Blindsided: Lifting a Life Above Illness, by Richard M. Cohen
Not all of you know this, I don't think, but my mom is a librarian. Actually, she currently works for the library division of a book distributor called Ingram Books -- the same folks that supply Amazon, among others.
Anyway, it's a great job for her to have, and she really likes it -- and it results in great windfalls for Kathy & me, and others in the family -- every few weeks, boxes of books & audiobooks just show up on my doorstep. It's always a mix of stuff -- all things that the publishers are sending to Ingram (and other distributors) to get noticed. I have to say it's just an amazing perk for me -- lots of times I get galley proofs of books that I'm waiting for (like Blink or Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close), but as often as not, there are books in there that I never would have picked up in the bookstore but seem interesting. Blindsided is one of those.
It's a book written by a prominent television news producer, Richard M. Cohen -- he's worked with Cronkite, Rather, others -- and happens to be married to Meridith from The View. He was diagnosed when he was 25 years old with MS -- like his father and grandmother before him. He goes through what his life has been like for the past quarter century or so -- in a high level of candor -- ups & downs.
Like I mentioned, this book isn't something that I normally would have picked up -- I was a little bit interested in the title -- I have pretty horrific eyesight and always am nervous about the idea of that eroding over time and preventing me from doing things that I love to do (like reading). But lately I've known other folks in my life that I'm close to who are grappling with life-altering health issues, and it's becoming more interesting to me now. I'm quite sure that I didn't understand -- couldn't understand -- a bunch of what Cohen was trying to communicate in this book -- but I did enjoy it and learned a lot from it. I'd recommend it for anyone who's at all interested in this type of stuff.
Also, I have to say that Mom is a pretty great librarian -- she always seems to find me books that I like but would never have found.