Product Description
Never, in all her days, had she imagined herself in a position like this. Vivid fantasies aside, Rachel had never considered acting on the impulses that invaded her thoughts throughout the day. They were private affairs stored only in some scurrilous recess of her mind. Yet her mind interacted with other minds, and often, there werefragments of information to be had in often ironic ways.Doctor Bass, for instance, listened to her confession of thescandalous gearshift penetration mirage, and fantasy bondage scenarios and produced a copy of the bondage magazine.While not something Professor RachelLeeds believed would qualify as a "literary device," it was nonetheless pivotal in the events in which she was now participating. Namely, being on her way to a hardware store to find something to use as a whip on the girl who lay naked and bound in hotel room number 66, the Mark-of-the-Almost-Beast. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Intelligent and classy book
Being a straight married female, I wasn't sure what to expect as I began reading this novel. I am accustomed to anything labeled "erotica" being seedy and withoutplot. This book was a welcome surprise! It is written with intelligence and class. Any awkward feelings I felt as a "straight" person as I began reading this-my first example of "gay erotica"-immediately paralleled the awkwardness being felt in the first few pages by the main character which allowed me to relate, as it should anyone, gay or straight, and keep reading. These characters are so real anyone should be able to identify with them. I loved the clever dialogue! Combine this great characterization with a compelling plot and it becomes about the story, not the sex. However, for those of you interested in the sexual encounters, they are such that would make any couple envious!
In the end, what I found was a very intelligent,witty,and compelling love story about the kind of fulfilling relationship that everyone searches for yet few rarely find in their lifetime. No matter who the lovers may be, no one should ever condemn true love. A truly great read written by an obviously intelligent and witty author! Kudos, Jae Baeli! ... Read more

Product Description
In this raw, intimate and honest memoir, Greenlee shares the surprising lessons and adventures she encountered after the devastation of her sudden and profound loss of vision. She takes the reader past the gates of Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael, California, and into the 28 days of intensive training required to graduate with a guide dog. Surrounded by supportive community of staff and students, Greenlee faces the bondage of her Confucian upbringing and finds freedom far beyond mobility with a guide dog. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Steady Hedy: A Journey through Blindness & Guide Dog School
Carolyn Wing Greenlee's recently released book, Steady Hedy: A Journey through Blindness & Guide Dog School is a journey into another world, a world without the benefit of sight. Through Greenlee's delightfully graphic writing, the reader is given glimpses of what she has suffered with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic eye condition that leads to incurable blindness. At the time she attended Guide Dogs for the Blind (GDB) in San Rafael, California, her vision had dwindled to 4%. In her class of ten, three were totally blind; the others were in various stages of debilitating visual impairment.

For years, Greenlee chafed at the inconvenience of her deteriorating vision loss. Simple tasks took longer, going shopping, especially in a strange store, was a formidable task. Walking brought fear of bumping into something or falling into a hole. The worse part was giving up driving, which meant giving up much of her independence.

People who suffer from blindness feel isolated, no longer feeling that they are a part of the group. They require help which in turn make them feel guilty. They miss communication through body-language and, especially in a group, feel they're missing out on the flow of conversation.

By a series of surprising connections, Greenlee finds herself surrounded by a community of support, individuals who help bridge this gap by providing counseling, technology, mobility skills, and a fresh prospective on blindness. They enable the disabled. The year-long preparation she receives from these many groups and individuals make Greenlee's admission into guide dog school possible.

At the school, Greenlee launches into a world of unknowns-unfamiliar surroundings, challenging tasks, unknown fellow students, new routines. A third-generation Chinese American, Greenlee constantly battles feelings of insecurity, incompetency and inadequacy as the result of her Confucian background. She questions whether she will measure up to the task of learning the work and successfully bonding with a guide dog.

After three days of orientation, the students receive their dogs and Greenlee is given Hedy, a small black lab. She's bitterly disappointed not to have the color of dog she hoped for-a yellow lab. For one, with Greenlee's limited vision, the light color itself would allow her to see the dog more clearly. To Greenlee, Hedy seems small, smelly and indifferent. It is not love at first sight for the dog, either. It's obvious Hedy longs for her previous trainer and shows Greenlee no fondness, only aloofness. Clearly, the dog is only there because she has to be. The staff assures Greenlee that with patience and consistency Hedy will come around. It's a partnership: the handler directs the dog and the dog delivers its owner safely. But it takes patience, time and trust. Especially trust.
With hard-headed Hedy, Greenlee worries. Will they ever become a truly interdependent team?


Greenlee chronicles the ambitious activities of the school. While at first she wonders what they could possibly find to do for 28 days, now it is a rush to get everything done. Along the way, the students have adventures, form close friendships, and have a surprisingly good time even though the schedule is grueling. Step by step they face the challenging obstacles placed before them. With the support of GDB, the students become courageous, adventurous, and full of hope, aspirations they hadn't thought possible.

Stedy Hedy is an engaging, often funny, and thoroughly satisfying story of new found freedom in the face of catastrophic loss, where, as Greenlee says, "Your worse nightmare can become the source of your deepest healing."

Steady Hedy: A Journey through Blindness & Guide Dog School can be orderedthrough your favorite bookstore, through the publisher Earthen Vessel Productions ([...]), Amazon.com, Kindle and iBooks.

[...] ... Read more

Product Description
In this raw, intimate and honest memoir, Greenlee shares the surprising lessons and adventures she encountered after the devastation of her sudden and profound loss of vision. She takes the reader past the gates of Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael, California, and into the 28 days of intensive training required to graduate with a guide dog. Surrounded by supportive community of staff and students, Greenlee faces the bondage of her Confucian upbringing and finds freedom far beyond mobility with a guide dog. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Book Review: Steady Hedy: A Journey through Blindness & Guide Dog School
Carolyn Wing Greenlee's recently released book, Steady Hedy: A Journey through Blindness & Guide Dog School is a journey into another world, a world without the benefit of sight. Through Greenlee's delightfully graphic writing, the reader is given glimpses of what she has suffered with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic eye condition that leads to incurable blindness. At the time she attended Guide Dogs for the Blind (GDB) in San Rafael, California, her vision had dwindled to 4%. In her class of ten, three were totally blind; the others were in various stages of debilitating visual impairment.

For years, Greenlee chafed at the inconvenience of her deteriorating vision loss. Simple tasks took longer, going shopping, especially in a strange store, was a formidable task. Walking brought fear of bumping into something or falling into a hole. The worse part was giving up driving, which meant giving up much of her independence.

People who suffer from blindness feel isolated, no longer feeling that they are a part of the group. They require help which in turn make them feel guilty. They miss communication through body-language and, especially in a group, feel they're missing out on the flow of conversation.

By a series of surprising connections, Greenlee finds herself surrounded by a community of support, individuals who help bridge this gap by providing counseling, technology, mobility skills, and a fresh prospective on blindness. They enable the disabled. The year-long preparation she receives from these many groups and individuals make Greenlee's admission into guide dog school possible.

At the school, Greenlee launches into a world of unknowns-unfamiliar surroundings, challenging tasks, unknown fellow students, new routines. A third-generation Chinese American, Greenlee constantly battles feelings of insecurity, incompetency and inadequacy as the result of her Confucian background. She questions whether she will measure up to the task of learning the work and successfully bonding with a guide dog.

After three days of orientation, the students receive their dogs and Greenlee is given Hedy, a small black lab. She's bitterly disappointed not to have the color of dog she hoped for-a yellow lab. For one, with Greenlee's limited vision, the light color itself would allow her to see the dog more clearly. To Greenlee, Hedy seems small, smelly and indifferent. It is not love at first sight for the dog, either. It's obvious Hedy longs for her previous trainer and shows Greenlee no fondness, only aloofness. Clearly, the dog is only there because she has to be. The staff assures Greenlee that with patience and consistency Hedy will come around. It's a partnership: the handler directs the dog and the dog delivers its owner safely. But it takes patience, time and trust. Especially trust.
With hard-headed Hedy, Greenlee worries. Will they ever become a truly interdependent team?


Greenlee chronicles the ambitious activities of the school. While at first she wonders what they could possibly find to do for 28 days, now it is a rush to get everything done. Along the way, the students have adventures, form close friendships, and have a surprisingly good time even though the schedule is grueling. Step by step they face the challenging obstacles placed before them. With the support of GDB, the students become courageous, adventurous, and full of hope, aspirations they hadn't thought possible.

Stedy Hedy is an engaging, often funny, and thoroughly satisfying story of new found freedom in the face of catastrophic loss, where, as Greenlee says, "Your worse nightmare can become the source of your deepest healing."

[...] ... Read more

Product Description
This book is a unique testimony to the 'other world' of blindness, describing not the overcoming of suffering, but rather the reality of a world where perceptions of sound, silence and space are greatly changed. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A rich and insightful book
On Sight and Insight is a wholly remarkable and wondrous book that should be read by anyone with an interest in blindness, perception, embodiment and human existence. In this book John Hull documents his journey from the world of sight into the world of blindness, by describing what it is like to make this transition, through detailed and revealing descriptions of his daily activities, and by giving us his dreams, thoughts and reflections. His journey, in fact, is from a world of sight into one of insight, for it is not only a story of a courageous and emotionally complex life-transformation, but a profound study of who we are, how we see or do not see, touch or do not touch, how we relate to our world-and most of all an insightful study of what it means to be with one another. Anyone who reads this book will not quite hear a voice or touch or see a face in the same way again.

A good book for anyone facing blindness
A book review, by Carlton Griffin:

"On Sight & Insight, a Journey into the world of Blindness", by John Hull

After losing much of my vision over the past four years due to Retinitis Pigmentosa, I wentlooking for more information about going blind.

I recently finished thisbook and I've had a few days to reflect upon it. The book is written byJohn Hull, who tells about going blind as an adult. As a young man, Johnhas blinding cataracts.He was blind for quite some time in the hospital,long enough to teach himself braille and read several chapters in theBible.

The corrective surgery for the cataracts detached both of hisretinas, one of which they were able to correct.He was blind in his lefteye for the rest of his life, but his right eye stayed pretty dependableuntil he was about 45, and over the following three years he wentcompletely blind.

It's a new book, John went blind in the 1980's and hisbook reads like a diary or journal.It's very easy to read and John easilyholds the reader's attention.

John mostly tells what it is like,emotionally, to go blind.He talks about all aspects of blindness, but thefocus on the book is to share how it affected and affects his emotions andhis spirit; his soul.John really shares of himself in this book, it'svery frank and in some places painful.

However, I enjoyed having read thebook because it provided me with some information I was lacking, helped mecome to terms with some things that before I could not conceive.I've beenworried so much, the nagging question is always "What will it be liketo go blind, how will I live my life?".

While John's book certainlydoesn't fully answer that question, it does allow the reader to gain muchinsight into what it is like, at least from one man's perspective.Whileit did confirm a few fears I have, at least I feel more informed now;certainly the unknown is still more frightening than my actual fate.

Iwish I could say more about this book, I think Mr Hull did a fine job.Irefer to him as John in this review because I feel so close to him and hisfamily, having read the book.If you want to know what it's like for anadult to go blind, John's perspective is wonderfully told in thisbook.

Carlton Griffin ... Read more

Product Description
Long before the devastation of September 11, 2001, the war on terror raged. The problem was that only one side, radical Islam, was fighting it as a war. For the United States, the frontline was the courtroom. So while a diffident American government prosecuted a relative handful of “defendants,” committed militants waged a campaign of jihad—holy war—boldly targeting America’s greatest city, and American society itself, for annihilation.

It is the jihad that continues to this day. But now, fifteen years after radical Islam first declared war by detonating a complex chemical bomb in the heart of the global financial system, former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy provides a unique insider’s perspective on America’s first response.

McCarthy led the historic prosecution against the jihad organization that carried out the World Trade Center attack: the “battalions of Islam” inspired by Omar Abdel Rahman, the notorious “Blind Sheikh.” In Willful Blindness, he unfolds the troubled history of modern American counterterrorism. It is a portrait of stark contrast: a zealous international network of warriors dead certain, despite long odds, that history and Allah are on their side, pitted against the world’s lone superpower, unsure of what it knows, of what it fights, and of whether it has the will to win.

It is the story of a nation and its government consciously avoiding Islam’s animating role in Islamic terror. From the start, it led top U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies to underestimate, ignore, and even abet zealots determined to massacre Americans. Even today, after thousands of innocent lives lost, our eyes avert from harsh reality. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published by: F.A. Davis in 1905 in 153 pages; Subjects: History / General; History / General; Medical / Ophthalmology; Medical / Optometry; ... Read more

Product Description
Blindness-Complete Summary & Analysis

Students' Academy

About Jose Saramago 6
About “Blindness” 16
Literary Style 18
Summary in Brief 20
Characters 22
Major Themes 28
Summary and Analysis 40
Part I 40
Analysis 41
Part II 44
Analysis 45
Part III 47
Analysis 47
Part IV 50
Analysis 51
Part V 54
Analysis 55
Part VI 57
Analysis 57
Part VII 60
Analysis 61
Part VIII 63
Analysis 64
Part IX 66
Analysis 67
Part X 70
Analysis 71
Part XI 73
Analysis 74
Part XII 77
Analysis 78
Part XIII 80
Analysis 81
Part XIV 84
Analysis 85
Part XV 87
Analysis 88
Part XVI 91
Analysis 92
Part XVII 94
Analysis 95
..................

Print ISBN: 978-0-557-67881-5
... Read more

Product Description
This book has brought together leading international experts to explore the similarities and the differences between autism and blindness. Current research with children as well as adults is described comparing early psychological development from a range of perspectives such as language, memory, thought and feelings as well as providing critical reviews of educational and intervention programmes.

New developments in the field have sparked debate that is well represented here and touches on a variety of issues ranging from musical talent to the basis of 'connectedness' to others. The readership will be drawn from many fields reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the topic and will include researchers and practitioners in psychology and psychiatry as well as educationalists, therapists, classroom teachers and parents. ... Read more

Product Description
The book is on blind education written by a blind educator who herself had been blind since early infancy. The book covers the subjects of blind psychology, early blind child education, re-education of blinded adults, the educational environment; the methods of instructions and curriculum; the public attitude toward the blind,the prevention of blindness and conservation of vision in adults and children.The book discusses the difficulties and limitations of the blind and their special needs, and provides the guidance for the blind to cultivate other senses such as hearing, touching, smelling as the means of gaining the knowledge of the external world. The book also discusses the general skill training such as Braille reading and writing,the common subject of education such as music, art, handwork; the professional skill training, and the inspirational teaching for the blind to overcome depression and to regain courage for life without vision. ... Read more

Product Description
Shortly after John Hull went blind, after years of struggling with failing vision, he had a dream in which he was trapped on a sinking ship, submerging into another, unimaginable world. The power of this calmly eloquent, intensely perceptive memoir lies in its thorough navigation of the world of blindness -- a world in which stairs are safe and snow is frightening, where food and sex lose much of their allure and playing with one's child may be agonizingly difficult. As he describes the ways in which blindness shapes his experience of his wife and children, of strangers helpful and hostile, and, above all, of his God, Hull becomes a witness in the highest, true sense. Touching the Rock is a book that will instruct, move, and profoundly transform anyone who reads it.

"John Hull goes a long way toward taking us with him through his descent into total blindness...He lets us see with no trace of self-pity or self-praise how blindness has become far him a genuine acquisition, an unforeseeably rich gift that has made of him what so few of us are: excellent watchers and hearers of the world...triumphant in the teeth of ruin". -- Reynolds Price ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

This is a powerful book
I can't remember ever reading anything quite as compelling.I'm not going blind nor do I have any cognitive disabilities.However, if you are a practicing meditator as I am and are interested in the nature of consciousness itself, you will be quite intrigued with this highly descriptive account of both the visual and non-visual aspects of perception.If this book doesn't inspire you to start thinking outside the box, nothing will.That been said, the average reader will find this to be an unforgettable, beautifully written book well worth reading.Highly recommended.

This book has stayed with me for years
In place of the word "unsentimental" often used to describe this book I'd use "Lynchian", as in David.Blindness is just the starting-off point: The book is really a luxuriant journey into the *other* four senses and the heightened reality one begins to feel -- for instance how the white noise of a sudden rain can throw your outdoor echolocation into turmoil and immobilize you at some random place.With all respect to anyone looking for a good book on the disability, this one is for the artists.

Touched by John Hull
On the front cover Oliver Sacks is quoted:"Staggering. . . the most extraordinary, precise, deep, and beautiful account of blindness I have ever read."But this book is primarily a message of facing change and developing methods for coping.Of compensating, of reaching out, of accepting your plight and going forward.You sense the author's despair and frustration, but he manages to see his difficulties as challenges. He engages you in the struggles he faces and overcomes.After all, he has a wife and four children, he lectures and attends conferences.Perhaps the most fascinating chapter of all, for me, was how he faced giving a lecture when he could no longer read notes.He eventually learned how to write his speech in his mind so that he could simply read one page as the next ones were being formulated.I pictured it as something like the beginning of a Star Wars movie.John Hull has somelthing to teach us all.

Moving memoir
Heard the taped version of TOUCHING THE ROCK by John
Hull, a moving memoir of a university lecturer who slowly
lost his vision over a period of several years . . . he recorded
his thoughts in a diary, and I must admit to being touched
about how both he and his family dealt with his
condition . . . even typing this brings teary thoughts to
mind . . . imagine having seen a child as a youngster,
then not being able to see her again as she grows up . . . or
never having seen another child from the time he was
born . . . it makes me want to hug my daughter, Risa . . . and
to appreciate all that I do have!

A stunning picture of what it is like to become blind
This book was given to me as a gift a few years ago, and while I am neither going blind nor am actually blind, I found many of the ideas and experiences and thoughts and feelings expressed in this book to be very similar to my own.I have some particular cognitive difficulties (prosopagnosia, often called "face blindness") which give me a rather different outlook on life from most people, and I was amazed to see just how much in common my outlook on life was when compared with the author's life experiences.Well, maybe I wasn't that surprized, but it was still an eye-opening (no pun intended) experience for me to read this book in that context.

Needless to say, I enjoyed this book very very much.It reads more like a personal journal or diary than an actual book, and that gives the whole book a very personal experience when reading it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Orchid of the Bayou: A Deaf Woman Faces Blindness
This is a great book-helps you understand what people with Ushers Syndrome go through.The author is very real and honest.Once you start, can't put it down! ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (6)

Why am I reading this book?
What led me to buy this book? I don't know. I have always read newspapers and news magazines for serious news, light fiction for pleasure. and bought books that I wanted for reference materials.'Escaping Plato's Cave' has riveted me from the first few pages.Early on, Rosenblum gives a quote that is a major theme of the book. The answer to the question of what has been going wrong with our country for the past fifty years, he quotes, is that we have been treating the EFFECTS, not the CAUSES. We are always behind.

Think about that.When the bombers flew the planes into the World Trade Center, what was our reaction? "Go get 'em."Did anyone ask, "Why were these people so angry that they would do such a thing?"

How can we win a "War on Terrorism" when our actions make more and more people furious with us?The ranks of terrorists increase when we kill innocent civilians, hold (and torture) prisoners for years before finding out that manywere not who we thought they were, insist on imposing our form of government on cultures that do not admire or want it, arrogantly refuse to cooperated with the rest of the world in curbing pollution and conserving energy.

I thought that we were redeeming ourselves through our disaster aid.Wrong.Rosenblum tells us what has really been happening. He was there.

I'm only part way through the book.Join me in seeing reality.

Exploding the myth
The author piles on historical fact after fact on the high end of the real vs unreal teeter-totter to counteract the the weight of false beliefs, concepts, and expectations that so often keep the wrong end of the teeter-totter on the ground because of our unrealistic and ignorant expectations that have resulted from looking at the shadows on the cave wall instead of turning around to view the reality exists around us and accept it for what is really going on in the world as a result of our ignorance and the capitulation of the news media to cover world affairs in order to sell entertainment.

Deliver us from evil
Mort Rosenblum's book, Escaping Plato's Cave, is, alas, the kind of wisdom that those who would most benefit from it, are the very same that are least likely to seek it. This is a highly reommended present for George W. Bush and his most fervent supporters, Bill O'Reilly and those that nod in approval under his rants and finally as a teaching aid for all the budding reporters that dream of working for Rupert Murdoch. To those of you that are saying; well then, what about the terrorists; I say, Bush is not making it better.

A veteran's perceptive take on the world
Mort Rosenblum's writings are always deeply perceptive, keenly observed and smartly composed. Those of us belonging to a certain journalistic generation know how wonderful Mort's dispatches were during his long tenure at The Associated Press. His books are something to look forward to, and "Plato's cave" is a delight. This kind of writing can only come from long experience and from personal knowledge of the world's complexities.

excellent!
I found Escaping Plato's Cave to be an eye opening view of the corporate journalism in American now and a "must read book". It is well written and packed with a lifetime of tales of traveling to wars and disasters as a reporter. Like a good reporter, he speaks in a well modulated and clear voice throughout despite the horrible catastrophe he is describing. He is reporting a vast attack on journalism that is not being reported in the press. This is not some fringe lunatic, but a major mainstream professional writer and reporter who has been our trusted eyes and ears fro a long time.
This is a book by an insider about how and why the news is no longer accurate reports from the source at the scene. When organizations like the AP cut down the number of reporters on location, soon the news from many places is only available from official government sources.
How can you have news without reporters? As this books shows it maybe exactly what the major news organizations are doing.
It is a first hand account of the corporate takeover that is happening in many critical areas of American life. Like all news, it is meaningless unless you understand it and believe it to be true. The many ways the truth can be spun should not be the hallmark of good journalism.
Mort Rosenblum and many other experienced journalists have been gotten rid of as part of a downsizing trend. It is a trend that suits the new owners since it cuts costs and all the difficulties with reporters in the field whose stories don't agree with the press releases from Washington. With no reporters in the field who can disagree with the word from Washington? ... Read more

Product Description
Have you ever looked at the stars and wondered who created and designed them? Get ready to be transformed from spiritual blindness to a new vision of God, your intelligent Designer! "All creatures must respond to their creator. A true relationship with God starts with the acknowledgement and appreciation of the miracle and majesty of God's hand within the 60 trillion cells and DNA blueprint that comprise your own human body," says Dr. Gills. Come, see your Creator as you have never see Him before: *in all of His majesty *in all of His gloryNOT JUST ALL AROUND YOUR LIFE, BUT IN IT! ... Read more