Quick Take
- Narration: Greg D. Barnett delivers Miele’s story with warmth and precision, capturing the wit and irreverence that reviewers highlight as the book’s defining quality.
- Themes: Disability identity and acceptance, accessibility innovation, resilience through adversity
- Mood: Frank, funny, and ultimately triumphant
- Verdict: A rare memoir that is as intellectually rigorous as it is emotionally alive, with a narrator who serves the material well.
I started listening to Connecting Dots on a Tuesday afternoon when I had nothing planned beyond a long walk. By the time I got home, I had covered twice my usual distance without noticing, because Joshua Miele had been telling me about playing bass in a rock band, working for NASA, and becoming a guerrilla activist for disability rights, and I simply did not want to stop moving forward any more than he ever did. That is the quality that sets this memoir apart from the stack of disability narratives I have encountered over the years: it is relentlessly alive.
Miele was blinded at four years old when a neighbor poured sulfuric acid over his head. The synopsis describes this plainly, and Miele himself seems to approach the fact with the same directness, neither sentimentalizing the horror of it nor asking you to linger there longer than necessary. The book is not about that moment. It is about every moment after it, and there are a great many of those, most of them surprising.
The Scientist Who Refused the Script
What immediately distinguishes Connecting Dots from more conventional disability memoirs is Miele’s relationship with his own identity. The synopsis notes that he was “at first reluctant to even think of himself as blind,” and this is not a detail to skip past. It sets up the central tension of the book: a man who is extraordinarily capable and inventive, navigating a world that has already decided what his story should look like. The pivot toward embracing blindness and becoming an accessibility advocate is handled as a genuine evolution rather than an inspirational crescendo, which makes it land harder.
His work on screen readers, tactile maps, and audio description is woven through the personal narrative rather than cordoned off into dry explainer passages. You understand why these technologies matter because you have already spent time inside the daily friction that makes them necessary. Miele chronicles the evolution of accessible technology in a way that reads like a thriller of incremental progress, each breakthrough earned through stubbornness and ingenuity.
The Life That Gets In the Way (Productively)
One of the unexpected pleasures of this audiobook is how much life Miele packs into the margins of his advocacy work. The rock band. The drugs and addiction, addressed without euphemism. The Stanford MBA. The marriage and family. A listener named Renee, quoted in the reviews, writes that she laughed and cried, and that tracks precisely with what I experienced. Miele has a storyteller’s instinct for pacing, knowing when to lean into absurdity and when to let a serious moment sit without commentary.
The reviewer who identifies as Josh’s aunt, writing from Brooklyn with stated bias, says that “Josh’s adventurous life is so interesting that I cannot conceive of anyone not eating up the details.” That is a fair assessment, bias acknowledged and discounted. The life is genuinely interesting, and the book does not waste it.
Greg D. Barnett’s Steady Hand
Greg D. Barnett narrates Connecting Dots with a register that matches the book’s particular tone: warm but not cozy, intelligent but never arch. This is not an easy balance when the material swings from a childhood trauma to a sly joke about NASA bureaucracy to a frank account of addiction. Barnett holds the thread. He does not impersonate Miele so much as inhabit the voice that Miele has built on the page, which is the right choice for a memoir this personal. The nine-and-a-half-hour runtime passes without the drag that longer biography-style narrations can sometimes produce.
Who Should Listen, Who Should Think Twice
Connecting Dots will resonate most strongly with listeners who want their disability narratives to come without the standard-issue arc of suffering followed by uplift. This is a messier, funnier, more politically engaged book than that framing would suggest. It will also appeal to anyone with an interest in the history of accessibility technology, where Miele’s contributions give the memoir a dimension most personal narratives lack entirely.
Listeners seeking a quiet, reflective memoir may find the pace occasionally too propulsive. This is a book that moves. If you prefer your memoir contemplative, Miele may outrun you. But if you want a story that earns its optimism rather than assuming it, this is the one to load next.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the audiobook cover Miele’s specific technical work in accessibility, or is it more personal narrative?
Both, genuinely. Miele threads his work on screen readers, tactile maps, and audio description through the personal story rather than separating them. You get enough technical context to understand what he built and why it mattered, but the book never tips into lecture.
Is the acid attack described in graphic detail?
Miele addresses the attack that blinded him at age four directly but without sensationalism. The book’s attention is on the life that followed rather than the traumatic event itself, so listeners who are sensitive to violence should find it manageable.
Does Greg D. Barnett’s narration handle the humorous passages well?
Yes. Reviewers consistently flag Miele’s wit as one of the memoir’s defining qualities, and Barnett’s delivery captures the dry, deadpan register that the humor requires. He does not oversell the jokes, which is the right call.
Is this audiobook accessible to listeners who have no background in disability studies or accessibility technology?
Entirely. Miele builds context organically through his own experience, and no prior knowledge is needed. Listeners with professional interest in accessibility may find additional layers, but the memoir works completely on its own terms for a general audience.
