Notes on Blindness

A Journey Through the Dark

By: John Hull

Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith

Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's Summary

"It’s a gift. Not a gift I want, but it is a gift."

Days before the birth of his first son, writer and academic John M. Hull started to go blind. He would lose his sight entirely, plunged into darkness, unable to distinguish any sense of light or shadow. Isolated and claustrophobic, he sank into a deep depression. Soon, he had forgotten what his wife and daughter looked like. 

In Notes on Blindness, John reveals his profound sense of loss, his altered perceptions of time and space, of waking and sleeping, love, and companionship. With astonishing lucidity of thought and no self-pity, he describes the horror of being faceless, and asks what it truly means to be a husband and father. And eventually, he finds a new way of experiencing the world, of seeing the light despite the darkness. 

Based on John’s diaries recorded on audio tape, this is a profoundly moving, wise and life-affirming account of one man’s journey into blindness. Notes on Blindness was the basis for a major documentary that was nominated for a BAFTA in 2016.

©2016 John M. Hull (P)2017 Novel Audio Inc.

A beautiful book with outstanding narration!

As someone that's half bind, this really speaks to me. I think this book works really well in audio form as it's basically John's journal of blindness. it's very interesting and the narrator really brings the written words alive.

A powerful and profound account of blindness

Prof Hull clarifies with precision his experience of retreat from sight towards the life of the WBS (‘the whole body seer’). This is an account like no other, which expands upon the textures of an experience that terrifies many. Of course, there is fear here but also curiosity, possibility, and powerful and unflinching creativity. I only wish to thank Prof Hull for ‘touching the rock’ with such force and with such strength.