A Sense of the World (subtitled How a Blind Man became History's Greatest Traveler) is a bestselling biography of James Holman (1786–1857), the blind Englishman who overcame the adversity of sightlessness to become a world traveler and cultural commentator. Its author is Jason Roberts.
The book was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award, and for the international Guardian First Book Award. It was published in the United States by HarperCollins, and in the United Kingdom by Simon & Schuster. According to critic Lev Grossman of Time magazine:
A Sense of the World is inspiring--but in the real way, the way most "inspirational" books aren't. Holman wasn't a Fear Factor thrill seeker; he was a deeply Romantic figure, a man ransacking the globe for peace of mind even as he fled the demons of disappointment and bitterness nipping at his heels. A celebrity in his time, Holman subsided after his death into the darkness in which he lived. He, and readers everywhere, owes Roberts thanks for leading him back into the light.
Famous quotes containing the words sense and/or world:
“Parents vary in their sense of what would be suitable repayment for creating, sustaining, and tolerating you all those years, and what circumstances would be drastic enough for presenting the voucher. Obviously there is no repayment that would be sufficient . . . but the effort to call in the debt of life is too outrageous to be treated as anything other than a joke.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.... He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)