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	Monitoring, Reviewing and Reporting on Resources For Independent Living
	Updated 11/2006
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To The Left Of Inspiration: Adventures In Living With Disabilities
By Katherine Schneider

Dog Ear Publishing, 2005. Softcover, 121 pages, $13.95.

In addition to bookstores, online booksellers such as amazon.com and Barnes and Noble online, this book is also available from bookshare.org for registered readers with visual impairments.

 

Having reviewed disability-related books for over twenty years, I have noticed a growing trend. Although first-person accounts of living with a disability were never rare, in recent years, these memoirs have become even more prevalent. When searching for information about specific conditions, it is now the norm to find as much in memoirs as in academic or professional sources – with practical advice and support for good measure. Such certainly is the case in To The Left Of Inspiration by Katherine Schneider.

In this thought-provoking work, psychologist and educator Schneider offers readers a look at living with both a life-long disability, retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), and an acquired condition, fibromyalgia. As a fellow adult with ROP, I found the author’s account of the psychosocial and physical impacts inherent in blindness sharply on target and to the point. Her vignette-like chapters are insightful, sometimes poignant, and often humorous. Schneider is at her best when exploring work-related concerns, guide dog issues, and the need to manage daily routines effectively when an acquired disability is encountered.

Readers familiar with Stephen Kuusisto’s ROP memoir of several years ago, Planet Of The Blind, will find Schneider’s shorter and livelier account a welcome expansion of living with visual impairment in a society that often devalues those lives. Given the increase of ROP among infants in recent years and the likelihood of those of us aging with ROP gaining other disabilities, To The Left Of Inspiration is a relevant addition to the memoir genre.

 

-Reviewed by Sally Rosenthal

 

About the reviewer: A former college librarian and occupational therapist, Sally Rosenthal lives in Philadelphia with her husband and cat and spends her time writing for a variety of publications, listening to NPR even during fund drives, and waiting for the arrival of her second guide dog.