Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness

When we first conceived of Phinney by Post, Touching the Rock was the first book I thought of for it. (And now that it's finally been reprinted I can include it.) I've always found it deeply inspirational, not because Hull, who lost his sight in middle age, has done great and unlikely things in spite of his condition, but because he plays such close and curious attention to his condition, drawing surprising philosophical depth out of the most basic of his daily adjustments to his blindness. As he says late in the book (in a sentiment seldom heard these days), "The most important thing in life is not happiness but meaning."