Andrew Leland first realised he had trouble with his vision when he was in high school, and he particularly struggled to see in the dark. By the time he was 19, he had been diagnosed with a degenerative retinal disease called retinitis pigmentosa. The diagnosis meant he would gradually lose his vision from the outside in, similar to looking through an ever smaller tube. Andrew Leland is now in his 40s, and is adapting to life with currently about six percent of his visual field remaining. It's been a major, if slow transition from full vision to what will eventually be near-total sightlessness. He's shared his story in a new memoir The Country of the Blind, which weaves his own, deeply personal experience grappling with his new life, into a cultural history of blindness. Andrew Leland speaks to Kathryn from his home in Western Massachusetts.