John’s Blog

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.