"A Sense of the World," by Jason Roberts
Sunday, March 4, 2007
BOOK: "A Sense of the World," by Jason Roberts (HarperCollins, $26.95)
TARGET AUDIENCE: People with room for one more personal hero.
In the early 19th century, when few people left the vicinity of their respective villages, James Holman found it impossible to resist world travel. (Indeed, he even secured a medical opinion that it was necessary for his health.) He climbed an erupting Vesuvius; it melted the tip of his walking stick. He saved a drifting ship from disaster, taking over its abandoned helm. He set mileage records and was a prolific writer and an engaging raconteur. And totally blind.
"I see things better with my feet," Holman explained. Roberts presents him not as a mere curiosity but as a model of self-sufficiency. Only once did Holman not travel solo; his companion was deaf. He traveled nearly the length of Siberia, only to be thwarted not by blindness but by Russian intrigue. (He later went on to circumnavigate the globe by a different route.) Forgotten for decades, Holman lives again to inspire us in this fascinating biography.
-- Jerry V. Haines
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