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Vision Science Academy | In the Know | Sept. 19, 2020 | Positive Vision - Book Review by Sepideh Heydar Zadeh | "The adventures are mind blowing, entertaining, and wholesome..." | Photos of the reviewer (in Los Angeles, California, USA), the author (in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), and the book cover.

Positive Vision: Enjoying the Adventures and Advantages of Poor Eyesight by Ken Brandt is a wonderful biographical recollection of Brandt’s life with very poor eyesight. This book offers a gloriously positive view on life, which makes it a great read.

The adventures are mind blowing, entertaining, and wholesome. He describes his journey of speeding across the Montana range, exploring claustrophobic caverns, chasing a criminal through the mean streets of New York in the 1980s, jumping from a plane, and so on. In addition to the adventures, Brandt also fills the book with heart-warming and humorous anecdotes demonstrating the advantages of poor eyesight and seeing the bright side of life. All in all, showing the reader that despite any hurdles, they can achieve anything they want in life.

Brandt has met the challenge of poor vision and mildly crossed eyes since birth. He has had six eye operations and was legally blind for many years. He has experienced major up and down fluctuation in his eyesight. However, he has never allowed his visual impairment to affect his happiness or positive perception on life. Brandt has had plenty of personal and professional successes and uses his creativity to come up with solutions to awkward problems. Brandt’s enriched life led to an abundance of entertaining stories that he is now setting free into the world.

The book was written to entertain and help people with poor eyesight, along with their friends and families. Brandt is retired, so writing was a two year on and off process. In his spare time, Brandt and his artist/designer wife love to travel, keep up with art and music, exercise and attend events and talks. The married couple spent most of their lives in New York City and now live in Australia! Additionally, Brandt is an entertaining speaker and an amateur jazz trumpeter in two bands.

Brandt is a kind soul who is donating 10% of his author royalties to eyesight related causes with 5% going to Massachusetts Eye and Ear for eye research and 5% to The Fred Hollows Foundation for ending avoidable blindness.

In conclusion, I highly recommend Positive Vision: Enjoying the Adventures and Advantages of Poor Eyesight to anyone who wants to read about adventure, creativity, fun, or visual impairment. Vision professionals will enjoy reading it and recommending it to many of their patients. Everyone will find something they love about it. It is an easy to read page-turner: I rate this book five stars!

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