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John Hancock: first to sign, first to invest in America’s independence DB132603 Author: Randall, Willard Sterne Reading Time: 7 hours, 15 minutes Read by: Steve Hendrickson Subjects: Biography of Heads of State and Political Figures, U.S. History, Government and Politics “A contemporary of Samuel Adams, John Adams, George Washington, and the Marquis de Lafayette, Hancock's contacts read like a who's who of the American Revolution. But shockingly little has been written about the man himself — and current biographies tend to over-rely on critical portrayals by his political opponents. John Hancock the story of a man who deserves far more acknowledgment for his involvement in the American Revolution than previously credited — and award-winning scholar Willard Sterne Randall is determined to give him his due at last. Born to relatively modest means, Hancock was sent to live with his wealthy uncle and aunt as a child, who raised him as their own and prepared him to take over the family company. An incredibly successful businessman, Hancock began to get involved in politics in the mid-1760s. He quickly rose in the ranks, eventually serving as the president of the Continental Congress and the first governor of Massachusetts. John Hancock details all of the major moments in the Revolution, from the Boston Tea Party to the battles of Lexington and Concord to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Hancock's actions fundamentally altered each of these events — and ultimately the course of the United States — in ways never taught in the history books. Randall also dives into less-known parts of Hancock's life with nuance and compassion, including his education and controversial work with Harvard; his long courtship and complicated marriage to Dorothy Quincy; and his close relationship and eventual bitter rivalry with Samuel Adams. John Hancock was immensely popular in Massachusetts at the time of the Revolution, but his lack of personal writings have allowed him to be pushed aside in favor of easier biographies to tell. Through extensive research, Randall aims to restore Hancock to his rightful place, celebrated for his achievements as one of our Founding Fathers at last.” — Goodreads. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. New York, NY : Penguin Random House, 2025. Bookshare This book can be found on Bookshare at the following link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6590359?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPUpvaG4lMkJIYW5jb2NrJTI1M0ElMkJmaXJzdCUyQnRvJTJCc2lnbiUyNTJDJTJCZmlyc3QlMkJ0byUyQmludmVzdCUyQmluJTJCQW1lcmljYSUyNTI2JTI1MjMzOSUyNTNCcyUyQmluZGVwZW5kZW5jZSUyQg
BARD annotation Theo of golden: a novel DB131887 Author: Levi, Allen Reading Time: 12 hours, 23 minutes Read by: Vaan Solis Subject: General Fiction “Questions linger about Theo, a pleasant but mysterious stranger, after his arrival in the southern city of Golden. Who is he, and why is he here? He arrives early one spring and by chance — or is it? — he visits a coffee shop where 92 framed pencil portraits are on display. Inspired, Theo sets out on a mission of purchasing all the portraits one at a time and quietly bestowing them on their ‘rightful owners.’ Stories are told; friendships are born; and lives are changed. Theo of Golden is a beautifully crafted story about the power of creative generosity, the importance of wonder to a purposeful life, and the far-reaching possibilities of anonymous kindness.” — Provided by publisher. Some strong language. Hamilton, Georgia : Allen Levi, 2023. Bookshare You can find this book on Bookshare at the following website: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/7033016?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVRoZW8lMkJvZiUyQkdvbGRlbg
BARD annotation The hiding place: a Mercy Carr mystery DB108064 Series: Mercy and Elvis mysteries; Munier, Paula Mercy and Elvis mysteries Order in Series: 03 Author: Munier, Paula Reading Time: 11 hours, 26 minutes Read by: Kathleen McInerney Subject: Mystery and Detective Stories Mercy and her bomb-sniffing dog Elvis are called to the deathbed of her grandfather’s deputy, who hands them a cold case that has haunted him. At the same time, the man who murdered her grandfather has escaped prison. Mercy must forgive Vermont Game Warden Troy Warner in order to enlist his help to save her grandmother. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2021. New York : Macmillan Audio, 2021. Bookshare This book can be found on Bookshare at the following link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6892942?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVRoZSUyQmhpZGluZyUyQnBsYWNl
BARD annotation The gunfighters: how Texas made the West wild DB129769 Author: Burrough, Bryan Reading Time: 12 hours, 53 minutes Read by: Fred Sanders Subjects: U.S. History, True Crime, Social Sciences “The “Wild West” gunfighter is such a stock figure in our popular culture that some dismiss it all as a corny myth, more a product of dime novels and B movies than a genuinely important American history. In fact, as Bryan Burrough shows us in his dazzling and fast-paced new book, there’s much more below the surface. For three decades at the end of the 1800s, a big swath of the American West was a crucible of change, with the highest murder rate per capita in American history. The reasons behind this boil down to one word: Texas. Texas was born in violence, on two fronts, with Mexico to the south and the Comanche to the north. The Colt revolver first caught on with the Texas Rangers. Southern dueling culture transformed into something wilder and less organized in the Lone Star State. The collapse of the Confederacy and the presence of a thin veneer of Northern occupiers turned the heat up further. And the explosion in the cattle business after the war took that violence and pumped it out from Texas across the whole of the West. The stampede of longhorn cattle brought with it an assortment of rustlers, hustlers, gamblers, and freelance lawmen who carried a trigger-happy honor culture into a widening gyre, a veritable blood meridian. When the first newspapermen and audiences discovered what good copy this all was, the flywheel of mythmaking started spinning. It’s never stopped. The Gunfighters brilliantly sifts the lies from the truth, giving both elements their due. And the truth is sufficiently wild for any but the most unhinged tastes. All the legendary figures are here, and their escapades are told with great flair-good, bad, and ugly. Like all great stories, this one has a rousing end-as the railroads and the settlers close off the open spaces for good, the last of the breed, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, really do get on a boat for South America, ending their era in a blaze of glory. Burrough knits these histories together into something much deeper and more provocative than simply the sum of its parts. To understand the truth of the Wild West is to understand a crucial dimension of the American story.”– Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. New York : Penguin Random House, 2025. Bookshare This book can be found on Bookshare at the following link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6582209?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVRoZSUyQmd1bmZpZ2h0ZXJzJTI1M0ElMkJob3clMkJUZXhhcyUyQm1hZGUlMkJ0aGUlMkJXZXN0JTJCd2lsZCUyQg
Stacy Scott shares her journey from discovering screen readers at university to leading accessibility strategy in digital publishing. Drawing on lived experience as a blind professional, she explores how accessible content enables independence, why accessibility must be embedded into everyday systems, and where progress still falls short. Stacy also discusses global initiatives like Bookshare and the transformative potential of AI to expand access and inclusion.
BARD annotation Wild dark shore: a novel DB127669 Author: McConaghy, Charlotte Reading Time: 9 hours, 38 minutes Read by: West, Steve, Maarleveld, Saskia, Littrell, Katherine, Mortlock, Cooper Subjects: Suspense Fiction, Mystery and Detective Stories “A family on a remote island. A mysterious woman washed ashore. A rising storm on the horizon. Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore. Isolation has taken its toll on the Salts, but as they nurse the woman, Rowan, back to strength, it begins to feel like she might just be what they need. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting herself, starts imagining a future where she could belong to someone again. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, they all must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late–and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.”– From publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. New York : Macmillan, 2025. Bookshare You can find this book on Bookshare at the following website: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6941966?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVdpbGQlMkJkYXJrJTJCc2hvcmU
BARD annotation Tell me who you are: a novel DB121783 Author: Luna, Louisa Reading Time: 10 hours, 49 minutes Read by: Stephanie Nemeth-Parker, Megan Tusing, Robb Moreira Subjects: Psychological Fiction, Suspense Fiction, Mystery and Detective Stories “The Silent Patient meets Gone Girl in this sharp psychological thriller about a psychiatrist with a shocking past and her dangerous new patient”– OCLC. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. [S.l.] : Macmillan, 2024. Bookshare This book can be found on Bookshare at the following link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6586522?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVRlbGwlMkJtZSUyQndobyUyQnlvdSUyQmFyZSUyNTNBJTJCYSUyQm5vdmVsJTJC
BARD annotation The Harvey girls DB132858 Author: Fay, Juliette Reading Time: 11 hours, 51 minutes Read by: Cassandra Campbell Subjects: Historical Fiction, General Fiction “1926: Charlotte Crowninshield was born into one of the finest Boston society families. Now she’s on the run from a brutal husband, desperate to disappear into the wilds of the Southwest. Billie MacTavish is the oldest of nine children born to Scottish immigrants in Nebraska. She quit school in the sixth grade to help with her mother’s washing and mending business, but even that isn’t enough to keep the family afloat. Desperate, both women join the ranks of the Harvey Girls, waitresses who serve in America’s first hospitality chain on the Santa Fe railroad. Hired on the same day, they share three things: a room, a heartfelt dislike of each other … and each has a secret that will certainly get them fired. Through twelve-hour days of training in Topeka, Kansas, they learn the fine art of service, perfecting their skills despite bouts of homesickness, fear of being discovered, and a run-in with the KKK. When they’re sent to work at the luxurious El Tovar hotel at the Grand Canyon, the challenges only grow, as Billie struggles to hide her young age from would-be suitors, and Charlotte discovers the little-known dark side of the national park’s history.” — From publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. New York : Simon & Schuster Audio, 2025. Bookshare This book can be found on Bookshare at the following link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6859904?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPXRoZSUyQmhhcnZleSUyQmdpcmxz
The Fiction Old And New reading group meets the first Friday of each month. On Friday, April 3 , 2026 at 8 PM Eastern we will discuss The book, The sunshine sisters DB88188 by Jane Green. This book gets a 4.35 rating on “Good Reads” with more than eighty five thousand reviews. The facilitator for this meeting will be LeDon: ledonb@outlook.com. The Bookshare link to this title and the Zoom Meeting link can be found below. My review Jane Green is a “New York Times” bestselling author with more than twenty-three titles to her name. She writes in a warm and welcoming voice that explores the lives of contemporary women and the complicated bonds of family. In her novel “The Sunshine Sister” DB88188, she weaves a vivid story about three sisters growing up in the shadow of a famous mother. She creates characters who are imperfect yet vividly alive, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Through these characters she draws the reader into a story that gently explores forgiveness, family ties, and the enduring power of love. At the center of the novel stands Ronni Sunshine, who as a young girl dreamed of becoming a movie star. She always believed that she had the talent to become successful, and she swore that when her chance for stardom came along, she would take it no matter how distasteful the step might be. After reaching stardom Ronni found that remaining a star was demanding and she had to work tirelessly to stay on top. Every day she had to push herself to be noticed in a world that required flawlessness. She had to be ambitious, disciplined, and always aware that her fame could evaporate overnight. Life in the limelight needed twenty-four hours a day effort, leaving Ronni exhausted with little time or energy for providing her children with the love and attention that they deserve. While growing up, the girls always knew they were the daughters of a famous actress, yet their lives were far from the fairy tale people imagined. Because their mother was always working, the girls often lacked the love and stability children normally get at home. The sisters often found themselves competing for the smallest scraps of her attention, and sometimes even competing. This competition shaped their relationships through all their lives and added tension between them. As the girls grew into women, each sister struggled in her own way to define herself outside of her mother's fame. Nell, the oldest, grows into a quiet and lonely woman who finds it difficult to trust others with her heart. She escapes the turbulence of her childhood by building a simple life on a farm, where she raises her young son on her own. Meredith The Middle Sister has spent much of her life feeling inadequate because of her mother's criticism. She now lives in London and works as an accountant but struggles with self-confidence. Wanting so badly to feel valued and secure, she becomes engaged to an English aristocrat even though deep down she knows she does not truly love him. Lizzy is the baby of the family. She is ambitious, and impulsive, just like her mother. She has built a career as a celebrity chef, a cookbook author, and a social media influencer. Yet behind the shining image lies a tangle of secrets, betrayals, and growing troubles in her marriage. — When Ronni calls her daughters home for a week together, she hopes it might open the door to forgiveness and healing. Perhaps the time together will allow the sisters to rediscover one another and begin to mend the fragile strands of their family. But as they return home, old hurts, memories, and grudges surface. Into this already fragile moment Ronni drops a piece of explosive news that shakes them all. The question at the heart of the novel is simple but powerful. After everything that has happened, will these sisters drift apart for good, or will they discover that they are still tied together by the invisible threads of love. Bookshare This book can be found on Bookshare at the following link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/2209896?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVRoZSUyQnN1bnNoaW5lJTJCc2lzdGVycw
BARD annotation Fifty fifty DB130811 Series: Eddie Flynn Order in Series: 05 Author: Cavanagh, Steve Reading Time: 11 hours, 47 minutes Read by: Adam Sims Subjects: Suspense Fiction, Mystery and Detective Stories “Alexandra Avellino has just found her father’s mutilated body, and needs the police right away. She believes her sister killed him, and that she is still in the house with a knife. Sofia Avellino has just found her father’s mutilated body and needs the police right away. She believes her sister, Alexandra did it, and that she is still in the house, locked in the bathroom. Both women are to go on trial at the same time. A joint trial in front of one jury. But one of these women is lying. One of them is a murderer. Sitting in a jail cell, about to go on trial with her sister for murder, you might think that this is the last place she expected to be. You’d be wrong.” — Goodreads. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. New York : Simon & Schuster Audio, 2025. Bookshare This book can be found on Bookshare at the following link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6842067?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPUZpZnR5JTJCZmlmdHk Shelly Kane is the facilitator of the Mystery Book Discussion Group. Shelly can be contacted by email at shellykane323@gmail.com.
BARD annotation Take your breath away DB117930 Author: Barclay, Linwood Reading Time: 10 hours, 4 minutes Read by: Joe Knezevich, George Newbern, Karissa Vacker, (Michael Lockwood) Michael Crouch, Lauren Fortgang, Hillary Huber, Jim Meskimen, Pete Simonelli Subjects: Suspense Fiction, Mystery and Detective Stories, Psychological Fiction “One weekend, while Andrew Mason was on a fishing trip, his wife, Brie, vanished without a trace. Most everyone assumed Andy had got away with murder—it’s always the husband, isn’t it?—but the police could never build a strong case against him. For a while, Andy hit rock bottom—he drank too much to numb the pain, was abandoned by all his friends save one, nearly lost his business, and became a pariah in the place he once called home. Now, six years later, Andy has finally put his life back together. He sold the house he once shared with Brie and moved away. To tell the truth, he wasn’t sad to hear that the old place was razed and a new house built on the site. He’s settled down with a new partner, Jayne, and life is good. But Andy’s peaceful world is about to shatter. One day, a woman shows up at his old address, screaming, “Where’s my house? What’s happened to my house?” And then, just as suddenly as she appeared, the woman—who bears a striking resemblance to Brie—is gone. The police are notified and old questions—and dark suspicions—resurface. Could Brie really be alive after all these years? If so, where has she been? It soon becomes clear that Andy’s future and the lives of those closest to him depend on discovering what the hell is going on. The trick will be whether he can stay alive long enough to unearth the answers.” — Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. Solon, Ohio : HarperAudio, [2022] Bookshare You can find this book on Bookshare at the following website: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/4550257?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVRha2UlMkJ5b3VyJTJCYnJlYXRoJTJCYXdheQ
The facilitator for this meeting will be LeDon: ledonb@outlook.com. My review Kristin Hannah is a master of emotional storytelling, creating vivid characters whose hope, grit, and resilience pull readers in and refuse to let go. Her novels center on strong women who endure loss, fight for meaning, and find the courage to prevail. With more than twenty-four bestselling novels, Hannah has earned her reputation, and The Things We Do for Love (DB116672) stands as one of her most powerful books. The story follows Angie Malone, newly divorced and emotionally adrift, who returns to her hometown searching for refuge and purpose. As she works to rescue her family's failing restaurant, Angie carries a deeper, private grief: her lifelong dream of motherhood, which now seems forever out of reach. Lauren is seventeen and growing up far too fast in a hard scrabble life shaped by neglect and instability. Her mother can't, or won't, provide the care she needs, so Lauren leans on grit and ambition instead. She plans to graduate at the top of her class, earn a full college scholarship, and build a secure future with her longtime boyfriend, David. Then everything begins to unravel. The rent hasn't been paid, eviction looms, and just as Lauren turns to her job for help, she learns her position has been eliminated. Desperate for work, Lauren applies at the DeSaria family restaurant. Angie senses promise in her and offers her a job. Lauren quickly proves herself hardworking and dependable, and a quiet bond begins to form. Angie, who longs to be a mother, and Lauren, who craves guidance and affection, find in each other what they have both been missing. Angie takes quiet joy in the small ways she helps Lauren, realizing these are the very things she once imagined doing for a daughter of her own. For Lauren, Angie's steady care feels like the maternal love she has always wanted. What begins as kindness deepens into a bond that becomes profoundly meaningful to them both. Then everything changes. Angie and Lauren are forced into a devastating Sophie's Choice, one with no good outcomes, only lasting consequences. A single decision has the power to scar both of their lives forever. Through insight and deeply believable dialogue, Kristin Hannah breathes life into Angie and Lauren on every page. The result is a powerful, moving, and unforgettable novel. You will love Mama, I guarantee it. Bookshare The Things We Do for Love can be found on Bookshare at this link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/4571101?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPXRoZSUyQnRoaW5ncyUyQndlJTJCZG8lMkJmb3IlMkJsb3Zl
Jana Littrell facilitates A Journey through History book group to discuss Denial: Holocaust history on trial DB119278 BARD annotation Denial: Holocaust history on trial DB119278 Author: Lipstadt, Deborah E. Reading Time: 13 hours, 18 minutes Read by: Kate Udall Subjects: World History and Affairs, Legal Issues “In her acclaimed 1993 book Denying the Holocaust, Deborah Lipstadt called David Irving, a prolific writer of books on World War II, “one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial.” The following year, after Lipstadt’s book was published in the United Kingdom, Irving led a libel suit against Lipstadt and her publisher. She prepared her defense with the help of a first-rate team of solicitors, historians, and experts, and a dramatic trial unfolded. Denial, previously published as History on Trial, is Lipstadt’s riveting, blow- by-blow account of this singular legal battle, which resulted in a formal denunciation of a Holocaust denier that crippled the movement for years to come. Lipstadt’s victory was proclaimed on the front page of major news- papers around the world, such as The Times (UK), which declared that ‘history has had its day in court and scored a crushing victory.'” — Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. New York : HarperAudio, 2016. Bookshare This book can be found on Bookshare at the following link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/5934409?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPURlbmlhbCUyNTNBJTJCSG9sb2NhdXN0JTJCaGlzdG9yeSUyQm9uJTJCdHJpYWwlMkI
Robert Kirkwood chats to Robert Whan of Queen's University Belfast about how they use RNIB Bookshare to support both students and academics with a wide variety of print disabilities.
BARD annotation West with giraffes DB102687 Author: Rutledge, Lynda Reading Time: 10 hours, 0 minutes Read by: Jack Fox Subject: Historical Fiction As the Great Depression lingers, Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic. In a twelve-day road trip, Woodrow Wilson Nickel drives a custom truck to deliver the giraffes to the San Diego Zoo. Some violence and some strong language. 2021. Seattle : Lake Union Publishing, 2021. Bookshare You can find this book on Bookshare at the following website: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6227042?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVdlc3QlMkJ3aXRoJTJCZ2lyYWZmZXM
BARD annotation Marti MacAlister DB84208 Series: Marti MacAlister mystery Order in Series: 01, 02, 03 Author: Bland, Eleanor Taylor Reading Time: 23 hours, 17 minutes Read by: Madelyn Buzzard Subject: Mystery and Detective Stories The first three mysteries, written between 1992 and 1994, in the series featuring the only black female police detective in Lincoln Prairie, Illinois. Includes Dead Time, Slow Burn, and Gone Quiet, in which a colleague’s elderly stepfather is suffocated in his sleep. Some violence and some strong language. 1994. New York, New York : St. Martin’s Press, 1992.New York, New York : St. Martin’s Press, 1994.New York, New York : St. Martin’s Press, 1993. Bookshare This book can be found on Bookshare at the following link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/85126?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPURlYWQlMkJ0aW1l Shelly Kane is the facilitator of the Mystery Book Discussion Group. Shelly can be contacted by email at shellykane323@gmail.com.
Jana Littrell facilitates A Journey through History book group to discuss Royal audience: 70 years, 13 presidents–one queen’s special relationship with America DB120048 by David Charter. BARD annotation Royal audience: 70 years, 13 presidents–one queen’s special relationship with America DB120048 Author: Charter, David Reading Time: 8 hours, 40 minutes Production: National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, Library of Congress Read by: Mark Meadows Subjects: World History and Affairs, Government and Politics, Biography of Heads of State and Political Figures “From the moment she first enchanted the world as a youthful princess, Queen Elizabeth II found a unique place in American hearts–and she also played an unprecedented role in forging transatlantic ties. Over her seventy-year reign, she developed extraordinary and varied personal bonds with thirteen U.S. presidents–Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, both Bush Sr. and Jr., Clinton, Obama, Trump, and Biden–that other diplomats and leaders could only dream of. A fascinating, in-depth look at international relations and interpersonal intrigue, Royal Audience peels back the curtain on the “special relationship” between the U.S. and the U.K. as embodied by the Queen herself–charting Elizabeth II’s distinctive brand of one-to-one diplomacy through the eyes of those who experienced it firsthand. From horse-riding with Ronald Reagan, to sharing her recipe for scones with Dwight D. Eisenhower, to striking up a kinship with the Bushes and the Obamas, the Queen’s interactions with her U.S. counterparts often acted as a restorative tonic for relations between two nations, even when political tensions ran high. Not all royal encounters with U.S. presidents went smoothly, though. Between Jackie Kennedy’s complaints about Elizabeth and the Queen Mother’s shock at being kissed on the lips by Jimmy Carter, there was never a dull moment. Throughout the years, Queen Elizabeth II’s sense of duty and service remained steadfast, and her iconic legacy is unlikely to be repeated”– Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. New York : Penguin Random House Audio, [2024] Bookshare This book can be found on Bookshare at the following link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/5915251?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVJveWFsJTJCYXVkaWVuY2U
BARD annotation The dry DB86906 Series: Aaron Falk Order in Series: 1 Author: Harper, Jane (Jane Elizabeth) Reading Time: 9 hours, 45 minutes Read by: Steve Shanahan Subjects: Mystery and Detective Stories, Suspense Fiction Federal agent Aaron Falk returns to his Australian rural hometown for the funeral of an old friend who allegedly killed himself, his wife, and their young son. Facing a town still suspicious of his role in a long-ago death, Aaron reluctantly agrees to investigate. Violence and strong language. Commercial audiobook. 2016. [New York] : Macmillan Audio, [2017] Bookshare You can find this book on Bookshare at the following website: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/2818771?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVRoZSUyQmRyeQ
The perfect marriage DB113854 Author: Rose, Jeneva Reading Time: 8 hours, 54 minutes Read by: Neil Hellegers, Teri Schnaubelt Subject: Suspense Fiction “Sarah Morgan is a successful and powerful defense attorney in Washington D.C. At thirty-three years old, she is a named partner at her firm and life is going exactly how she planned. The same cannot be said for her husband, Adam. He is a struggling writer who has had little success in his career. He begins to tire of his and Sarah’s relationship as she is constantly working. Out in the secluded woods, at Adam and Sarah’s second home, Adam engages in a passionate affair with Kelly Summers. Then, one morning everything changes. Adam is arrested for Kelly’s murder. She had been found stabbed to death in Adam and Sarah’s second home. Sarah soon finds herself playing the defender for her own husband, a man accused of murdering his mistress. But is Adam guilty or is he innocent?” — Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. [Holland] : Dreamscape Media, LLC, 2020. Bookshare This book can be found on Bookshare at the following link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6309347?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVRoZSUyQnBlcmZlY3QlMkJtYXJyaWFnZQ Shelly Kane is the facilitator of the Mystery Book Discussion Group. Shelly can be contacted by email at shellykane323@gmail.com.
AccessWorld -- An AFB Podcast on Digital Inclusion and Accessibility
In this episode of the AccessWorld podcast, hosts Tony and Aaron catch up with Ayan Kishore at the recent AFB Leadership Conference. Ayan is president and CEO of Benetech, a leader in accessible media for people with disabilities. Providers for the popular BookShare service, Ayan shares what's new for Benetech in 2026. Be sure to like and subscribe to Accessworld via your favorite podcast app and check out the quarterly e-zine at www.afb.org/aw for the latest issue and over 25 years of back issues from AFB's leading publication on digital inclusion and accessibility. Aaron Preece is editor-in-chief of AccessWorld and Tony Stephens leads communications for the American Foundation for the Blind. To access past episodes and transcripts, visit the podcast page here. To learn more about AFB and to support our work creating a world of endless possibilities for people who are blind or have low vision, visit our website at www.afb.org. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.
BARD annotation Propaganda girls: the secret war of the women in the OSS DB129114 Author: Rogak, Lisa Reading Time: 6 hours, 4 minutes Read by: Naeymi, Samara Subjects: Women, World History and Affairs, War and the Military “Betty MacDonald was a 28-year-old reporter from Hawaii. Zuzka Lauwers grew up in a tiny Czechoslovakian village and knew five languages by the time she was 21. Jane Smith-Hutton was the wife of a naval attaché living in Tokyo. Marlene Dietrich, the German-American actress and singer, was of course one of the biggest stars of the 20th century. These four women, each fascinating in her own right, together contributed to one of the most covert and successful military campaigns in WWII. As members of the OSS, their task was to create a secret brand of propaganda produced with the sole aim to break the morale of Axis soldiers. Working in the European theater, across enemy lines in occupied China, and in Washington, D.C., Betty, Zuzka, Jane, and Marlene forged letters and “official” military orders, wrote and produced entire newspapers, scripted radio broadcasts and songs, and even developed rumors for undercover spies and double agents to spread to the enemy. And outside of a small group of spies, no one knew they existed. Until now.”– From publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. New York : Macmillan, 2025. Bookshare This book can be found on Bookshare at the following link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6501598?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZ0aXRsZT1Qcm9wYWdhbmRhJTJCZ2lybHMlMjUzQSUyQnRoZSUyQnNlY3JldCUyQndhciUyQm9mJTJCdGhlJTJCd29tZW4lMkJpbiUyQnRoZSUyQk9TUyUyQiZib29rc1RvU2VhcmNoPUFMTCZxdWFsaXRpZXM9UFVCTElTSEVSJnF1YWxpdGllcz1FWENFTExFTlQmX2NvbnRhaW5zSW1hZ2VzPW9uJl9jb250YWluc0ltYWdlRGVzY3JpcHRpb25zPW9uJnNvcnRPcmRlcj1SRUxFVkFOQ0Umc2VhcmNoPUFkdmFuY2VkJTJCU2VhcmNoJl9jYXRlZ29yaWVzPW9u
The Fiction Old and New Discussion Group meets the first Friday of each month. The facilitator for this meeting will be LeDon: ledonb@outlook.com. My review: The book, Culpability: a novel by Bruce W Holsinger DB131607 is written as though it was ripped from these headlines from tomorrow's newspaper. “Self-driving car has head on collision with oncoming vehicle, five injured, two killed!” As the story opens, the family's self-driving car is gliding smoothly down the highway. Seventeen-year-old Charlie, a high-school athlete on track for a full college scholarship, is behind the wheel, texting. His father, Noah Cassidy, a successful mergers-and-acquisitions attorney, sits in the front passenger seat composing an important email. Behind him, Noah's wife, Lorelei—an award-winning AI expert and systems analyst—works intently on a thorny problem on her tablet. Thirteen-year-old Alice notices her brother texting but is busy chatting with her AI chatbot friend. And Izzy, the youngest, has just sent a message to Charlie. Moments before the crash, she lets out a piercing scream. The accident shatters the family in an instant. Each member is thrown into their own storm of guilt—wondering what they were doing, what they missed, or what they might have done to prevent the tragedy. With the family in turmoil, Noah becomes desperate to protect Charlie from police questioning until an attorney is present. He fears his son might say something that could lead to arrest, indictment, and ultimately a trial that could send Charlie to prison for years. In time, Noah and Lorelei decide the family needs to get away to regain some sense of normalcy. Lorelei suggests a quiet vacation on Chesapeake Bay where they can swim, rest, take in the beautiful scenery, and perhaps begin to heal from the nightmare that has engulfed them. But when they arrive, they discover their rental sits directly beside a newly built compound owned by billionaire Daniel Monet, a major force in AI development. Night after night, helicopters arrive carrying guests to the lavish events happening there. When the family receives an invitation to a dinner at the compound, they decide to go. Once there, tensions rise, misunderstandings flare, and the fragile threads holding the family together begin to fray. During the party, Charlie and Eurydice Monet, Daniel Monet's daughter, discover a romantic spark between them. By the end of the night, the two teens have vanished. A frantic search begins, and it is soon learned that they slipped away to go sailing in the bay during a midnight storm. As families and search crews scour the waters, both households are tormented by the fear that the worst has already happened. In this novel Holsinger has created a beautiful tapestry in many colors using the threads of family drama, Artificial Intelligence, and moral questions. Bookshare You can find this book on Bookshare at this link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6712974?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPWN1bHBhYmlsaXR5
Life, loss, and puffins: a novel DB125028 Author: Hyde, Catherine Ryan Reading Time: 7 hours, 40 minutes Read by: Mare Trevathan Subjects: Family, Friendship Fiction “Freakishly smart. That’s the unwelcome box Ru Evans is put into for life. After all, she taught herself euclidean geometry at age seven, has an eidetic memory, and is about to enter college at thirteen years old. Boarding at a house near campus 150 miles from home, Ru meets seventeen-year-old Gabriel, an outsider himself who, like Ru, has trouble making friends–until they form a fast sibling-like bond. Finding a relatable someone in the world to talk to is a first for both of them. But when Ru’s mother dies and the threat of living with her miserable aunt looms, Ru hatches an escape. It’s an impulsive road trip that takes Ru and Gabriel from California to Canada, where Ru can fulfill her ultimate dream: to see Atlantic puffins in the glorious wild. Mile by mile, Ru discovers the joy of friendship, found family, dark night skies, and the aurora borealis, and she basks in going from being a smart person to just a person. Though she knows they’ll be in trouble when they’re caught, for the short time they are navigating twist by twist of an unknown road, the freedom is liberating, and she is living for what feels like the first time.” — Provided by publisher. Some strong language. Seattle : Lake Union Publishing, [2024] Bookshare This title is not available on Bookshare.
The facilitator for this meeting will be LeDon: ledonb@outlook.com. This book can be found on Bookshare at this link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/2911709?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPUElMkJSZWRiaXJkJTJCQ2hyaXN0bWFz My review: My first introduction to Fannie Flagg was through her novel, Fried Green Tomatoes, so I knew what a gift she has for making small towns and the ordinary people like you and me in them come alive with warmth, humor, and kindness. That is why I selected her Christmas book , A Redbird Christmas: a novel, DB58836. In this book she crafted a story that will lift your spirits and remind you of the magic of second chances. Oswald Campbell is sitting across from his doctor when he hears the worst news of his life: his lungs are failing, and time is running out. The doctor suggests that while nothing can stop what is coming, Oswald might buy himself a little more time if he leaves Chicago for somewhere with cleaner air. But where could he possibly go? Chicago is all he has ever known until the doctor hands him a pamphlet for a lodge in a little place called Lost River, Alabama. The lodge turns out to be long closed, but a kind woman in town offers to rent Oswald a room in her house. With nothing left to lose, he heads south. What he expects to be a short stay soon becomes something more, as the people of Lost River welcome him as one of their own. To his surprise, Oswald finds friendship, belonging, and even the beginning of love especially through their bond with a little crippled girl and the beloved redbird, Jak. With their help, Oswald uncovers a side of himself he never knew existed: one that still has room for joy, hope, and friends. Only Fannie Flagg could bring a town like Lost River to life the way she does here. Her storytelling blends humor, tenderness, and everyday detail so flawlessly that by the end, you feel as if you have lived there.
BARD annotation Star-spangled men: America’s ten worst presidents DB46576 Author: Miller, Nathan Reading Time: 9 hours, 48 minutes Read by: Gregory Gorton Subjects: Biography of Heads of State and Political Figures, U.S. History Biographical profiles of American presidents the author judges to be the ten worst in the nation’s history. Candidates were evaluated on the basis of their personal qualities and the extent to which they damaged the nation. Includes Richard Nixon for his moral lapses and Jimmy Carter for lacking purpose and direction. New York, NY : Scribner, c1998. Bookshare This book can be found on Bookshare at the following link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6372261?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVN0YXItc3BhbmdsZWQlMkJtZW4lMjUzQSUyQkFtZXJpY2ElMjUyNiUyNTIzMzklMjUzQnMlMkJ0ZW4lMkJ3b3JzdCUyQnByZXNpZGVudHMlMkI
BARD annotation The lost for words bookshop DB91357 Author: Butland, Stephanie Reading Time: 9 hours, 0 minutes Read by: Imogen Church Subject: General Fiction Loveday Cardew prefers books to people, and her refuge is the bookstore where she works. Into that safe haven come a poet, a lover, and three suspicious deliveries. Someone has found out about her mysterious past. Will Loveday survive her own heartbreaking secrets? Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2018. New York : Macmillan Audio, 2018. Bookshare You can find this book on Bookshare at the following website: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/4679917?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVRoZSUyQmxvc3QlMkJmb3IlMkJ3b3JkcyUyQmJvb2tzaG9wJTJC
In this Blind Abilities episode, Jeff Thompson talks with Jeff Bishop, president of BITS—Blind Information Technology Specialists—an all-volunteer organization empowering blind and low-vision individuals through accessible technology, community, and hands-on learning. Bishop outlines BITS' rapid growth, affordable memberships, and expanding reach across platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, email lists, and mentoring channels. BITS offers high-impact training, including Python programming, Microsoft Office, Google Workspace, NVDA, and AI immersion courses—all with fully accessible materials and strong completion rates. Their partnerships with APH, Bookshare, NLS, Microsoft, and others ensure free resources and meaningful industry feedback opportunities, including paid participation in Microsoft's Project Empower. With free Remote Incident Manager (RIM) support, active mentoring, and a welcoming culture, BITS serves beginners and experts alike. As the group considers rebranding the "S" in BITS to Solutions, the mission remains clear: meeting people where they are and helping them thrive in their digital lives. Link to BITS
BARD annotation Star-spangled men: America’s ten worst presidents DB46576 Author: Miller, Nathan Reading Time: 9 hours, 48 minutes Read by: Gregory Gorton Subjects: Biography of Heads of State and Political Figures, U.S. History Biographical profiles of American presidents the author judges to be the ten worst in the nation’s history. Candidates were evaluated on the basis of their personal qualities and the extent to which they damaged the nation. Includes Richard Nixon for his moral lapses and Jimmy Carter for lacking purpose and direction. New York, NY : Scribner, c1998. Bookshare This book can be found on Bookshare at the following link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6372261?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVN0YXItc3BhbmdsZWQlMkJtZW4lMjUzQSUyQkFtZXJpY2ElMjUyNiUyNTIzMzklMjUzQnMlMkJ0ZW4lMkJ3b3JzdCUyQnByZXNpZGVudHMlMkI Enter the Journey Through History Zoom Room A Journey Through History Meets the first Tuesday of each month at 8pm to 9pm Eastern. Join A Journey Through History Meeting from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: Or iPhone one-tap: US: +14086380986,,177809772 or +16468769923,,177809772# Or Telephone: Dial (for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location): US: +1 408 638 0986 or +1 646 876 9923 Meeting ID: 177 809 772 International numbers available
BARD annotation Every last fear DB102224 Author: Finlay, Alex Reading Time: 10 hours, 59 minutes Read by: Jon Lindstrom, Cady McClain Subjects: Suspense Fiction, Psychological Fiction College student Matt Pine receives a devastating call. His parents and younger brother and sister have died in Mexico of an apparent gas leak. But appearances may be deceiving. The family’s deaths may be connected to Matt’s older brother Danny–in jail for the murder of his girlfriend. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2021. [New York] : Macmillan Audio, 2021. Bookshare You can find this book on Bookshare at the following website: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6540138?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPUV2ZXJ5JTJCbGFzdCUyQmZlYXIlMkI
BARD annotation A sense of the world: how a blind man became history’s greatest traveler DB62703 Author: Roberts, Jason Reading Time: 12 hours, 41 minutes Read by: David Cutler Subjects: Biography of Persons with Disabilities, Disability, Travel Biography of Englishman James Holman (1786-1857), who was blinded at twenty-five after serving in the Napoleonic wars and who then achieved fame as a world traveler. Quoting from Holman’s memoirs, describes how he fought slavery in Africa, survived captivity in Siberia, charted the Australian outback, and published three books. 2006. New York : Harper Collins Publishers, c2006. Bookshare This book can be found on Bookshare at the following link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6462474?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPUElMkJzZW5zZSUyQm9mJTJCdGhlJTJCd29ybGQlMjUzQSUyQmhvdyUyQmElMkJibGluZCUyQm1hbiUyQmJlY2FtZSUyQmhpc3RvcnklMjUyNiUyNTIzMzklMjUzQnMlMkJncmVhdGVzdCUyQnRyYXZlbGVyJTJC
In this episode, Scott Davert gives us an in-depth demonstration of Braille Access. New in iOS 26, Braille Access aims to offer an experience similar to dedicated braille note takers.TranscriptDisclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI Note Taker – VoicePen, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers' names, voices, or content.An AppleVis Orriginal Thanks for checking out the AppleViz podcast. I'm Scott Davert, and on this podcast, I'm going to cover Braille Access, a brand new set of features available in iOS 26.My apologies, by the way, for getting this out kind of late. I know it's been pretty much a month at this point, but I had a lot of things going on, including being sick twice last month. And the bulk of everything I'm going to talk about here today is available in the article I published on September 13th.So if you're someone who prefers blog posts to podcasts, that is also available to you. What is Braille Access? Braille Access provides access to Braille. That's the podcast. Hope you enjoyed. This podcast was brought to you by the community at AppleBiz.com. No, I'm kidding. Braille Access isA set of tools, I would call them. I don't know if we're supposed to refer to Braille access as a feature and these other things as sub-features or as an app. I don't know. Whatever it is, it has a lot to offer. We have a few functions in it that... We're already available on previous versions of iOS that have been put into this suite of applications or tools, we'll call them. And you have some newcomers. Like anything that is brand new, it does suffer with some challenges, but we'll talk about that as we go along.The idea behind this is to essentially address the needs of Braille users. For a long time, we've, of course, been able to connect Bluetooth displays to iOS devices, but we haven't had any real major features built in specifically for Braille display users, and that changes with iOS 26.If you're familiar with the old note takers like the Braille Lite, the Braille and Speak, the BrailleNote, the BrailleNote Empower, the BrailleNote Apex,The Braille Sense 6 has some of this as well. It's probably the most modern example of this type of environment. But this one brings a lot of these features to your iOS and iPadOS devices. So, for example, you have the ability to take notes. That one's called Braille Notes.I don't know how humanware feels about that, but that's what it's called. And then you have BRF files. So if you have files that you have created on notetakers or things that you have downloaded from Bookshare, NLS barred,CELA, I know, has BRF content, RNIB does, and so on and so forth. You'll be able to read. You can also create and edit BRF documents through Braille access. There's also a calculator application that allows you to use Nemeth code, which is still, I think, what a lot of schools are using here in the States, as well as UEB math.which is starting to spread across the U.S., but who knows how that one will come out. We also have live captions. I can't really demonstrate those. It's kind of difficult to do in a podcast, but I'll definitely talk about that and how they are used and some of the limitations. And we also have the ability to tell the time in…
Each episode on Unstoppable Mindset I ask all of you and my guests to feel free to introduce me to others who would be good guests on our podcast. Our guest this time, Erin Edgar, is a guest introduced to me by a past podcast guest, Rob Wentz. Rob told me that Erin is inspirational and would be interesting and that she would have a lot to offer you, our audience. Rob was right on all counts. Erin Edgar was born blind. Her parents adopted an attitude that would raise their daughter with a positive attitude about herself. She was encouraged and when barriers were put in her way as a youth, her parents helped her fight to be able to participate and thrive. For a time, she attended the Indiana School for the Blind. Her family moved to Georgia where Erin attended high school. After high school, Erin wanted to go to college where she felt there would be a supportive program that would welcome her on campus. She attended the University of North Carolina at Chapple Hill. After graduating she decided to continue at UNC where she wanted to study law. The same program that gave her so much assistance during her undergraduate days was not able to provide the same services to Erin the graduate student. Even so, Erin had learned how to live, survive and obtain what she needed to go through the law program. After she received her law degree Erin began to do what she always wanted to do: She wanted to use the law to help people. So, she worked in programs such as Legal Aid in North Carolina and she also spent time as a mediator. She will describe all that for us. Like a number of people, when the pandemic began, she decided to pivot and start her own law firm. She focuses on estate planning. We have a good discussion about topics such as the differences between a will and a living trust. Erin offers many relevant and poignant thoughts and words of advice we all can find helpful. Erin is unstoppable by any standard as you will see. About the Guest: Erin Edgar, Esq., is a caring, heart-centered attorney, inspirational speaker and vocal artist. She loves helping clients: -- Plan for the future of their lives and businesses, ensuring that they have the support they need and helping them find ways to provide for their loved ones upon death. --Ensure that the leave a legacy of love and reflect client values -- Find creative ways that allow them to impact the world with a lasting legacy. She is passionate about connecting with clients on a heart level. She loves witnessing her clients as she guides them to transform their intentions for their loved ones into a lasting legacy through the estate planning process. Erin speaks about ways to meld proven legal tools, strategies, and customization with the creative process to design legal solutions that give people peace of mind, clarity, and the assurance that their loved ones will be taken care of, and the world will be left a better place Ways to connect with Erin: Facebook: https://facebook.com/erin-edgar-legal LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/erinedgar About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Hi everyone, and welcome to another edition of unstoppable mindset. We're glad that you're here with us, wherever you may be. Hope the day is going well, and we have Erin Edgar on our episode today. Edgar is a very interesting person in a lot of ways. She's a caring, heart centered attorney. She is also an inspirational speaker and a vocal artist. I'm not sure whether vocal artistry comes into play when she's in the courtroom, but we won't worry about that too much. I assume that you don't sing to your judges when you're trying to deal with something. But anyway, I'll let her answer that. I'm just trying to cause trouble, but Erin again. We're really glad you're with us. We really appreciate you being here, and I know you do a lot with estate planning and other kinds of things that'll be fun to talk about. So welcome to unstoppable mindset. Erin Edgar ** 02:14 Thank you, Michael. It's great to be here, and I haven't sung in a courtroom or a courthouse yet, but I wouldn't rule it out. Michael Hingson ** 02:23 I have someone who I know who also has a guide dog and his diet. His guide dog, it's been a while since I've seen him, but his guide dog tended to be very vocal, especially at unexpected times, and he said that occasionally happened in the courtroom, which really busted up the place. Oh, dear. Erin Edgar ** 02:45 I imagine that would draw some smiles, hopefully, smiles. Michael Hingson ** 02:48 Well, they were, yeah, do you, do you appear in court much? Erin Edgar ** 02:53 Um, no, the type of law that I practice, I'm usually, I don't think I've ever appeared in court after I've written people's wills, but I have done previous things where I was in court mediating disputes, which is a kind of a separate thing that I used to do, so I've been in court just not recently. Yeah. Michael Hingson ** 03:17 Well, that's understandable. Well, let's start a little bit with the early Erin and growing up and all that sort of stuff. Tell us about that? Sure. Erin Edgar ** 03:26 So I was born in cold, gray Indiana, and, yeah, chilly in the wintertime, and I started out I was blind from birth, so my parents thought it would be a good idea to send me to the school for the blind for a while. And back when I was born, um, teen years ago, they did not mainstream visually impaired and disabled students in that state, so you went where you could, and I was at the blind school for until I reached third grade, and then we moved to Georgia, and I've been in the south ever since I live in North Carolina now, and I started going to public schools in fourth grade, and continued on that route all the way up through high school. Michael Hingson ** 04:21 Oh, okay. And so then, what did you do? Erin Edgar ** 04:29 So after, after that, I, you know, I was one of those high school students. I really wanted to get out of dodge and leave my high school behind. I went visiting a couple of colleges in Georgia, and I said to my parents, I said, I really don't like this. It's like going to high school again. Literally, I was meeting people I had been in high school with, and I decided, and was very grateful that my parents. Were able to rig it some way so that I could go to an out of state school. And I went to UNC Chapel Hill here in North Carolina, Tar Heels all the way. And I was there for undergrad. And then I got into law school there as well, which I was very excited about, because I didn't have to go anywhere, and graduated from law school again a while ago in the early 2000s Michael Hingson ** 05:31 Okay, and so then you went straight into law from that. Erin Edgar ** 05:37 I didn't I did some other things before I actually went into law itself. I worked with some local advocacy organizations, and I also mediated, as I said earlier, I did mediations with the county court, helping mediate criminal disputes. And we're talking about like things with you get in a dispute with your neighbor and you yell at each other, those kind of People's Court type things. They were fun and interesting. And then I did go into law. After that, I started working with Legal Aid of North Carolina, which is a an organization that helps people in poverty who cannot afford a lawyer to go and have have their options communicated to them and some help given to them regarding their public benefits or certain other, you know, public things that we could help with we weren't able to help with any personal injury, or, you know, any of the fun stuff you see on TV. So and then, when the pandemic hit, I started my own law practice and completely changed gears and went into writing estate plans and wills for a living. Michael Hingson ** 07:07 Do you think that your time doing mediation work and so on taught you a lot about humanity and human nature and people? Erin Edgar ** 07:16 It did. I bet it did. It was invaluable, actually, in that area taught me a lot about, I don't know necessarily, about human nature. However, it did teach me a lot about how to talk to people who were on different pages. You know, they had, perhaps, values and principles that weren't quite the same, where they had a different way of looking at the same exact situation, and how to bring those those people together and allow them to connect on a deeper level, rather than the argument we're able to get them to agree to kind of move forward from that, so nobody has to be found guilty, right? And you know a judge doesn't have and you don't have to drag a criminal conviction around with you. I think the most rewarding cases that I had, by far were the education cases. Because I don't know if anyone knows this, but in most states, in the United States, if you don't send your kids to school, you are guilty of a crime. It's called truancy, and you can be arrested. Well, the county that I live in was very forward thinking, and the school system and the court said, that's kind of dumb. We don't want to arrest parents if their kids aren't going to school, there's something behind it. You know, there the school is not providing what the child needs. The child's acting out for some reason, and we need to get to the bottom of it. So what they did was they set up a process whereby we come in as neutral observers. We did not work for the court. We were part of a separate organization, and have a school social worker there or counselor, and also have a parent there, and they could talk through the issues. And in a lot of cases, if the children were old enough, they were teenagers, they were there, and they could talk about it from their perspective. And truly amazing things came out of those situations. We could just we would discover that the children had a behavioral issue or even a disability that had not been recognized, and were able to come up with plans to address that with you know, or the school was with our help, Michael Hingson ** 09:42 going back a little bit, how did your parents deal with the fact that you were blind? I gather it was a fairly positive experience Erin Edgar ** 09:50 for me. It was positive. I was so fortunate, and I'm still so grateful to this day for having parents who you. I were very forward thinking, and advocated for me to have and do whatever, not whatever I wanted, because I was far from spoiled, but, you know, whatever, yeah, yeah, you know. But whatever, however I wanted to be successful, they advocated for me. And so my mother actually told me, you know, when I was born, they went through all the parent things like, oh, gosh, what did we do wrong? You know, why is God punishing us? You know, all that. And they, very early on, found support groups for, you know, parents with children with either blindness or disabilities of some sort, and that was a great source of help to them. And as I grew up, they made every effort to ensure that I had people who could teach me, if they couldn't, you know, how to interact with other children. I think, for a while when I was very little, and I actually kind of remember this, they hired an occupational therapist to come and teach me how to play with kids, because not only was I blind, but I was an only child, so I didn't have brothers and sisters to interact with, and that whole play thing was kind of a mystery to me, and I remember it sort of vaguely, but that's just A demonstration that they wanted me to have the best life possible and to be fully integrated into the sighted world as much as possible. So when I was at the blind school, and I was in this residential environment, and there was an added bonus that my parents didn't really weren't happy in their jobs either, and they weren't happy with the education I was getting, that they decided, well, we're just going to pick up and move and that was, quite frankly, as I look back on it now, a huge risk for them. And they did it, you know, 50% for me and 50% for them, maybe even 6040, but as I look back on it now, it's another demonstration of how supportive they were, and all the way through my school age years, were very active in ensuring that I had everything that I needed and that I had the support that I needed. Michael Hingson ** 12:19 That's cool. How did it go when you went to college at UNC? Erin Edgar ** 12:25 Yeah, that's an interesting question, a very good question. Michael Hingson ** 12:29 You didn't play basketball, I assume? Oh no, I figured you had other things to do. Erin Edgar ** 12:33 Yeah, I had other stuff to do. I sang in the choir and sang with the medieval chorus group, and, you know, all this other, like, musical geek, geeky stuff. But, or, and when we were looking for colleges and universities, one of the criteria was they had to have a solid kind of, like disability, slash visually impaired center, or, you know, support staff that would help in, you know, allow people with disabilities to go through the university. So at UNC Chapel Hill, the they had as part of their student affairs department Disability Services, and it just so happened that they were very aware of accommodations that blind people needed. I wasn't the first blind student to go through undergrad there. That's not law school, that's undergrad. And so you know, how much was it? Time and a half on on tests if I was doing them on the computer, double time if I was doing them in Braille. A lot of the tests were in Braille because they had the technology to do it. And also the gentleman who ran the Disability Services Department, I think, knew Braille, if I'm not mistaken, and could transcribe if necessary. But I was at the stage at that point where I was typing most of my exams anyway, and didn't need much that was in Braille, because I had books either electronically or they had a network of folks in the community that would volunteer to read if there was not, you know, available textbooks from RFD, and what is it, RFP and D? Now was at the time, yeah, now Learning Ally, there wasn't a Bookshare at that time, so we couldn't use Bookshare, but if there weren't textbooks available, they would have people in the community who would read them for them, and they would get paid a little bit. Now, when I went to law school, it was a totally different ball game, because I was the first law student who was blind, that UNC Chapel Hill had had, and it was a different school within the school, so that student affairs department was not part of law school anymore, and we had quite a time the first semester getting my book. Works in a format that I could read them in. They did eventually, kind of broker a deal, if you will, with the publishers who were either Thompson Reuters or Westlaw at the time to get electronic versions. They were floppy disks. This is how old I am. Floppy disks. They were in this weird format. I think it was word perfect or something. Usually it was, and they Michael Hingson ** 15:27 didn't really have a lot of them new or no, they didn't know now, newer publishing system, Erin Edgar ** 15:32 yeah, there wasn't PDF even, I don't think, at the time. And the agreement was I could get those, and I actually had to buy the print textbooks as well. So I have this whole bookcase of law books that are virgin, unopened, almost. And they are, you know, some of them almost 25 years old, never been opened and of no use to anyone. But I have them, and they look nice sitting down there in that bookshelf antiques books. They're antiques. So the first year was a little rough, because for a while I didn't have books, and we were able to make arrangements so that I could kind of make up some classes on a later year and switch things around a little bit. And it ended up all working out really well once we got started. Michael Hingson ** 16:16 Yeah, I remember when I was going through getting my bachelor's and master's in physics, I needed the books in braille because, well, it's the only way to be able to really deal with the subject. You can't do it nearly as well from recordings, although now there's a little bit better capability through recording, because we have the DayZ format and so on. But still, it's not the same as reading it in Braille and for mathematics and physics and so on. I think that the only way to really do it is in Braille. And we had challenges because professors didn't want to decide what books to use until the last minute, because then, oh, a new book might be coming out and we want to get the latest book, and that didn't work for me, right? Because I had a network that I, in part, I developed with the Department of Rehabilitation out here, helped our office for disabled students didn't really have the resources to know it. They were very supportive. They just didn't really deal with it. But the bottom line is that we had to develop, I had to develop the network of transcribers, but they needed three to six months to do the books, at least three months and and sometimes I would get them one or two volumes at a time, and they barely kept ahead of the class. But, you know, it worked, but professors resisted it. And my the person who ran the Office for Students with Disabilities, said, Look, you have to work on these things, but if you're not getting cooperation from professors, and you come and tell me, and I will use the power of this office to get you what you need, there's another thing you might consider doing, she said. And I said, What's that? And Jan said, Go meet the chancellor. Make friends, yeah, friends in high places. And so I did. And Dan, oh, there you go. Became pretty good friends over the years, which was pretty cool, Erin Edgar ** 18:15 you know, it was weird because we didn't, I didn't have that problem with the professors. They were, you know, I had a couple of old codgers, but they weren't really worried about the books. They were fine with me having the books, but it was the publishers. The publishers were irritated that that I needed them, and, you know, in an alternative format. And I didn't really, I was not. I was one of those people that if someone said they were going to do something for me, I kind of let people do it. And at the time, I was really not an advocate, advocator for myself, at that time, a very good self advocate. And so I kind of let the school interface with that. I think it would have been really interesting, if I look back on it, for me to have taken a hand in that. And I wonder what would have happened well, and at this point, you know, it's neither here nor there, but that's really fascinating. Making Friends with the chancellor, sometimes you have to do stuff like that Michael Hingson ** 19:15 well. And the idea was really to get to know Him. And what there was, well, obviously other motivations, like, if we needed to go to a higher court to get help, we could go to the chancellor. I never had to do that, but, but the reason for meeting him and getting to know him was really just to do it and to have fun doing it. So we did, Erin Edgar ** 19:36 yeah, and I kind of had a comparable experience. I met the Dean of the Law School for that very reason. And he said, you know, if you've got trouble, come to me, my parents got involved a little bit. And we all, you know, met together and maybe even separately at some points just to make sure that I had everything that I needed at various times. Mm. Yeah, and I made friends with the some of the assistant deans at the law school, in particular because of the situation, and one of whom was the Dean of the Law School Student Affairs, who was helping me to get what I needed. And for a while, when I was in law school and beyond. He was like, We lent books to each other. It was very funny. We found out we had the same reading tastes beyond law books. It wasn't, you know, legal at all, but we were like, trading books and things. So a lot of really good relationships came out of that. Michael Hingson ** 20:37 And I think that's extremely important to to do. And I think that's one of the things that that offices for students with disabilities that tend to want to do everything for you. I think that's one of the things that it's a problem with those offices, because if you don't learn to do them, and if you don't learn to do them in college, how are you going to be able to be able to really act independently and as an advocate after college, so you have to learn that stuff Erin Edgar ** 21:05 Absolutely. That's a very good point. Michael Hingson ** 21:09 So I, I think it was extremely important to do it, and we did, and had a lot of fun doing it. So it was, was good. What are some of the biggest misconceptions you think that people had about you as a blind child growing up? Erin Edgar ** 21:25 Oh yeah, that's a great question. I think that one of the biggest misconceptions that people had about me, especially when I was younger, is that I would know I would be sort of relegated to staying at home with parents all of my life, or being a stay at home parent and not able to be kind of professionally employed and earning, you know, earning a living wage. Now, I have my own business, and that's where most of my money goes at the same at this point. So, you know, earning a living wage might be up in the air at the moment. Ha, ha. But the the one thing I think that the biggest misconception that people had, and this is even like teachers at the blind school, it was very rare for blind children of my age to grow up and be, you know, professionals in, I don't want to say high places, but like people able to support themselves without a government benefit backing them up. And it was kind of always assumed that we would be in that category, that we would be less able than our sighted peers to do that. And so that was a huge misconception, even you know, in the school that I was attending. I think that was the, really the main one and one misconception that I had then and still have today, is that if I'm blind, I can't speak for myself. This still happens today. For instance, if I'm if I want, if I'm going somewhere and I just happen to be with someone sighted, they will talk whoever I'm, wherever I'm at, they will talk to the sighted person, right? They won't talk to you. They won't talk to me. And so, for instance, simple example, if I'm somewhere with my husband, and we happen to be walking together and we go somewhere that I need to go, they will talk to him because he's guiding me, and they won't talk. And he's like, don't talk to me. I have no idea, you know, talk to her, and part of that is I'm half a step behind him. People naturally gravitate to the people that are leading. However, I noticed, even when I was a young adult, and I would go, you know, to the doctor, and I would be with my my parents, like, maybe I'm visiting them, and I need to go to the doctor, they would talk to them and not me, yeah, which is kind of sad. And I think it happens a lot, a lot more than people realize. Michael Hingson ** 24:10 Yeah, it does. And one of my favorite stories is, is this, I got married in 1982 and my wife has always been, or had always been. She passed away in 2022 but she was always in a wheelchair. And we went to a restaurant one Saturday for breakfast. We were standing at the counter waiting to be seated, and the hostess was behind the counter, and nothing was happening. And finally, Karen said to me, she doesn't know who to talk to, you know? Because Karen, of course, is, is in a wheelchair, so actually, she's clearly shorter than this, this person behind the counter, and then there's me and and, of course, I'm not making eye contact, and so Karen just said she doesn't know who to talk to. I said, you know? All she's gotta do is ask us where we would like to sit or if we'd like to have breakfast, and we can make it work. Well, she she got the message, and she did, and the rest of the the day went fine, but that was really kind of funny, that we had two of us, and she just didn't know how to deal with either of us, which was kind of cute. Mm, hmm. Well, you know, it brings up another question. You use the term earlier, visually impaired. There's been a lot of effort over the years. A lot of the professionals, if you will, created this whole terminology of visually impaired, and they say, well, you're blind or you're visually impaired. And visually impaired means you're not totally blind, but, but you're still visually impaired. And finally, blind people, I think, are starting to realize what people who are deaf learned a long time ago, and that is that if you take take a deaf person and you refer to them as hearing impaired, there's no telling what they might do to you, because they recognize that impaired is not true and they shouldn't be equated with people who have all of their hearing. So it's deaf or hard of hearing, which is a whole lot less of an antagonistic sort of concept than hearing impaired. We're starting to get blind people, and not everyone's there yet, and we're starting to get agencies, and not every agency is there yet, to recognize that it's blind or low vision, as opposed to blind or here or visually impaired, visually impaired. What do you think about that? How does and how does that contribute to the attitudes that people had toward you? Erin Edgar ** 26:38 Yeah, so when I was growing up, I was handicapped, yeah, there was that too, yeah, yeah, that I was never fond of that, and my mother softened it for me, saying, well, we all have our handicaps or shortcomings, you know, and but it was really, what was meant was you had Something that really held you back. I actually, I say, this is so odd. I always, I usually say I'm totally blind. Because when I say blind, the immediate question people have is, how blind are you? Yeah, which gets back to stuff, yeah, yeah. If you're blind, my opinion, if you're blind, you're you're blind, and if you have low vision, you have partial sight. And visually impaired used to be the term, you know, when I was younger, that people use, and that's still a lot. It's still used a lot, and I will use it occasionally, generally. I think that partially sighted, I have partial vision is, is what I've heard people use. That's what, how my husband refers to himself. Low Vision is also, you know, all those terms are much less pejorative than actually being impaired, Michael Hingson ** 27:56 right? That's kind of really the issue, yeah. My, my favorite example of all of this is a past president of the National Federation of the Blind, Ken Jernigan, you've heard of him, I assume, Oh, sure. He created a document once called a definition of blindness, and his definition, he goes through and discusses various conditions, and he asks people if, if you meet these conditions, are you blind or not? But then what he eventually does is he comes up with a definition, and his definition, which I really like, is you are blind if your eyesight has decreased to the point where you have to use alternatives to full eyesight in order to function, which takes into account totally blind and partially blind people. Because the reality is that most of those people who are low vision will probably, or they may probably, lose the rest of their eyesight. And the agencies have worked so hard to tell them, just use your eyesight as best you can. And you know you may need to use a cane, but use your eyesight as best you can, and if you go blind, then we're going to have to teach you all over again, rather than starting by saying blindness is really okay. And the reality is that if you learn the techniques now, then you can use the best of all worlds. Erin Edgar ** 29:26 I would agree with that. I would also say you should, you know, people should use what they have. Yeah, using everything you have is okay. And I think there's a lot of a lot of good to be said for learning the alternatives while you're still able to rely on something else. Michael Hingson ** 29:49 Point taken exactly you know, because Erin Edgar ** 29:53 as you age, you get more and more in the habit of doing things one way, and it's. Very hard to break out of that. And if you haven't learned an alternative, there's nothing you feel like. There's nothing to fall back on, right? And it's even harder because now you're in the situation of urgency where you feel like you're missing something and you're having to learn something new, whereas if you already knew it and knew different ways to rely on things you would be just like picking a memory back up, rather than having to learn something new. Well, I've never been in that position, so I can't say, but in the abstract, I think that's a good definition. Michael Hingson ** 30:34 Well, there are a lot of examples, like, take a person who has some eyesight, and they're not encouraged to use a cane. And I know someone who was in this situation. I think I've told the story on this podcast, but he lived in New Jersey and was travel. And traveled every day from New Jersey into Philadelphia to work, and he was on a reasonably cloudy day, was walking along. He had been given a cane by the New Jersey Commission for the Blind, but he they didn't really stress the value of using it. And so he was walking along the train to go in, and he came to the place where he could turn in and go into the car. And he did, and promptly fell between two cars because he wasn't at the right place. And then the train actually started to move, but they got it stopped, and so he was okay, but as as he tells the story, he certainly used his cane from then on. Because if he had been using the cane, even though he couldn't see it well because it was dark, or not dark, cloudy, he would have been able to see that he was not at the place where the car entrance was, but rather he was at the junction between two cars. And there's so many examples of that. There's so many reasons why it's important to learn the skills. Should a partially blind or a low vision person learn to read Braille? Well, depends on circumstances, of course, I think, to a degree, but the value of learning Braille is that you have an alternative to full print, especially if there's a likelihood that you're going to lose the rest of your eyesight. If you psychologically do it now, that's also going to psychologically help you prepare better for not having any eyesight later. Erin Edgar ** 32:20 And of course, that leads to to blind children these days learn how to read, yeah, which is another issue. Michael Hingson ** 32:28 Which is another issue because educators are not teaching Braille nearly as much as they should, and the literacy rate is so low. And the fact of the matter is even with George Kircher, who invented the whole DAISY format and and all the things that you can do with the published books and so on. The reality is there is still something to be said for learning braille. You don't have sighted children just watching television all the time, although sometimes my parents think they do, but, but the point is that they learn to read, and there's a value of really learning to read. I've been in an audience where a blind speaker was delivering a speech, and he didn't know or use Braille. He had a device that was, I think what he actually used was a, was, it was a Victor Reader Stream, which is Erin Edgar ** 33:24 one of those, right? Michael Hingson ** 33:25 I think it was that it may have been something else, but the bottom line is, he had his speech written out, and he would play it through earphones, and then he would verbalize his speech. Oh, no, that's just mess me up. Oh, it would. It was very disjointed and and I think that for me, personally, I read Braille pretty well, but I don't like to read speeches at all. I want to engage the audience, and so it's really important to truly speak with the audience and not read or do any of those other kinds of things. Erin Edgar ** 33:57 I would agree. Now I do have a Braille display that I, I use, and, you know, I do use it for speeches. However, I don't put the whole speech on Michael Hingson ** 34:10 there that I me too. I have one, and I use it for, I know, I have notes. Mm, hmm, Erin Edgar ** 34:16 notes, yeah. And so I feel like Braille, especially for math. You know, when you said math and physics, like, Yeah, I can't imagine doing math without Braille. That just doesn't, you know, I can't imagine it, and especially in, you know, geometry and trigonometry with those diagrams. I don't know how you would do it without a Braille textbook, but yeah, there. There's certainly something to be said for for the the wonderful navigation abilities with, you know, e published audio DAISY books. However, it's not a substitute for knowing how to Michael Hingson ** 34:55 read. Well, how are you going to learn to spell? How are you going to really learn sit? Structure, how are you going to learn any of those basic skills that sighted kids get if you don't use Braille? Absolutely, I think that that's one of the arenas where the educational system, to a large degree, does such a great disservice to blind kids because it won't teach them Braille. Erin Edgar ** 35:16 Agreed, agreed. Well, thank you for this wonderful spin down Braille, Braille reading lane here. That was fun. Michael Hingson ** 35:27 Well, so getting back to you a little bit, you must have thought or realized that probably when you went into law, you were going to face some challenges. But what was the defining moment that made you decide you're going to go into law, and what kind of challenges have you faced? If you face challenges, my making an assumption, but you know what? Erin Edgar ** 35:45 Oh, sure. So the defining moment when I decided I wanted to go into law. It was a very interesting time for me. I was teenager. Don't know exactly how old I was, but I think I was in high school, and I had gone through a long period where I wanted to, like, be a music major and go into piano and voice and be a performer in those arenas, and get a, you know, high level degree whatnot. And then I began having this began becoming very interested in watching the Star Trek television series. Primarily I was out at the time the next generation, and I was always fascinated by the way that these people would find these civilizations on these planets, and they would be at odds in the beginning, and they would be at each other's throats, and then by the end of the day, they were all kind of Michael Hingson ** 36:43 liking each other. And John Luke Picard didn't play a flute, Erin Edgar ** 36:47 yes, and he also turned into a Borg, which was traumatic for me. I had to rate local summer to figure out what would happen. I was in I was in trauma. Anyway, my my father and I bonded over that show. It was, it was a wonderful sort of father daughter thing. We did it every weekend. And I was always fascinated by, like, the whole, the whole aspect of different ideologies coming together. And it always seemed to me that that's what human humanity should be about. As I, you know, got older, I thought, how could I be involved in helping people come together? Oh, let's go into law. Because, you know, our government's really good at that. That was the high school student in me. And I thought at the time, I wanted to go into the Foreign Service and work in the international field and help, you know, on a net, on a you know, foreign policy level. I quickly got into law school and realized two things simultaneously in my second year, international law was very boring, and there were plenty of problems in my local community that I could help solve, like, why work on the international stage when people in my local community are suffering in some degree with something and so I completely changed my focus to wanting to work in an area where I could bring people together and work for, you know, work on an individualized level. And as I went into the legal field, that was, it was part of the reason I went into the mediation, because that was one of the things that we did, was helping people come together. I realized, though, as I became a lawyer and actually started working in the field, most of the legal system is not based on that. It's based on who has the best argument. I wanted no part of that. Yeah, I want no part of that at all. I want to bring people together. Still, the Star Trek mentality is working here, and so when I when I started my own law firm, my immediate question to myself was, how can I now that I'm out doing my own thing, actually bring people together? And the answer that I got was help families come together, especially people thinking about their end of life decisions and gathering their support team around them. Who they want to help them? If they are ever in a situation where they become ill and they can't manage their affairs, or if you know upon their death, who do they want to help them and support them. And how can I use the law to allow that to happen? And so that's how I am working, to use the law for healing and bringing people together, rather than rather than winning an argument. Michael Hingson ** 39:59 Yeah. Yeah, well, and I think there's a lot of merit to that. I I value the law a great deal, and I I am not an attorney or anything like that, but I have worked in the world of legislation, and I've worked in the world of dealing with helping to get legislation passed and and interacting with lawyers. And my wife and I worked with an attorney to set up our our trust, and then couple of years ago, I redid it after she passed away. And so I think that there was a lot of a lot of work that attorneys do that is extremely important. Yeah, there are, there are attorneys that were always dealing with the best arguments, and probably for me, the most vivid example of that, because it was so captivating when it happened, was the whole OJ trial back in the 1990s we were at a county fair, and we had left going home and turned on the radio, only To hear that the police were following OJ, and they finally arrested him. And then when the trial occurred, we while I was working at a company, and had a radio, and people would would come around, and we just had the radio on, and followed the whole trial. And it was interesting to see all the manipulation and all the movement, and you're right. It came down to who had the best argument, right or wrong? Erin Edgar ** 41:25 The bloody glove. If it doesn't fit, you must acquit. Yeah, yep, I remember that. I remember where I was when they arrested him, too. I was at my grandparents house, and we were watching it on TV. My grandfather was captivated by the whole thing. But yes, there's certainly, you know, some manipulation. There's also, there are also lawyers who do a lot of good and a lot of wonderful things. And in reality, you know, most cases don't go to trial. They're settled in some way. And so, you know, there isn't always, you know, who has the best argument. It's not always about that, right? And at the same time, that is, you know, what the system is based on, to some extent. And really, when our country was founded, our founding fathers were a bunch of, like, acted in a lot of ways, like a bunch of children. If you read books on, you know, the Constitution, it was, it was all about, you know, I want this in here, and I want that in here. And, you know, a lot of argument around that, which, of course, is to be expected. And many of them did not expect our country's government to last beyond their lifetimes. Uh, James Madison was the exception, but all the others were like, Ed's going to fail. And yet, I am very, very proud to be a lawyer in this country, because while it's not perfect, our founding documents actually have a lot of flexibility and how and can be interpreted to fit modern times, which is, I think the beauty of them and exactly what the Founders intended for. Michael Hingson ** 43:15 Yeah, and I do think that some people are taking advantage of that and causing some challenges, but that's also part of our country and part of our government. I like something Jimmy Carter once said, which was, we must adjust to changing times while holding to unwavering principles. And I think absolutely that's the part that I think sometimes is occasionally being lost, that we forget those principles, or we want to manipulate the principles and make them something that they're not. But he was absolutely right. That is what we need to do, and we can adjust to changing times without sacrificing principles. Absolutely. Erin Edgar ** 43:55 I firmly believe that, and I would like to kind of turn it back to what we were talking about before, because you actually asked me, What are some challenges that I have faced, and if it's okay with you, I would like to get back to that. Oh, sure. Okay. Well, so I have faced some challenges for you know, to a large extent, though I was very well accommodated. I mean, the one challenge with the books that was challenging when I took the bar exam, oh, horror of horrors. It was a multiple, multiple shot deal, but it finally got done. However, it was not, you know, my failing to pass the first time or times was not the fault of the actual board of law examiners. They were very accommodating. I had to advocate for myself a little bit, and I also had to jump through some hoops. For example, I had to bring my own person to bubble in my responses on the multiple choice part, it. And bring my own person in to kind of monitor me while I did the essay portion. But they allowed me to have a computer, they allowed me to have, you know, the screen reader. They allowed me to have time and a half to do the the exam. And so we're accommodating in that way. And so no real challenges there. You know, some hoops to jump through. But it got all worked out. Michael Hingson ** 45:23 And even so, some of that came about because blind people actually had to go all the way to the Supreme Court. Yes, the bar to the Bar Association to recognize that those things needed to be that way, Erin Edgar ** 45:37 absolutely. And so, you know, I was lucky to come into this at a time where that had already been kind of like pre done for me. I didn't have to deal with that as a challenge. And so the only other challenges I had, some of them, were mine, like, you know, who's going to want to hire this blind person? Had a little bit of, you know, kind of challenge there, with that mindset issue for a while there, and I did have some challenges when I was looking for employment after I'd worked for legal aid for a while, and I wanted to move on and do something else. And I knew I didn't want to work for a big, big firm, and I would, I was talking to some small law firms about hiring me, small to mid size firms. And I would get the question of, well, you're blind, so what kind of accommodations do you need? And we would talk about, you know, computer, special software to make a talk, you know, those kinds of things. And it always ended up that, you know, someone else was hired. And I can, you know, I don't have proof that the blindness and the hesitancy around hiring a disabled person or a blind person was in back of that decision. And at the same time, I had the sense that there was some hesitation there as well, so that, you know, was a bit of a challenge, and starting my own law firm was its own challenge, because I had to experiment with several different software systems to Find one that was accessible enough for me to use. And the system I'm thinking about in particular, I wouldn't use any other system, and yet, I'm using practically the most expensive estate planning drafting system out there, because it happens to be the most accessible. It's also the most expensive. Always that. There's always that. And what's it called? I'm curious. It's called wealth Council, okay, wealth. And then the word councils, Council, SEL, and it's wonderful. And the folks there are very responsive. If I say something's not accessible, I mean, they have fixed things for me in the past. Isn't that great? And complain, isn't that wonderful? It is wonderful. And that's, that's awesome. I had a CRM experience with a couple of different like legal CRM software. I used one for a while, and it was okay. But then, you know, everyone else said this other one was better and it was actually less accessible. So I went back to the previous one, you know. So I have to do a lot of my own testing, which is kind of a challenge in and of itself. I don't have people testing software for me. I have to experiment and test and in some cases, pay for something for a while before I realize it's not, you know, not worth it. But now I have those challenges pretty much ironed out. And I have a paralegal who helps me do some things that, like she proof reads my documents, for instance, because otherwise there may be formatting things that I'm not, that I miss. And so I have the ability to have cited assistance with things that I can't necessarily do myself, which is, you know, absolutely fine, Michael Hingson ** 49:04 yeah. Now, do you use Lexus? Is it accessible? Erin Edgar ** 49:08 I don't need Lexus, yeah, yeah. I mean, I have, I'm a member of the Bar Association, of my, my state bar association, which is not, not voluntary. It's mandatory. But I'm a member primarily because they have a search, a legal search engine that they work with that we get for free. I mean, with our members, there you go. So there you go. So I don't need Lexus or West Law or any of those other search engines for what I do. And if I was, like, really into litigation and going to court all time and really doing deep research, I would need that. But I don't. I can use the one that they have, that we can use so and it's, it's a entirely web based system. It's fairly accessible Michael Hingson ** 49:58 well, and. That makes it easier to as long as you've got people's ears absolutely make it accessible, which makes a lot of sense. Erin Edgar ** 50:08 Yeah, it certainly does well. Michael Hingson ** 50:10 So do you regard yourself as a resilient person? Has blindness impacted that or helped make that kind of more the case for you? Do you think I do resilience is such an overused term, but it's fair. I know Erin Edgar ** 50:24 I mean resilience is is to my mind, a resilient person is able to face uh, challenges with a relatively positive outlook in and view a challenge as something to be to be worked through rather than overcome, and so yes, I do believe that blindness, in and of itself, has allowed me to find ways to adapt to situations and pivot in cases where, you know, I need to find an alternative to using a mouse. For instance, how would I do that? And so in other areas of life, I am, you know, because I'm blind, I'm able to more easily pivot into finding alternative solutions. I do believe that that that it has made me more resilient. Michael Hingson ** 51:25 Do you think that being blind has caused you, and this is an individual thing, because I think that there are those who don't. But do you think that it's caused you to learn to listen better? Erin Edgar ** 51:39 That's a good question, because I actually, I have a lot of sighted friends, and one of the things that people just assume is that, wow, you must be a really good listener. Well, my husband would tell you that's not always the case. Yeah. My wife said the same thing, yeah. You know, like everyone else, sometimes I hear what I want to hear in a conversation and at the same time, one of the things that I do tell people is that, because I'm blind, I do rely on other senses more, primarily hearing, I would say, and that hearing provides a lot of cues for me about my environment, and I've learned to be more skillful at it. So I, I would say that, yes, I am a good listener in terms of my environment, very sensitive to that in in my environment, in terms of active listening to conversations and being able to listen to what's behind what people say, which is another aspect of listening. I think that that is a skill that I've developed over time with conscious effort. I don't think I'm any better of a quote, unquote listener than anybody else. If I hadn't developed that primarily in in my mediation, when I was doing that, that was a huge thing for us, was to be able to listen, not actually to what people were saying, but what was behind what people were saying, right? And so I really consciously developed that skill during those years and took it with me into my legal practice, which is why I am very, very why I very much stress that I'm not only an attorney, but I'm also a counselor at law. That doesn't mean I'm a therapist, but it does mean I listen to what people say so that and what's behind what people say, so that with the ear towards providing them the legal solution that meets their needs as they describe them in their words. Michael Hingson ** 53:47 Well, I think for me, I learned to listen, but it but it is an exercise, and it is something that you need to practice, and maybe I learned to do it a little bit better, because I was blind. For example, I learned to ride a bike, and you have to learn to listen to what's going on around you so you don't crash into cars. Oh, but I'd fall on my face. You can do it. But what I what I really did was, when I was I was working at a company, and was told that the job was going to be phased out because I wasn't a revenue producer, and the company was an engineering startup and had to bring in more revenue producers. And I was given the choice of going away or going into sales, which I had never done. And as I love to tell people, I lowered my standards and went from science to sales. But the reality is that that I think I've always and I think we all always sell in one way or another, but I also knew what the unemployment rate among employable blind people was and is, yeah, and so I went into sales with with no qualms. But there I really learned to listen. And and it was really a matter of of learning to commit, not just listen, but really learning to communicate with the people you work with. And I think that that I won't say blindness made me better, but what it did for me was it made me use the technologies like the telephone, perhaps more than some other people. And I did learn to listen better because I worked at it, not because I was blind, although they're related Erin Edgar ** 55:30 exactly. Yeah, and I would say, I would 100% agree I worked at it. I mean, even when I was a child, I worked at listening to to become better at, kind of like analyzing my environment based on sounds that were in it. Yeah, I wouldn't have known. I mean, it's not a natural gift, as some people assume, yeah, it's something you practice and you have to work at. You get to work at. Michael Hingson ** 55:55 Well, as I point out, there are people like SEAL Team Six, the Navy Seals and the Army Rangers and so on, who also practice using all of their senses, and they learn, in general, to become better at listening and other and other kinds of skills, because they have to to survive, but, but that's what we all do, is if we do it, right, we're learning it. It's not something that's just naturally there, right? I agree, which I think is important. So you're working in a lot of estate planning and so on. And I mentioned earlier that we it was back in 1995 we originally got one, and then it's now been updated, but we have a trust. What's the difference between having, like a trust and a will? Erin Edgar ** 56:40 Well, that's interesting that you should ask. So A will is the minimum that pretty much, I would say everyone needs, even though 67% of people don't have one in the US. And it is pretty much what everyone needs. And it basically says, you know, I'm a, I'm a person of sound mind, and I know who is important to me and what I have that's important to me. And I wanted to go to these people who are important to me, and by the way, I want this other person to manage things after my death. They're also important to me and a trust, basically, there are multiple different kinds of trusts, huge numbers of different kinds. And the trust that you probably are referring to takes the will to kind of another level and provides more direction about about how to handle property and how how it's to be dealt with, not only after death, but also during your lifetime. And trusts are relatively most of them, like I said, there are different kinds, but they can be relatively flexible, and you can give more direction about how to handle that property than you can in a will, like, for instance, if you made an estate plan and your kids were young, well, I don't want my children to have access to this property until they're responsible adults. So maybe saying, in a trust until they're age 25 you can do that, whereas in a will, you it's more difficult to do that. Michael Hingson ** 58:18 And a will, as I understand it, is a lot more easily contested than than a trust. Erin Edgar ** 58:24 You know, it does depend, but yes, it is easily contested. That's not to say that if you have a trust, you don't need a will, which is a misconception that some, yeah, we have a will in our trust, right? And so, you know, you need the will for the court. Not everyone needs a trust. I would also venture to say that if you don't have a will on your death, the law has ideas about how your property should be distributed. So if you don't have a will, you know your property is not automatically going to go to the government as unclaimed, but if you don't have powers of attorney for your health care and your finance to help you out while you're alive, you run the risk of the A judge appointing someone you would not want to make your health care and financial decisions. And so I'm going to go off on a tangent here. But I do feel very strongly about this, even blind people who and disabled people who are, what did you call it earlier, the the employable blind community, but maybe they're not employed. They don't have a lot of Michael Hingson ** 59:34 unemployed, unemployed, the unemployable blind people, employable Erin Edgar ** 59:38 blind people, yes, you know, maybe they're not employed, they're on a government benefit. They don't have a lot of assets. Maybe they don't necessarily need that will. They don't have to have it. And at the same time, if they don't have those, those documents that allow people to manage their affairs during their lifetime. Um, who's going to do it? Yeah, who's going to do that? Yeah, you're giving up control of your body, right, potentially, to someone you would not want, just because you're thinking to yourself, well, I don't need a will, and nothing's going to happen to me. You're giving control of your body, perhaps, to someone you don't want. You're not taking charge of your life and and you are allowing doctors and hospitals and banks to perpetuate the belief that you are not an independent person, right? I'm very passionate about it. Excuse me, I'll get off my soapbox now. That's okay. Those are and and to a large extent, those power of attorney forms are free. You can download them from your state's website. Um, they're minimalistic. They're definitely, I don't use them because I don't like them for my state. But you can get you can use them, and you can have someone help you fill them out. You could sign them, and then look, you've made a decision about who's going to help you when you're not able to help yourself, Michael Hingson ** 1:01:07 which is extremely important to do. And as I mentioned, we went all the way and have a trust, and we funded the trust, and everything is in the trust. But I think that is a better way to keep everything protected, and it does provide so much more direction for whoever becomes involved, when, when you decide to go elsewhere, then, as they put it, this mortal coil. Yes, I assume that the coil is mortal. I don't know. Erin Edgar ** 1:01:37 Yeah, who knows? Um, and you know trusts are good for they're not just for the Uber wealthy, which is another misconception. Trust do some really good things. They keep your situation, they keep everything more or less private, like, you know, I said you need a will for the court. Well, the court has the will, and it most of the time. If you have a trust, it just says, I want it to go, I want my stuff to go into the Michael hingson Trust. I'm making that up, by the way, and I, you know, my trust just deals with the distribution, yeah, and so stuff doesn't get held up in court. The court doesn't have to know about all the assets that you own. It's not all public record. And that's a huge, you know, some people care. They don't want everyone to know their business. And when I tell people, you know, I can go on E courts today and pull up the estate of anyone that I want in North Carolina and find out what they owned if they didn't have a will, or if they just had a will. And people like, really, you can do that? Oh, absolutely, yeah. I don't need any fancy credentials. It's all a matter of public record. And if you have a trust that does not get put into the court record unless it's litigated, which you know, it does happen, but not often, Michael Hingson ** 1:02:56 but I but again, I think that, you know, yeah, and I'm not one of those Uber wealthy people. But I have a house. We we used to have a wheelchair accessible van for Karen. I still have a car so that when I need to be driven somewhere, rather than using somebody else's vehicle, we use this and those are probably the two biggest assets, although I have a bank account with with some in it, not a lot, not nearly as much as Jack Benny, anyway. But anyway, the bottom line is, yeah, but the bottom line is that I think that the trust keeps everything a lot cleaner. And it makes perfect sense. Yep, it does. And I didn't even have to go to my general law firm that I usually use. Do we cheat them? Good, and how so it worked out really well. Hey, I watched the Marx Brothers. What can I say? Erin Edgar ** 1:03:45 You watch the Marx Brothers? Of course. Michael Hingson ** 1:03:49 Well, I want to thank you for being here. This has been a lot of fun, and I'm glad that we did it and that we also got to talk about the whole issue of wills and trusts and so on, which is, I think, important. So any last things that you'd like to say to people, and also, do you work with clients across the country or just in North Carolina? Erin Edgar ** 1:04:06 So I work with clients in North Carolina, I will say that. And one last thing that I would like to say to people is that it's really important to build your support team. Whether you're blind, you know, have another disability, you need people to help you out on a day to day basis, or you decide that you want people to help you out. If you're unable to manage your affairs at some point in your life, it's very important to build that support team around you, and there is nothing wrong. You can be self reliant and still have people on your team yes to to be there for you, and that is very important. And there's absolutely no shame, and you're not relinquishing your independence by doing that. That. So today, I encourage everyone to start thinking about who's on your team. Do you want them on your team? Do you want different people on your team? And create a support team? However that looks like, whatever that looks like for you, that has people on it that you know, love and trust, Michael Hingson ** 1:05:18 everybody should have a support team. I think there is no question, at least in my mind, about that. So good point. Well, if people want to maybe reach out to you, how do they do that? Erin Edgar ** 1:05:29 Sure, so I am on the interwebs at Erin Edgar legal.com that's my website where you can learn more about my law firm and all the things that I do, Michael Hingson ** 1:05:42 and Erin is E r i n, just Yes, say that Edgar, and Erin Edgar ** 1:05:45 Edgar is like Edgar. Allan Poe, hopefully less scary, and you can find the contact information for me on the website. By Facebook, you can find me on Facebook occasionally as Erin Baker, Edgar, three separate words, that is my personal profile, or you can and Michael will have in the show notes the company page for my welcome as Michael Hingson ** 1:06:11 well. Yeah. Well, thank you for being here, and I want to thank all of you for listening. This has been a fun episode. It's been great to have Erin on, love to hear your thoughts out there who have been listening to this today. Please let us know what you think. You're welcome to email me at Michael H i@accessibe.com M, I, C, H, A, E, L, H i at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, or go to our podcast page, www, dot Michael hingson.com/podcast, I wherever you're listening, please give us a five star rating. We really appreciate getting good ratings from people and reading and getting to know what you think. If you know anyone who you think might be a good guest, you know some people you think ought to come on unstoppable mindset. Erin, of course, you as well. We would appreciate it if you'd give us an introduction, because we're always looking for more people to have come on and help us show everyone that we're all more unstoppable than we think we are, and that's really what it's all about, and what we want to do on the podcast. So hope that you'll all do that, and in the meanwhile, with all that, Erin, I want to thank you once more for being here and being with us today. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you so much, Erin Edgar ** 1:07:27 Michael. I very much enjoyed it. Michael Hingson ** 1:07:34 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite
The BARD annotation follows: My friends DB129483 Author: Backman, Fredrik Reading Time: 13 hours, 9 minutes Read by: Ireland, Marin Subjects: General Fiction, Friendship Fiction “Most people don’t even notice them–three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love. Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what she’ll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art.”– From publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. New York : Simon & Schuster Audio, 2025. You can find this book on Bookshare at the following website: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6545673?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPU15JTJCRnJpZW5kcyUyQg
The BARD annotation follows: My friends DB129483 Author: Backman, Fredrik Reading Time: 13 hours, 9 minutes Read by: Ireland, Marin Subjects: General Fiction, Friendship Fiction “Most people don’t even notice them–three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love. Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what she’ll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art.”– From publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. New York : Simon & Schuster Audio, 2025. You can find this book on Bookshare at the following website: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6545673?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPU15JTJCRnJpZW5kcyUyQg Enter the Worlds of Books Zoom Room Worlds of Books Meets the 3rd Tuesday of each month at 9pm Eastern. Join the Worlds of Books Meeting from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: Or iPhone one-tap : US: +14086380986,,286200556# or +16468769923,,286200556# Or Telephone: Dial(for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location): US: +1 408 638 0986 or +1 646 876 9923 Meeting ID: 286 200 556 International numbers available:
Bio: Jim Fruchterman is a leading social entrepreneur, author, MacArthur Fellow, recipient of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and Distinguished Alumnus of Caltech. After starting two successful for-profit AI companies, he went on to found Benetech, the award-winning tech nonprofit, building tools for people with disabilities and human rights defenders document and analyze abuses. His current nonprofit projects at Tech Matters include Aselo, a shared modern contact center for the crisis response field; Terraso, software for the people on the front line of the climate crisis; and the Better Deal for Data, a data governance reform movement. This episode is sponsored by the coaching company of the host, Paul Zelizer. Consider a Strategy Session if you can use support growing your impact business. Resources mentioned in this episode include: Benetech site Bookshare site Aselo site Terrasoul site Tech for Good book Paul's Strategy Sessions Pitch an Awarepreneurs episode
A recent YouGov poll shows one in five UK parents feel their children often can't read print in the way it is presented to them at school. David Hogg finds out about RNIB Bookshare, a free service which can level the playing field. Find out more about RNIB Bookshare here: Home - RNIB Bookshare Image shows the RNIB Connect Radio logo. On a white background ‘RNIB' written in bold black capital letters and underline with a bold pink line. Underneath the line: ‘Connect Radio' is written in black in a smaller font.
Jana Littrell facilitates A Journey through History book group and will lead the discussion on 9/2/25 at 8pm Eastern of James K. Polk DBC27665 by John Seigenthaler. BARD annotation James K. Polk DBC27665 Author: Seigenthaler, John Reading Time: 5 hours, 21 minutes Read by: Raines, Eric Subjects: Biography, Government and Politics, U.S. History The story of a pivotal president who watched over our westward expansion and solidified the dream of Jacksonian democracy. James K. Polk was a shrewd and decisive commander in chief, who served as Speaker of the House and governor of Tennessee before taking office in 1845. Shortly after his inauguration, he settled the disputed Oregon boundary and by 1846 had declared war on Mexico for the annexation of Texas and California. The considerably smaller American army never lost a battle. At home, however, Polk suffered a political firestorm of antiwar attacks from many fronts. And yet despite his tremendous accomplishments, he left office an extremely unpopular man, whose stresses had taken such a physical toll that he died within three months of departing Washington. Fellow Tennessean John Seigenthaler traces the life of this President who, as Truman noted, “said what he intended to do and did it.” Adult. New York : Times Books, 2004. Bookshare This book can be found on Bookshare at the following link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/70191?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPUphbWVzJTJCSy4lMkJQb2xr
on Friday, September 5, 2025 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time. Please join us to welcome Tracey back and don’t forget to bring your questions and comments. The BARD annotation is below. Unfortunately, this book is not available on Bookshare. Our facilitator for this meeting will be Michelle Bernstein, hamletsweetlady@gmail.com. BARD annotation What happened to the McCrays? DB128432 Author: Lange, Tracey Reading Time: 10 hours, 29 minutes Read by: Németh-Parker, Stephanie, DeMeritt, William Subjects: Family, Romance “When Kyle McCray gets word his father has suffered a debilitating stroke, he returns to his hometown of Potsdam, New York, where he doesn’t expect a warm welcome. Kyle left suddenly two and a half years ago, abandoning people who depended on him: his father, his employees, his friends–not to mention Casey, his wife of sixteen years and a beloved teacher in town. He plans to lie low and help his dad recuperate until he can leave again, especially after Casey makes it clear she wants him gone. The longer he’s home, the more Kyle understands the impact his departure has had on the people he left behind. When he’s presented with an opportunity for redemption as the coach of the floundering middle school hockey team, he begins to find compassion in unexpected places. Kyle even considers staying in Potsdam, but that’s only possible if he and Casey can come to some kind of peace with each other.”– From publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. New York : Macmillan, 2025. Bookshare This book is not available on Bookshare. Beginning with the October meeting, LeDon has volunteered to facilitate the group.
2536 Creating Tech Solutions for Social Good (Sep. 3, 2025) Show Notes How can nonprofit tech leaders harness tech and AI to drive accessibility? Hosts Nancy and Peter Torpey talk with Jim Fruchterman, founder of Tech Matters, about his journey from Arkenstone to Bookshare and the challenges of funding social enterprises. He shares insights on … Continue reading 2536 Creating Tech Solutions for Social Good (Sep. 3, 2025) →
20250827 LUA Link Originally Broadcasted August 27, 2025, on ACB Media 6 Participants joined us for a conversation with author Thomas Mullen about his novel Blind Spots-NLS DB113807. also, on Bookshare. Seven years after a global “Blinding,” People see through brain-linked devices. When a scientist is murdered, a witness claims the killer was blacked out of her feed. Veteran detective Mark Owens investigates as more bodies fall—and as he learns even his own vision can be hacked. A panel engaged Mr. Mullen, with plenty of time for your questions. Bonus: one attendee will receive an autographed copy of Blind Spots. Sponsored by: Library Users of America Find out more at https://acb-community.pinecast.co
The NLS annotation follows: Strangers in time: a World War II novel DB128900 Author: Baldacci, David Reading Time: 13 hours, 49 minutes Read by: Crank, Stewart, Boulton, Alexandra, Lee, John, Delgado, Nicola F., Davies, Matthew Lloyd, Pitts, Joe Subjects: Historical Fiction, Suspense Fiction, War Stories “Fourteen-year-old Charlie Matters is up to no good, but for a very good reason. Without parents, peerage, or merit, ducking school but barred from actual work, he steals what he needs, living day-to-day until he’s old enough to enlist to fight the Germans. After barely surviving the Blitz, Charlie knows there’s no telling when a falling bomb might end his life. Fifteen-year-old Molly Wakefield has just returned to a nearly unrecognizable London. One of millions of people to have been evacuated to the countryside via “Operation Pied Piper,” Molly has been away from her parents–from her home–for nearly five years. Her return, however, is not the homecoming she’d hoped for as she’s confronted by a devastating reality: neither of her parents are there, only her old nanny, Mrs. Pride. Without guardians and stability, Charlie and Molly find an unexpected ally and protector in Ignatius Oliver, and solace at his book shop, The Book Keep, where A book a day keeps the bombs away. Mourning the recent loss of his wife, Ignatius forms a kinship with both children, and in each other–over the course of the greatest armed conflict the world had ever seen–they rediscover the spirit of family each has lost. But Charlie’s escapades in the city have not gone unnoticed, and someone’s been following Molly since she returned to London. And Ignatius is reeling from a secret Imogen long kept from him while she was alive–something so shocking it resulted in her death, and his life being turned upside down. As bombs continue to bear down on the city, Charlie, Molly, and Ignatius learn that while the perils of war rage on, their coming together and trusting one another may be the only way for them to survive.”– Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. New York : Hachette Book Group, 2025. You can find this book on Bookshare at the following website: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6518975?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVN0cmFuZ2VycyUyQmluJTJCdGltZSUyNTNB
David Faucheux will join us again on 8/5/25 at 8pm Eastern to facilitate the discussion of The Colony Club: a novel DB127808 by Shelley Noble. NLS annotation The Colony Club: a novel DB127808 Author: Noble, Shelley Reading Time: 11 hours, 42 minutes Read by: Hewitt, Caroline Subjects: Historical Fiction, Women, General Fiction “When young Gilded Age society matron Daisy Harriman is refused a room at the Waldorf because they don’t cater to unaccompanied females, she takes matters into her own hands. She establishes the Colony Club, the first women’s club in Manhattan, where visiting women can stay overnight and dine with their friends; where they can discuss new ideas, take on social issues, and make their voices heard. She hires the most sought-after architect in New York, Stanford White, to design the clubhouse. As “the best dressed actress on the Rialto” Elsie de Wolfe has an eye for décor, but her career is stagnating. So when White asks her to design the clubhouse interiors, she jumps at the chance and the opportunity to add a woman’s touch. He promises to send her an assistant, a young woman he’s hired as a draftsman. Raised in the Lower East Side tenements, Nora Bromely is determined to become an architect in spite of hostility and sabotage from her male colleagues. She is disappointed and angry when White “foists” her off on this new women’s club project. But when White is murdered and the ensuing Trial of the Century discloses the architect’s scandalous personal life, fearful backers begin to withdraw their support. It’s questionable whether the club will survive long enough to open.Daisy, Elsie, and Nora have nothing in common but their determination to carry on. But to do so, they must overcome not only society’s mores but their own prejudices about women, wealth, and each other. Together they strive to transform Daisy’s dream of the Colony Club into a reality, a place that will nurture social justice and ensure the work of the women who earned the nickname “Mink Brigade” far into the future.”– From publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. New York : HarperAudio, 2024. Bookshare This book can be found on Bookshare at the following link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6193331?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVRoZSUyQmNvbG9ueSUyQmNsdWI
We will not meet in July due to the July 4th holiday. We will continue this group without a facilitator until we have one and we hope you can join us to informally discuss this book. NLS annotation Three days in June DB127313 Author: Tyler, Anne Reading Time: 4 hours, 25 minutes Read by: Smith-Cameron, J. Subjects: Human Relations, Family, Women, Romance “Gail Baines is long divorced from her husband, Max, and not especially close to her grown daughter, Debbie. Today is the day before Debbie’s wedding. To start, Gail loses her job–or quits, depending who you ask. Then, Max arrives unannounced on Gail’s doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay and without even a suit in which to walk their daughter down the aisle. But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband-to-be. It will not only throw the wedding itself into question but also send Gail back into her past and how her own relationship fell apart.”– Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. New York : Penguin Random House, 2025. Bookshare This book can be found on Bookshare at this link: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6428188?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVRocmVlJTJCZGF5cyUyQmluJTJCSnVuZQ This group currently does not have a scheduled facilitator and we will continue to pick and discuss books as a group.
The NLS annotation follows: The bright side of disaster: a novel DBC04849 Author: Center, Katherine Reading Time: 8 hours, 28 minutes Read by: Nancy VanHemert Subjects: General Fiction, Humor and Humorous Fiction Very pregnant and not quite married, Jenny Harris doesn’t mind that she and her live-in fiancé, Dean, accidentally started their family a little earlier than planned. But Dean is acting distant, and the night he runs out for cigarettes and doesn’t come back, he demotes himself from future husband to sperm donor. And the very next day, Jenny goes into labor. Contains some descriptions of sex and strong language. New York : Ballantine Books, 2008. You can find this book on Bookshare at the following website: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/4236758?returnPath=L3NlYXJjaD9tb2R1bGVOYW1lPXB1YmxpYyZrZXl3b3JkPVRoZSUyQmJyaWdodCUyQnNpZGUlMkJvZiUyQmRpc2FzdGVyJTI1M0ElMkJhJTJCbm92ZWw
Facilitator: MariaTopics: How find the edit to delete contact; Issues with volume focus changing while switching apps; ssues finding the "OK" button; Calling Accessibility support; Inconsistency with accessibility with updates, i.e. Netflix; Sometimes driving mode accidentally getting turned on; Do we want screen recognition on or off by default; Where to find Screen Recognition; How to Label certain buttons; Unable to download need software for V.O. Screen Recognition; Setting speech rate; Issues with Voice Stream Reader stops reading in Kindle or Bookshare; Using or not using Unspoken Content; Does Spoken Content interfere with Voice Over?; Email not showing up on Ipad but it's still on Iphone; iBUG Bytes: Maria: Calling Phone Number from Voicemail Transcriptions
The Personal Brain Trainer Podcast: Embodying Executive Functions
In this episode of the Executive Function Braintrainer Podcast, hosts Darius Namdaran and Dr. Erica Warren explore how AI and assistive technology are revolutionizing the landscape of learning disabilities. They discuss the potential of AI tools like Speechify, Google Classroom, and Notebook LM in leveling the playing field for students with dyslexia, ADHD, and other learning differences. The conversation delves into how these technologies can turn traditional disabilities into strengths by accommodating various processing styles and offering personalized learning experiences. Additionally, they touch on the concept of executive dysfunction and the potential for AI to aid in developing better organization and planning skills. The episode aims to provide insights into how AI can empower both students and educators to enhance learning and teaching experiences.LinksSpeechify: https://share.speechify.com/mzxDU3e Use this link to get $60 off Speechify and 1 month FREE when they sign up for Premium.Shovel: Shovel Referral ID for 20% off: Go to https://shovelapp.io/dig/108/ Use coupon code:DRWARREN Student Processing Profile: https://goodsensorylearning.com/search?type=product&q=yppi Your Professional Processing Inventory: https://goodsensorylearning.com/search?type=product&q=yppi Voice Dream Reader: https://www.voicedream.com/ Elevenlabs: https://elevenlabs.io/ Bookshare: https://www.bookshare.org/ Learning Ally: https://learningally.org/ Executive Function: https://goodsensorylearning.com/blogs/news/tagged/executive-functioning Cognitive Flexibility: https://goodsensorylearning.com/blogs/news/dyslexia-and-executive-function Dyslexia Quiz: https://bulletmapacademy.com/dyslexia-quiz/Inhibitory Control: https://goodsensorylearning.com/blogs/news/poor-executive-functioning?_pos=3&_sid=19d2b3888&_ss=r Visualization: https://goodsensorylearning.com/blogs/news/the-key-to-improved-attention-and-memory-for-optimal-learning?_pos=8&_sid=a9d61809a&_ss=r Inner Voice: https://goodsensorylearning.com/blogs/news/inner-voice-app?_pos=1&_sid=604e0b13e&_ss=r Working Memory: https://goodsensorylearning.com/blogs/news/tagged/working-memory Brought to you by:https://ivvi.apphttps://goodsensorylearning.comhttps://learningspecialistcourses.comhttps://goodsensorylearning.com/products/executive-functioning-coaching-assessmenthttps://dropintoyourbestself.com/https://learningtolearn.biz/
We have not done any interviews in a while on vision cast, but the waiting is over!Last week, we got to sit down to talk to a well-known songwriter and author in the Blind community named Abby Johnson Taylor. Visit her website pasted below this description for more information and her offerings.We also have lots of fun and randomness in the second hour.Thanks to our web developer guy from Latvia, here is a full description of last week's episode.Thanks for listening!Get ready for a fascinating conversation! This week, the Vision Cast Network crew sits down with the multi-talented author and musician, Abby Johnson Taylor. Dive deep into her latest book, "Living Vicariously in Wyoming," a collection of captivating short stories offering unique slices of life.Abby shares insights into her writing journey, revealing how a creative writing camp and a pivotal Mac computer sparked her passion. Learn about her transition from registered music therapist to full-time author, encouraged by her late husband. She discusses her vibrant musical side, performing with her guitar and keyboard at various venues, including senior center groups with fun names like the 'Hubcaps' and 'Lugnuts'! Discover where her stories come from, her experiences living across the US (from NYC to Wyoming!), and how you can get your hands on her books, including accessible formats on Bookshare and Bard. Abby even gives details on her upcoming poetry collection!Of course, it wouldn't be Vision Cast After Dark without some crew chaos! Hear Angela announce her own newly finished book, "Whispers of Freedom." Listen in as George surprises Angela with a custom song (and catch the hilarious fallout!). The team discusses the upcoming "cringe songs" karaoke theme (Aqua vs. Shakira?), laments the potential loss of Starbucks brownies, and shares updates on JC's upcoming travels and recital. There's even a quick dive into a potential new AI voice assistant for Mac. And, as always, expect plenty of laughs, friendly banter (especially aimed at George!), and unexpected tangents, including a memorable moment involving a baby stroller!Join us for an episode filled with creativity, inspiration, music, and the signature Vision Cast blend of fun and randomness. Hit play now!https://www.abbiejohnsontaylor.com/wp/
2512 Benetech Celebrates 25 Years of Making Books Accessible for Everyone (Mar. 19, 2025) Show Notes Benetech's work has transformed how people with disabilities access information. Hosts Nancy and Peter Torpey talk with founder Jim Fruchterman and CEO Ayan Kishore about the evolution of Bookshare, the use of AI in accessibility, the Global Certified Accessible … Continue reading 2512 Benetech Celebrates 25 Years of Making Books Accessible for Everyone (Mar. 19, 2025) →
Send me your feedback!Things don't always go as planned.In this episode, you'll learn how to handle the unexpected disruptions and obstacles that will inevitably materialize throughout your author journey.Be sure to respond to the poll!Do you want to see more content about:How to write life storyHow to self-publish your book How to market your bookShare your vote via voice message!Resources Mentioned in this Episode:1:1 Coaching Session - a single breakthrough session to gain strategy and clarity1:1 Coaching Bundle - Your choice of 1, 3, or 6 months of weekly coachingConnect with Your Host, Dalene Bickel:Ink and Impact Free Facebook GroupEmail: info@inkandimpact.comWebsite: inkandimpact.comThanks for listening! Join the FREE Ink and Impact Facebook group for Christian writers.
Tips for Using your NLS eReader with JAWS – A Braille Literacy Month Special Join us for an insightful episode on maximizing the potential of your NLS eReader with JAWS, featuring special guest Tamara Rory from the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS). Learn how to obtain and navigate NLS eReaders, understand their key features, and explore how they enhance access to Braille books, BARD, NFB Newsline, and Bookshare. Tamara also shares expert tips on connecting your eReader to JAWS for seamless computer use. Whether you're new to eReaders or looking to refine your skills, this episode is packed with valuable guidance to support your Braille reading journey.
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