Books are no substitute for a good audiologist, but they can be very helpful in learning how to live your best with hearing loss.

In “Hear & Beyond: Live Skillfully with Hearing Loss,” two seasoned writers on the topic of hearing loss have joined forces to tell us everything they know. This makes for a comprehensive guide for the neophyte and also a source of useful insights for those more experienced at living with hearing loss.
“Hear & Beyond,” by Shari Eberts and Gael Hannan, tackles the basics in clear organized chapters with lots of boxes and pullouts and mini-dialogues between the authors. Shari is the author of the popular blog “Living With Hearing Loss” and Gael of the critically acclaimed book “The Way I Hear It: A Life with Hearing Loss” and of “The Better Hearing Consumer” column on “Hearing Health & Technology Matters.”
Their primary aim, as they say in an opening statement, is to shift their focus – and ours – from wanting to hear better to wanting to communicate better. To this end they offer lots of practical advice on hearing aids and other devices, on speech reading and assistive technologies, on navigating tricky social situations like restaurants and cocktail parties.
Some of their advice is deceptively simple – “Arrive early.” This may be something you hadn’t thought of. Or it may even be something you have thought of but consciously not done, to avoid getting involved in a conversation you may not be able to hear. Arriving early, however, allows you to get your technology organized, get a seat where you’re most likely to be able to hear, and to tell anyone who needs the information about your hearing loss. “Arrive early” is one of their “hearing hacks,” simple precepts that are useful across the board.
They also coin some clever terms like “mindshift,” a way to reframe your attitude to something more productive. Instead of “nobody understands what I’m going through,” they write, think instead of the many people who’ve already been there, and realize that you can learn from them. Although they don’t say this specifically in this section on mindshifts, joining a support group like HLAA or ALDA can be your introduction to exactly those people who do know what you’re going through, and can help. As President of the New York City Chapter of HLAA, I also urge you to sign on to some of our chapter meetings, which you can find at hearinglossnyc.org, listed under “Programs.”
Another recent book is Latisha Porter’s “Sounds of the Heart.” Hers is a personal narrative, beginning with her difficult early school years before anyone realized she was deaf. She tells the reader how she got from there to here, i.e. a successful adult in the hearing world. She was blessed by a loving and supportive family, especially her father, and seems to have been similarly blessed with a loving and supporting husband. When it was suggested that the young Tish go into special ed because she was doing poorly in school (thanks to her undiagnosed and untreated hearing problems), her father said, “Tish is not going into a special education class, because there’s nothing wrong with her — she can learn.” Indeed she could, and she went on earn a B.A., a Masters. and eventually a PhD.
Tish, Shari and Gael are all active members of HLAA. If you go to the HLAA Convention in June, be sure to look them up.
A third book published recently is not about hearing, but I found it deeply resonant with my own experience. Frank Bruni, a New York Times columnist, suddenly lost much of the sight in one eye after a rare kind of stroke. He was at risk of losing his vision entirely. In “The Beauty of Dusk: On Vision Lost and Found,” he takes us along on the medical and emotional rollercoaster that ensued. It took a while for that rollercoaster to run its course, but in the end Bruni’s disability may have brought as much gain as it did loss. Here’s a wonderful example of the kind of “mindshift” Shari and Gael talk about. Though he can’t fix his eyesight, Bruni writes, he can shape his story: He can take the lament “I can’t believe what I’m going through” and turn it into a boast, a badge of honor: “I can’t believe what I’m managing to get through.”
Bruni also comes to understand how many people share seemingly life-shattering challenges: “Why me?” he asks at first, as we all ask when confronted with unexpected loss. “There’s a better question, of course,” he writes: “Why not me? Why should any of us be spared struggle, when struggle is a condition more universal than comfort, than satiation, than peace, maybe than love?” I think the phrase “vision found” in the subtitle refers in part to this greater understanding and compassion.
I have a library of books on hearing loss, some that I read before writing my own books, some excellent ones that have come out more recently. Of the more recent, Noel Holston’s “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery” is a moving reflection on hearing loss, and David Owen’s “Volume Control: Hearing in a Deafening World,” prompted by his own encounter with hearing problems, uses his skills as a writer and reporter to bring readers up to date on every aspect of hearing loss. Modesty should prevent me (but doesn’t) from mentioning my own three books: “Shouting Won’t Help” Why I – and 50 Million Others – Can’t Hear You,” “Living Better with Hearing Loss: a Guide to Health, Happiness, Love, Sex, Work, Friends… and Hearing Aids,” and “Smart Hearing: Strategies, Skills and Resources for Living Better with Hearing Loss.” Happy reading.