When I picked this book up, I have to say I did not know anything about Paul Boskind as I am not familiar with him as a person. I think this memoir might have worked better for me if I did. I picked it up expecting a memoir about Art, Activism and Adaption. And while these things do play a role in the story, a lot of it is about Paul Boskind’s life, his family, his relationships and the many, many entrepreneurial things he did in his life. To tell his story the author often switches around through different times, moving us from his childhood to a trip in Macchu Piccu that turned out to be a lot more dangerous than assumed due to his vision loss to his political engagement or the time he remodeled a house by himself.
Despite the fact that I expected a bit of a different focus, I still found myself enjoying parts of this memoir a lot and one of my favorite scenes is the one where he describes his reaction after his diagnosis, which he decided to use a wake-up call to turn his life around. It was heartbreaking to read about the lack of empathy and kindness the doctors that diagnosed him with Stargardt’s disease showed him and the terror he experienced afterward, never sure when his life would change due to the unpredictable progressive nature of the disease. I also really enjoyed the scenes where he mentions various ways of adjusting to his decreasing ability, in particular the joy he was able to find in theater again thanks to accessibility tools interesting. It highlighted how important accessible art is.
His writing style took some getting used to (he is very judgmental towards others at times) and I feel that that as well as the sometimes unfocused narration of this memoir (with time switches and lacking a real narrative focus) made this memoir less interesting to me than it could have been. I think if he had decided to either tell this in a more chronological fashion or write short chapters that focus on one topic and then move on to the next this could have been a more enjoyable read. Finally, I expected some disability activism in here as well, which was mostly lacking. He does do activism for LGBT+ rights (which I liked) and was quite heavily involved with the Democratic Party (which I, as a non-American don’t really care that much about), so obviously that is probably just a mix-up with what I expected and what the author brought to the table, but I thought I’d mentioned it for other readers.
My biggest problem with this memoir was the language surrounding Deafness, which is not something I expect from a memoir about disability. While it is common to say something “fell on dead ears” I found it a bit distasteful in here and highlighting the fact that it feels bad for a mother to talk with her child about his cane in front of him by saying “he’s not hard of hearing” weirded me out a bit.
All in all this is a memoir that I personally couldn’t take too much away from and that I think you might get a lot more out of if you know the writer and the things he did.
TW: suicide, drug addiction, ableism, ableist language, loss of ability, grief

Although Boskind has obviously had a busy life where he's achieved a lot and done a lot of activism, I found the book a bit confusing to read as it hops back and forth between times and between experiences of his blindness (or not-accepted blindness) so you're never sure where you are or what you (and he) are seeing. This structural issue was a shame as it detracted from the value of the book.

My husband is registered blind and I thought this would be interesting to read. Apart from a chapter at the beginning and one at the end, very little is mentioned about sight loss and the majority of the book is about the author's life, pre and post sight loss, his family, jobs etc. Such a shame as the parts about his diagnosis, and how he dealt with losing his sight were really interesting and I could relate to so much of it after watching (and continuing to watch) how my husband deals with his sight loss. I did think reading the blurb that it would be more about that, but unfortunately it wasn't.

I often pick up memoirs of people I know absolutely nothing about, looking for some reflection on life and their experience. Sadly, this one did not give me that. I believe it will appeal more to people who already know the author and want to learn more about his life and all the jobs that he has had. I don't think it was bad, simply not for me.
I also believe this could use more editing, mostly to ensure some points aren't talked about extensively in different parts of the books for no reason.

‘A Blind Man's Game’ tells the life story of Paul Boskind, a successful entrepreneur, activist, and political campaigner. The book jumps around in time, showing how Paul achieved so much, from being an award-winning newspaper boy to producing Tony award-winning shows and working as a psychologist. While the casual writing style and lots of exclamation marks might not be for everyone, the book is still an inspiring read.

I really enjoyed this book about the life of Paul Boskind
This kind of book is not really my type of book but i did enjoyed it all the memorys and also the disease tha took is vision away
As a person that work in the area i really thought that all part of the disease were really well described
And i do really like that Paul makes us understand that blindness is not just seeing black but its a use range of imparing in our daily life when our vision is reduced

Thank you to #netgalley for this ARC of #blindmangame

This book was fascinating. Part of me wishes that more of the memoir was adapting to his loss of vision but I think that’s the point of the book. Well written.

‘A Blind Mans Game’ follows the extraordinary life of Paul Boskind an extraordinary entrepreneur, activist and political campaigner. The non-linear storytelling of this memoir depicts how Paul became fascinated and achieved many great things throughout his life. From being an award-winning newspaper boy to a producer on Tony award winning shows to a psychologist, Paul is clearly a man who has lived a fascinating and accomplished life. His story is one truly worth reading.

However, the writing at times is very weak, the conversational tone can make or break it for a reader. Personally, I like memoirs to be slightly more formal, the overwhelming use of exclamation marks were at times frustrating. But this is all personal taste.

I would recommend this book to someone who enjoys autobiographical non-fiction or adventure fiction as his life contained a lot of adventure.