Tag: Nonfiction

BOOK REVIEW: A Brush with Darkness

A BRUSH WITH DARKNESS: Learning to Paint After Losing My Sight by LISA FITTIPALDI - FIRST EDITION - 2004 - from Gian Luigi Fine Books Inc. (SKU: 037026)
Pictured:  Book Cover – A Brush with Darkness

by Lisa Fittipaldi

What happens when you lose your sight? How do you feel?  What do you feel?  How do you go on?

Lisa Fittipaldi lost her sight.  It was unexpected, unplanned. She was thrust into a world without sight and suddenly everything was different. Even the simplest acts, like brushing her teeth, became an overwhelming ordeal, one event among countless others that had to be relearned and conquered.  It was her husband who  put paints and brushes in her hands and told her to go with it.  I suspect she had painted before, or at least expressed an interest, but this was different.  This was learning to paint when she did not even know how to walk.

Lisa Fittipaldi articulated so many of my experiences.  I could relate to her trials and tribulations, her awarenesses, her triumphs and failures.  Yet I was born that way, always having to learn to do things my way, all the while dealing with people who just do not get it.

This book is inspirational. A must-read for anyone who has lost their sight, or hearing, a finger, a leg, or anything else that others may label a disability. You just may find an inner strength that makes you even better.

 “Being blind is like being blond. It just is.”    (p. 125)

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Available through BARD and bookshare:

Choice Magazine Listening – and it is FREE

Choice Magazine Listening (CML) is a nonprofit organization that provides audio recordings of memorable articles, stories, interviews, essays and poems from outstanding current magazines, completely free of charge, to blind, visually impaired, physically disabled or dyslexic adults in the United States.  Based in Port Washington, NY, CML has proudly served the blind and print-disabled community since 1962.

Every winter, spring, summer and fall, thousands of eligible people in the United States receive Choice Magazine Listening in a specialized format exclusively for use by people with disabilities.  The special digital talking-book player needed to listen to CML is provided, free of charge, by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress.  The player is portable, extremely easy to use, and offers outstanding sound quality.  These audio selections will not play on just any computer, phone, or portable player because special formatting is required for them to work.  If you are already a member of the National Library Service, then you are well on your way to even more interesting reading.

New recordings are made available four times a year.  All eligible people can download complete and unabridged selections from the CML website or, by choice, have a digital cartridge mailed to them.

For more information, please visit their website.  While you are there, sign up for their newsletter.  Enjoy!

Choice Magazine Listening

FREE from National Braille Press

National Braille Press is offering:

The Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States in one volume. UEB  Braille.  And it is FREE!   Just click on the following link and fill out the form.

Declaration of Independence and Consitution

Happy 4th of July!

Audiobook – Educated: A Memoir

By Tara Westover

Educated: a Memoir
Pictured: Book cover for Educated: a Memoir – showing a well-sharpened pencil point.

Everyone has a story.  I enjoy reading memoirs because it is always a long, hard look into someone else’s unique life. This memoir is striking.

Tara Westover is the youngest of seven children. The family lives on a mountain in Idaho.  It is remote, sparsely populated, no telephone, no schooling.  The government is the enemy, the medical world is the enemy.  Y2K is approaching and that will surely be the end of the world – unless you are prepared.  Even the youngest work the junk yard, finding what they need for survival, and for their livelihood.

There is recklessness beyond words, numerous near-death experiences, accidents that defy survival, and love that looks like anything but.

Where they come from and what they achieve in a world of chaos is unfathomable. This is Tara’s story. Be prepared to wallow in the muck, wander fearlessly, experience physical and mental torture, and search for love.

This book leaves me with a lot of questions and a lot of food for thought. For instance, I would like to hear from the medical community about how people (yes more than one in this family) can experience brutality, suffer brain injuries and other severe medical injuries, yet can survive, with no medical attention, and even return to normal living, or at least what is normal for them.  I would like to hear from psychologists and sociologists to explain how people can live in the type of environment that was described and emerge financially successful.   Three of the seven children were reported to succeed educationally at the doctoral level without any educational foundation whatsoever, while four of the children remained uneducated and immersed in the lifestyle of their upbringing.  Perhaps I just want to hear from other readers!

Be warned, all who enter. This is not an easy story to read.