Reading to Enhance Mental Health and Well–Being
Reading As a Healing Experience
Most of us become readers at an early age and discover the wonders of a good story. We learn to interact with books in order to learn and grow. Characters come alive to us as we relate to their experiences. Sometimes reading is for pleasure or escape, and other times it is for the disciplined acquisition of information. No matter what, our engagement with literature and the written word has the potential to change us, calm us, inform us, inspire us, and heal us. In its simplest form, this is known as bibliotherapy.
Exposure to books, poetry, writing, and even film and videos can be therapeutic and beneficial in helping us process our own life experiences. In other words, literature can be used to help us figure life out, heal emotional traumas, and change thoughts and behaviors. Reading can be a healing experience and, fortunately, there are many ways that you can access books today, including the talking book program through the National Library Service.
Reading Books About Blindness
As I was learning to adjust to vision loss, I was drawn to read books about blindness and books written by authors who were blind. I found it very helpful and motivating to enter the narratives of others who were sharing their own stories of vision loss. Some books were informational, some humorous, and others deeply moving. I realized that the cumulative effect was that I understood more about blindness, and my feelings about it were changing. Reading books on blindness, memoirs, and biographies of blind writers have had a very positive influence on my ability to adjust and cope with vision loss. It has long been understood that literature “heals the soul.” The use of bibliotherapy has evolved and become quite complex as it is applied to psychiatry and healthcare. Consider a bit of reading therapy for yourself as a way to deal with vision loss.
Here at VisionAware, the Peer Advisors have put together a reading list of books for this purpose. It is not exhaustive by any means, but it is meant to get you started. Most of these titles are available through the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) in audio or braille formats. Newer titles are not yet available through the NLS. Many are available on e-book formats through your favorite booksellers (Kindle, Nook, etc.). Another way to find such books on blindness is to search the NLS collection using “blindness” as a keyword. Whether you are using your eyes, ears, or fingers to read, may it be a rewarding and therapeutic experience.
Books on Blindness
- A Brush with Darkness: Learning to Paint After Losing My Sight by Lisa Fittipaldi – NLS
- A Guide Dog Goes to School by Elizabeth Simpson Smith – NLS
- A Matter of Dignity: Changing the Lives of the Disabled by Andrew Potok – NLS
- A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler by Jason Roberts – NLS
- All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
- And There Was Light: Autobiography of Jacques Lusseyran, Blind Hero of the French Resistance by Jacques Lusseyran – NLS
- As I See It: From a Blind Man’s Perspective by Robert Branco – NLS
- Beyond the Bear: How I Learned to Live and Love Again After Being Blinded by a Bear by Dan Bigley – NLS
- Blind: A Memoir by Belo Cipriani – BARD
- Blind: A Novel by Rachel DeWoskin – NLS
- Blind Courage by Bill Irwin – NLS
- Blind Fate by Pierre Nubar – NLS
- Blind Justice by Floyd W. Matson – NLS
- Blind Sighted by Peter Moore – NLS
- Blind Tom by Geneva H. Southhall – NLS
- Blind Vision: The Neuroscience of Visual Impairment by Zaira Cattaneo – NLS
- Blindness by José Saramago, Giovanni Pontiero (Translator)
- Blindness: What It Is, What It Does, and How to Live with It by Thomas Carroll – NLS
- Brother Ray: Ray Charles’ Own Story by Ray Charles – NLS
- Cane Confessions: The Lighter Side to Mobility by Amy Bovaird
- Cockeyed: A Memoir by Ryan Knighton – e-book, NLS
- Coping with Vision Loss: Maximizing What You Can See and Do by Bill Chapman – NLS
- Coping with Vision Loss: Understanding the Psychological, Social, and Spiritual Effects by Cheri Colby Langdell
- Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure, and the Man Who Dared to See by Robert Kurson – NLS
- Do You Dream in Color? by Laurie Rubin – NLS
- Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening by Stephen Kuusisto – NLS
- Focus by Ingrid Ricks – e-book
- Follow Your Dog by Ann Chiappetta–e-book and print
- For the Benefit of Those Who See: Dispatches from the World of the Blind by Rosemary Mahoney – NLS
- Going Blind: A Memoir by Mara Faulkner – NLS
- Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound by Beth Finke
- Harnessing Courage: Overcoming Adversity Through Grit and Gratitude by Laura Bratton
- How Do You Do It Blind? Answers from People with Blindness and Visual Impairment by Steven Obremski
- How Do You Kiss a Blind Girl by Sally Wagner – NLS
- If You Could See What I Hear by Tom Sullivan – NLS, available as DVD film
- In Dog We Trust: Independence, Thrills, and Dignity with My Seeing Eye Dogs by Sue W. Martin – Bookshare
- Lessons I Learned in the Dark by Jennifer Rothschildby – NLS
- Living on the Edge of Twilight by Doug Green – e-book
- Long Time, No See Memoir by Beth Finke – NLS
- Look Up, Move Forward: My Journey of Losing Vision and Finding Resilience by Becky Andrews
- Making Life More Livable by Maureen Duffy – new edition available through APH Press; older edition on NLS
- Me and My RP by Dave Steele–Kindle and large print
- Mobility Matters: Stepping Out in Faith by Amy Bovaird – e-book
- Not Fade Away by Rebecca Alexander
- Now I See You: A Memoir by Nicole C. Kear – e-book
- Only Bread, Only Light: Poems by Stephen Kuusisto – NLS
- Ordinary Daylight: Portrait of an Artist Going Blind by Andrew Potok – e-book, NLS cassette
- Out of Sight: Blind and Doing All Right by Art Schreiber – NLS
- Out of the Corner of My Eye: Living with Vision Loss in Later Life by Nicolette Pernot
- Out of the Whirlpool: A Memoir of Remorse and Reconciliation by Sue Martin – e-book, NLS
- Planet of the Blind by Stephen Kuusisto – NLS
- ROCKS: The Blind Guy at the Lake by Thomas P. Costello – Amazon print, The Carroll Center Books on Blindness
- Scattered Shadows: A Memoir of Blindness and Vision by John Howard Griffin – NLS
- Seeing Lessons: 14 Life Lessons I Have Learned Along the Way by Tom Sullivan – NLS
- Self-Esteem and Adjusting with Blindness: The Process of Responding to Life’s Demands by Dean and Naomi Tuttle – NLS
- Shades of Darkness: A Black Soldier’s Journey Through Vietnam, Blindness and Back by George Brummell – NLS
- The Adversity Advantage by Erik Weihenmayer and Paul G. Stoltzby – e-book,NLS
- The Barefoot Lawyer: A Blind Man’s Fight for Justice and Freedom in China by Chen Guangcheng – NLS
- The Bumpy Road to Assisted Living by Mary Hiland, caregiver who is blind–Kindle.
- The Music of Silence: A Memoir by Andrea Bocelli – NLS
- The Unseen Minority: A Social History of Blindness in America by Frances A. Koestler – NLS
- The View from Under the Pew by Diane Winters Johnson, Margaret Freed (Illustrator)
- The Way We See It: A Fresh Look at Vision Loss – e-book available at Vision Loss Resources
- Thoughts on Blindness: One Spouse’s Perspective on Losing Vision and Living Life by Becky LeBlanc – The Carroll Center Books on Blindness
- Thunder Dog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero by Michael Hingson – NLS
- Together: A Story of Shared Vision by Tom Sullivan – NLS
- Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness by John Hull – NLS
- Touch the Top of the World by Erik Weihenmayer – e-book, NLS
- Undaunted by Blindness: Concise Biographies of 400 People Who Refused to Let Visual Impairment Define Them by Clifford Olstrom, Perkins School for the Blind – NLS
- Upwelling by Ann Chiappetta–e-book and print
- Walking by Inner Vision: Stories & Poems by Lynda McKinney Lambert–e-book, Kindle, print
- What to Look for in Winter: A Memoir in Blindness by Candia McWilliam – NLS
- Who Lost? The Autobiography of a Blind Man with Great Vision by Dale Sheldon – NLS