintessentially American life.
A Beacon for the Blind
by Winifred HoltA biography of Henry Fawcett. The story of his life as it is to be told in this book will give ample illustrations of his fortitude and his perseverance.
Beginnings and Blueprints
by Kenneth JerniganThis is a motivational book showing that blind individuals can live productive lives doing the things that sighted people do and even succeed at it!
Behind Our Eyes
by Marilyn Brandt SmithLaugh with the blind guy who gets in the wrong car and almost gets arrested. Cry with the little girl whose parents resent her blindness so much that they constantly break her spirit. Rejoice over battles won against burglars, abusive spouses, self-doubt, and health care personnel who keep forgetting their patient can't see. Reflect on the issues of employment, acceptance, independent travel, and the appreciation of nature and other hobbies. This anthology attempts to bridge the gap between how disabled people are viewed by society and how they really live. Read about the writers' workshop, and join the group if you enjoy writing.
The Best Max Carrados Detective Stories
by Ernest Bramah and E. F. BleilerSightless detective Max Carrados solved his first cases in Edwardian London, in the early days of the 20th century when the city was the beating heart of the vast British Empire. This collection contains the very best tales of the blind sleuth, 10 adventures that range from his first challenge, "The Coin of Dionysus," to mysteries set during the World War I era and the early 1920s. Like Sherlock Holmes, Max Carrados debuted in The Strand magazine, and his stories rivaled those of the Baker Street detective in popularity. Since then, compilation volumes of the frequently anthologized tales have long been out of print and hard to find. This collection offers an excellent introduction to the suave private investigator whose deductive skills are surpassed only by his perceptive powers, which enable him to hear a heartbeat from across the room. Carrados' creator, Ernest Bramah, was one of the few authors in the early days of detective fiction who could combine physical and intellectual thrills with imagination and stylistic brilliance. Brimming with charm and humor, these vintage stories are utterly unique in the field of detective literature.
Beyond the Night
by Marlo SchaleskyThey say love is blind. This time they're right...As a woman lies unconscious in a hospital bed, her husband waits beside her, urging her to wake up and come home.
Between them lies an ocean of fear and the tenuous grip of memories long past. Memories of wonder. Of love. Memories of a girl named Madison and a boy named Paul...
Madison Foster knew she was going blind. But she didn't want pity-not from her mother, not from her roommate, and especially not from her best friend Paul-the man she secretly loved.
Paul Tilden knew a good thing when he saw it. And a good thing was his friendship with Maddie Foster. That is, until he started to fall in love.
With the music of the seventies as their soundtrack and its groovy fashions as their scenery, Maddie and Paul were drawn together and driven apart. Then one night changed everything...forever.
Blackmoor
by Edward HoganBeth is an albino, half blind, and given to looking at the world out of the corner of her eye. Her neighbours in the Derbyshire town of Blackmoor have always thought she was 'touched', and when a series of bizarre happenings shake the very foundations of the village, they are confirmed in their opinion that Beth is an ill omen. The neighbours say that Beth eats dirt from the flowerbeds, and that smoke rises from her lawn. By the end of the year, she is dead. A decade later her son, Vincent, treated like a bad omen by his father George is living in a pleasant suburb miles from Blackmoor. There the bird-watching teenager stumbles towards the buried secrets of his mother's life and death in the abandoned village. It's the story of a community that fell apart, a young woman whose face didn't fit, and a past that refuses to go away.
Blind
by Belo Miguel CiprianiThis memoir is based on the author's experience in losing his vision and learning to navigate the sighted-centric world.
Blind but Now I See
by Kent GustavsonFrom the day Doc Watson stepped off the bus in New York City, the North Carolina music legend changed the world forever. His influence has been recognised by presidents and by the heroes of modern music. This is the first comprehensive biography of Doc Watson, with never before released details about the American guitar icons life.
This book includes new interviews with popular musicians: Ben Harper, Michelle Shocked, Warren Haynes, Sam Bush, Bela Fleck, Tom Paxton, Maria Muldaur, John Cohen, Mike Seeger, Peggy Seeger, Abigail Washburn, Ketch Secor, Marty Stuart, Norman Blake, Tony Rice, Pat Donohue, Peter Rowan, Si Kahn, Tommy Emmanuel, Tony Trischka, Greg Brown, Guy Clark, Don Rigsby, David Grisman, Alice Gerrard, Alan O Bryant, Edgar Meyer, Guy Davis, Jack Lawrence, Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, Jean Ritchie, Jerry Douglas, Jonathan Byrd, Larry Long, Paddy Moloney, and many more. . .
The Blind Doctor
by Rosalind PerlmanJacob Bolotin was born blind to poor Jewish parents in Chicago in 1888. Rejecting the conventional wisdom of his time, he was determined to "be of use" in the world. He learned Braille and developed an uncanny sense of touch and hearing that would later make him one of the top heart and lung specialists in the city. He fought his way into and through the Chicago College of Medicine, graduated with honors at twenty-four, and became the world's first totally blind physician fully licensed to practice medicine.
Dr. Jacob Bolotin was a pioneer in raising the awareness of the world to the plight of the blind and the need for treating people with disabilities as capable and productive citizens. He died in 1924; he was only thirty-six years old. Five thousand people attended his funeral.
Blinded by Sight
by Osagie K. ObasogieColorblindness has become an integral part of the national conversation on race in America. Given the assumptions behind this influential metaphor—that being blind to race will lead to racial equality—it's curious that, until now, we have not considered if or how the blind "see" race. Most sighted people assume that the answer is obvious: they don't, and are therefore incapable of racial bias—an example that the sighted community should presumably follow.
In Blinded by Sight,Osagie K. Obasogie shares a startling observation made during discussions with people from all walks of life who have been blind since birth: even the blind aren't colorblind—blind people understand race visually, just like everyone else. Ask a blind person what race is, and they will more than likely refer to visual cues such as skin color. Obasogie finds that, because blind people think about race visually, they orient their lives around these understandings in terms of who they are friends with, who they date, and much more.
In Blinded by Sight, Obasogie argues that rather than being visually obvious, both blind and sighted people are socialized to see race in particular ways, even to a point where blind people "see" race. So what does this mean for how we live and the laws that govern our society? Obasogie delves into these questions and uncovers how color blindness in law, public policy, and culture will not lead us to any imagined racial utopia.
Blind Fear
by Hilary NormanHeld captive in a dark room in New York State, a young woman is at the mercy of a killer. As guide-dog trainer Joanna finds herself fighting her attraction to blind sculptor Jack Donovan she also begins to feel dangerously unwelcome. Meanwhile, another object of beauty is being stalked ...'Hilary Norman specialises in creepy thrillers and this one is just as gripping as her previous work' Woman's Own
The Blind In Industry
by Ben PurseA brief outline of the issues facing the organizations and individuals interested in employment of the blind, sheltered shops, industry, women workers, education, college certifications, teachers.
Blind Justice
by Floyd MatsonThis is the long-awaited biography of Dr. Jacobus ten-Broek, legal scholar, UC Berkeley professor, and leader of the blind movement until his death in 1968.
Dr. Floyd Matson was a long-time collaborator with Dr. ten-Broek, authoring several books together, and perhaps the man who is most familiar with ten-Broek's work, and his life alive today. Dr. ten-Broek, pupil of Dr. Newel Perry, teacher at the California School for the Blind, was present at the creation of the National Federation of the Blind in 1940, and was its spiritual, intellectual, and political leader until ten-Broek's death in 1968.
This is a must-read for all those interested in the man at the center of a movement for over 30 years, whose legacy and inspiration is still felt today among blind activists around the world.
Blind Man Running
by Michael McintireAutobiography of a blind man's journey through life as a traveling musician
Blind Moon Alley
by John FlorioIt's Prohibition. It's Philadelphia. And Jersey Leo doesn't fit in. Jersey is an albino of mixed race. Known as "Snowball" on the street, he tends bar at a speakeasy the locals call the Ink Well. There, he's considered a hero for having saved the life of a young boy. But when his old grade school buddy, Aaron Garvey, calls from death row and asks for one last favor, all hell breaks loose.Jersey finds himself running from a band of crooked cops, hiding an escaped convict in the Ink Well, and reuniting with his grammar school crush--the now sultry Myra Banks, who has shed a club foot and become a speakeasy siren. Through it all, Jersey tries to safeguard the Ink Well with no help other than his ragtag group of friends: his ex-boxing-champion father, Ernie Leo; the street-savvy Johalis; a dim-witted dockworker named Homer; and the dubious palm reader Madame Curio. With them, Jersey digs for the truth about his friend Aaron Garvey--and winds up discovering a few things about himself.From the Trade Paperback edition.