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From WBEZ Chicago, I'm Greta Johnson and this is the Nerd at Book Club.

It's just like a regular book club except you don't have to share your snacks.

It is the month of August and our selection this month is Andrew Leland's memoir,

The Country of the Blind. It's about Andrews constantly shifting world as his vision deteriorates

and it explores the mythology that blindness is a binary. It's also about how seeing culture

perceives blindness and the history of blindness in the United States. There is not really a spoiler

warning for this one but I do recommend listening to the interview with Andrew that is in the

feed. He is very funny and great so you should go check that out if you haven't yet. Either way,

I'm very glad you're listening today and I am so excited to introduce you to our guests this

month. With us, we have Em Leona go down the performer and educator who wrote a book in 2021

called Their Plant Eyes, A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness. Leona, welcome.

Oh, thank you so much Greta. Thanks for having me here.

So, full disclosure, you are friends with Andrew, right?

Right. I'm friends with Andrew. Yeah.

So, how did you first become friends?

Oh, boy. Well, you know, it's a small blind world after all.

I believe it was through our mutual friend Jim Knippel,

otherwise known as Slagja, who was a long time columnist for the New York Press and then you

wrote a memoir called Slagja, which is just really great. So, we often refer to him lovingly as

...