Download or read book Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening written by Stephen Kuusisto and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2006-09-17 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A memoir of blindness and listening rendered with a poet's delight by the author of the acclaimed Planet of the Blind. Blind people are not casual listeners. Blind since birth, Stephen Kuusisto recounts with a poet's sense of detail the surprise that comes when we are actively listening to our surroundings. There is an art to eavesdropping. Like Annie Dillard's An American Childhood or Dorothy Allison's One or Two Things I Know for Sure, Kuusisto's memoir highlights periods of childhood when a writer first becomes aware of his curiosity and imagination. As a boy he listened to Caruso records in his grandmother's attic and spent hours in the New Hampshire woods learning the calls of birds. As a grown man the writer visits cities around the world in order to discover the art of sightseeing by ear. Whether the reader is interested in disability, American poetry, music, travel, or the art of eavesdropping, he or she will find much to hear and even "see" in this unique celebration of a hearing life.