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My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind
by Scott StosselA riveting, revelatory, and moving account of the author's struggles with anxiety, and of the history of efforts by scientists, philosophers, and writers to understand the condition <P><P>As recently as thirty-five years ago, anxiety did not exist as a diagnostic category. Today, it is the most common form of officially classified mental illness. Scott Stossel gracefully guides us across the terrain of an affliction that is pervasive yet too often misunderstood. Drawing on his own long-standing battle with anxiety, Stossel presents an astonishing history, at once intimate and authoritative, of the efforts to understand the condition from medical, cultural, philosophical, and experiential perspectives. <P><P>He ranges from the earliest medical reports of Galen and Hippocrates, through later observations by Robert Burton and Søren Kierkegaard, to the investigations by great nineteenth-century scientists, such as Charles Darwin, William James, and Sigmund Freud, as they began to explore its sources and causes, to the latest research by neuroscientists and geneticists. <P><P>Stossel reports on famous individuals who struggled with anxiety, as well as on the afflicted generations of his own family. His portrait of anxiety reveals not only the emotion's myriad manifestations and the anguish anxiety produces but also the countless psychotherapies, medications, and other (often outlandish) treatments that have been developed to counteract it. <P><P> Stossel vividly depicts anxiety's human toll--its crippling impact, its devastating power to paralyze--while at the same time exploring how those who suffer from it find ways to manage and control it. My Age of Anxiety is learned and empathetic, humorous and inspirational, offering the reader great insight into the biological, cultural, and environmental factors that contribute to the affliction.
Levels of Life (Vintage International Series)
by Julian BarnesPart history, part fiction, part memoir, Levels of Life is a powerfully personal and unforgettable book, and an immediate classic on the subject of grief. Levels of Life opens in the nineteenth century with balloonists, photographers, and Sarah Bernhardt, whose adventures lead seamlessly into an entirely personal account of the author's own great loss. "You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed..." Julian Barnes's new book is about ballooning, photography, love and grief; about putting two things, and two people, together, and about tearing them apart. One of the judges who awarded him the 2011 Man Booker Prize described Barnes as "an unparalleled magus of the heart." This book confirms that opinion.
Falling Out of Time
by David GrossmanFollowing his magisterial To the End of the Land, the universally acclaimed Israeli author brings us an incandescent fable of parental grief--concise, elemental, a powerfully distilled experience of understanding and acceptance, and of art's triumph over death. In Falling Out of Time, David Grossman has created a genre-defying drama--part play, part prose, pure poetry--to tell the story of bereaved parents setting out to reach their lost children. It begins in a small village, in a kitchen, where a man announces to his wife that he is leaving, embarking on a journey in search of their dead son. The man--called simply Walking Man--paces in ever-widening circles around the town. One after another, all manner of townsfolk fall into step with him (the Net-Mender, the Midwife, the Elderly Math Teacher, even the Duke), each enduring his or her own loss. The walkers raise questions of grief and bereavement: Can death be overcome by an intensity of speech or memory? Is it possible, even for a fleeting moment, to call to the dead and free them from their death? Grossman's answer to such questions is a hymn to these characters, who ultimately find solace and hope in their communal act of breaching death's hermetic separateness. For the reader, the solace is in their clamorous vitality, and in the gift of Grossman's storytelling--a realm where loss is not merely an absence but a life force of its own.From the Hardcover edition.
F: Poems
by Franz WrightIn these riveting poems, Wright declares, "I've said all that / I had to say. / In writing. / I signed my name. / It's death's move." As he considers his mortality, the poet finds a new elation and clarity on the page, handing over for our examination the flawed yet kneeling-in-gratitude self he has become. F stands both for Franz, the poet-speaker who represents all of us on our baffling lifelong journeys, and for the alphabet, the utility and sometimes brutality of our symbols. (It may be, he jokes grimly, his "grade in life.") From "Entries of the Cell," the long central poem that details the loneliness of the single soul, to short narrative prose poems and traditional lyrics, Wright revels in the compensatory power of language, observing the daytime headlights following a hearse, or the wind, "blessing one by one the unlighted buds of the backbent peach tree's unnoted return." He is at his best in this beautiful and startling collection.ent peach tree's unnoticed return." He is at his best in this beautiful and startling collection. From the Hardcover edition.
Learning to Breathe Fire
by J. C. HerzThe absorbing, definitive account of CrossFit's origins, its explosive grassroots growth, and its emergence as a global phenomenon. One of the most illuminating books ever on a sports subculture, Learning to Breathe Fire combines vivid sports writing with a thoughtful meditation on what it means to be human. In the book, veteran journalist J.C. Herz explains the science of maximum effort, why the modern gym fails an obese society, and the psychic rewards of ending up on the floor feeling as though you're about to die. The story traces CrossFit's rise, from a single underground gym in Santa Cruz to its adoption as the workout of choice for elite special forces, firefighters and cops, to its popularity as the go-to fitness routine for regular Joes and Janes. Especially riveting is Herz's description of The CrossFit Games, which begin as an informal throw-down on a California ranch and evolve into a televised global proving ground for the fittest men and women on Earth, as well as hundreds of thousands of lesser mortals. In her portrayal of the sport's star athletes, its passionate coaches and its "chief armorer," Rogue Fitness, Herz powerfully evokes the uniqueness of a fitness culture that cultivates primal fierceness in average people. And in the shared ordeal of an all-consuming workout, she unearths the ritual intensity that's been with us since humans invented sports, showing us how, on a deep level, we're all tribal hunters and first responders, waiting for the signal to go all-out. From the Hardcover edition.
Kidding Ourselves
by Joseph T. HallinanFrom the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Why We Make Mistakes, an illuminating exploration of human beings' astonishing ability to deceive themselves. To one degree or another, we all misjudge reality. Our perception--of ourselves and the world around us--is much more malleable than we realize. This self-deception influences every major aspect of our personal and social life, including relationships, sex, politics, careers, and health. In Kidding Ourselves, Joseph Hallinan offers a nuts-and-bolts look at how this penchant shapes our everyday lives, from the medicines we take to the decisions we make. It shows, for instance, just how much the power of many modern medicines, particularly anti-depressants and painkillers, is largely in our heads. Placebos in modern-day life extend beyond hospitals, to fake thermostats and "elevator close" buttons that don't really work...but give the perception that they do. Kidding Ourselves brings together a variety of subjects, linking seemingly unrelated ideas in fascinating and unexpected ways. And ultimately, it shows that deceiving ourselves is not always negative or foolish. As increasing numbers of researchers are discovering, it can be incredibly useful, providing us with the resilience we need to persevere, in the boardroom, bedroom, and beyond. Provocative, accessible, and easily applicable to multiple facets of everyday life, Kidding Ourselves is an extraordinary new exploration of our mind's flexibility.
Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing
by Jamie HolmesAn illuminating look at the surprising upside of ambiguity--and how, properly harnessed, it can inspire learning, creativity, even empathy Life today feels more overwhelming and chaotic than ever. Whether it's a confounding work problem or a faltering relationship or an unclear medical diagnosis, we face constant uncertainty. And we're continually bombarded with information, much of it contradictory. Managing ambiguity--in our jobs, our relationships, and daily lives--is quickly becoming an essential skill. Yet most of us don't know where to begin. As Jamie Holmes shows in Nonsense, being confused is unpleasant, so we tend to shutter our minds as we grasp for meaning and stability, especially in stressful circumstances. We're hard-wired to resolve contradictions quickly and extinguish anomalies. This can be useful, of course. When a tiger is chasing you, you can't be indecisive. But as Nonsense reveals, our need for closure has its own dangers. It makes us stick to our first answer, which is not always the best, and it makes us search for meaning in the wrong places. When we latch onto fast and easy truths, we lose a vital opportunity to learn something new, solve a hard problem, or see the world from another perspective. In other words, confusion--that uncomfortable mental place--has a hidden upside. We just need to know how to use it. This lively and original book points the way. Over the last few years, new insights from social psychology and cognitive science have deepened our understanding of the role of ambiguity in our lives and Holmes brings this research together for the first time, showing how we can use uncertainty to our advantage. Filled with illuminating stories--from spy games and doomsday cults to Absolut Vodka's ad campaign and the creation of Mad Libs--Nonsense promises to transform the way we conduct business, educate our children, and make decisions. In an increasingly unpredictable, complex world, it turns out that what matters most isn't IQ, willpower, or confidence in what we know. It's how we deal with what we don't understand.From the Hardcover edition.
Cure
by Jo Marchant<P>A rigorous, skeptical, deeply reported look at the new science behind the mind's extraordinary ability to heal the body. <P>Have you ever felt a surge of adrenaline after narrowly avoiding an accident? Salivated at the sight (or thought) of a sour lemon? Felt turned on just from hearing your partner's voice? If so, then you've experienced how dramatically the workings of your mind can affect your body. <P>Yet while we accept that stress or anxiety can damage our health, the idea of "healing thoughts" was long ago hijacked by New Age gurus and spiritual healers. Recently, however, serious scientists from a range of fields have been uncovering evidence that our thoughts, emotions, and beliefs can ease pain, heal wounds, fend off infection and heart disease, even slow the progression of AIDS and some cancers. <P>In Cure, award-winning science writer Jo Marchant travels the world to meet the physicians, patients, and researchers on the cutting edge of this new world of medicine. We learn how meditation protects against depression and dementia, how social connections increase life expectancy, and how patients who feel cared for recover from surgery faster. <P>We meet Iraq war veterans who are using a virtual arctic world to treat their burns and children whose ADHD is kept under control with half the normal dose of medication. We watch as a transplant patient uses the smell of lavender to calm his hostile immune system and an Olympic runner shaves vital seconds off his time through mind-power alone. <P>Drawing on the very latest research, Marchant explores the vast potential of the mind's ability to heal, acknowledges its limitations, and explains how we can make use of the findings in our own lives. <P><b>A New York Times Bestseller</b>
Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body
by Jo MarchantA New York Times BestsellerFinalist for the Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book PrizeA rigorous, skeptical, deeply reported look at the new science behind the mind's surprising ability to heal the bodyHave you ever felt a surge of adrenaline after narrowly avoiding an accident? Salivated at the sight (or thought) of a sour lemon? Felt turned on just from hearing your partner's voice? If so, then you've experienced how dramatically the workings of your mind can affect your body. Yet while we accept that stress or anxiety can damage our health, the idea of "healing thoughts" was long ago hijacked by New Age gurus and spiritual healers. Recently, however, serious scientists from a range of fields have been uncovering evidence that our thoughts, emotions and beliefs can ease pain, heal wounds, fend off infection and heart disease and even slow the progression of AIDS and some cancers. In Cure, award-winning science writer Jo Marchant travels the world to meet the physicians, patients and researchers on the cutting edge of this new world of medicine. We learn how meditation protects against depression and dementia, how social connections increase life expectancy and how patients who feel cared for recover from surgery faster. We meet Iraq war veterans who are using a virtual arctic world to treat their burns and children whose ADHD is kept under control with half the normal dose of medication. We watch as a transplant patient uses the smell of lavender to calm his hostile immune system and an Olympic runner shaves vital seconds off his time through mind-power alone. Drawing on the very latest research, Marchant explores the vast potential of the mind's ability to heal, lays out its limitations and explains how we can make use of the findings in our own lives. With clarity and compassion, Cure points the way towards a system of medicine that treats us not simply as bodies but as human beings.From the Hardcover edition.
The Invisible Front: Love and Loss in an Era of Endless War
by Yochi DreazenThe unforgettable story of a military family that lost two sons—one to suicide and one in combat—and channeled their grief into fighting the armed forces’ suicide epidemic. <P> Major General Mark Graham was a decorated two-star officer whose integrity and patriotism inspired his sons, Jeff and Kevin, to pursue military careers of their own. His wife Carol was a teacher who held the family together while Mark's career took them to bases around the world. When Kevin and Jeff die within nine months of each other—Kevin commits suicide and Jeff is killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq—Mark and Carol are astonished by the drastically different responses their sons’ deaths receive from the Army. While Jeff is lauded as a hero, Kevin’s death is met with silence, evidence of the terrible stigma that surrounds suicide and mental illness in the military. Convinced that their sons died fighting different battles, Mark and Carol commit themselves to transforming the institution that is the cornerstone of their lives.<P> <i>The Invisible Front</i> is the story of how one family tries to set aside their grief and find purpose in almost unimaginable loss. The Grahams work to change how the Army treats those with PTSD and to erase the stigma that prevents suicidal troops from getting the help they need before making the darkest of choices. Their fight offers a window into the military’s institutional shortcomings and its resistance to change – failures that have allowed more than 2,000 troops to take their own lives since 2001. Yochi Dreazen, an award-winning journalist who has covered the military since 2003, has been granted remarkable access to the Graham family and tells their story in the full context of two of America’s longest wars. Dreazen places Mark and Carol’s personal journey, which begins when they fall in love in college and continues through the end of Mark's thirty-four year career in the Army, against the backdrop of the military’s ongoing suicide spike, which shows no signs of slowing. With great sympathy and profound insight, <i>The Invisible Front</i> details America's problematic treatment of the troops who return from war far different than when they'd left and uses the Graham family’s work as a new way of understanding the human cost of war and its lingering effects off the battlefield.
Dataclysm: Love, Sex, Race, and Identity--What Our Online Lives Tell Us about Our Offline Selves
by Christian RudderAn audacious, irreverent investigation of human behavior--and a first look at a revolution in the making Our personal data has been used to spy on us, hire and fire us, and sell us stuff we don't need. In Dataclysm, Christian Rudder uses it to show us who we truly are. For centuries, we've relied on polling or small-scale lab experiments to study human behavior. Today, a new approach is possible. As we live more of our lives online, researchers can finally observe us directly, in vast numbers, and without filters. Data scientists have become the new demographers. In this daring and original book, Rudder explains how Facebook "likes" can predict, with surprising accuracy, a person's sexual orientation and even intelligence; how attractive women receive exponentially more interview requests; and why you must have haters to be hot. He charts the rise and fall of America's most reviled word through Google Search and examines the new dynamics of collaborative rage on Twitter. He shows how people express themselves, both privately and publicly. What is the least Asian thing you can say? Do people bathe more in Vermont or New Jersey? What do black women think about Simon & Garfunkel? (Hint: they don't think about Simon & Garfunkel.) Rudder also traces human migration over time, showing how groups of people move from certain small towns to the same big cities across the globe. And he grapples with the challenge of maintaining privacy in a world where these explorations are possible. Visually arresting and full of wit and insight, Dataclysm is a new way of seeing ourselves--a brilliant alchemy, in which math is made human and numbers become the narrative of our time.From the Hardcover edition.
Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence
by Rick HansonWhy is it easier to ruminate over hurt feelings than it is to bask in the warmth of being appreciated? Because your brain evolved to learn quickly from bad experiences but slowly from the good ones. You can change this. Hardwiring Happiness lays out a simple method that uses the hidden power of everyday experiences to build new neural structures full of happiness, love, confidence, and peace. Dr. Hanson's four steps build strengths into your brain-- balancing its ancient negativity bias--making contentment and a powerful sense of resilience the new normal. In mere minutes each day, we can transform our brains into refuges and power centers of calm and happiness.From the Hardcover edition.
Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying (3rd edition)
by Derek HumphryThe first edition offered people with terminal illness a choice on how and when to end their suffering. This revised and updated third edition goes far beyond the original to provide new information about the legality of the personal issues involved.
A Dance For Three
by Louise PlummerWhen fifteen-year-old Hannah becomes pregnant and her rich, popular boyfriend claims he is not responsible, she is forced to face some hard facts about her life. For high school readers.
Soar with Your Strengths
by Donald O. Clifton Paula NelsonA groundbreaking, inspiring book for businesses, managers, and individuals on how to achieve the absolute best by focusing on strengths and steering away from weaknesses, this revolutionary, humanistic approach to business will transform companies, build careers, and change lives.
The Long Search (Claire Aldington St. Anselm's Mystery #5)
by Isabelle HollandAttractive and ambitious, Janet Covington seemed the epitome of a successful and happy career woman on her way up. She had recently been promoted to a top editorial position at a leading New York publisher. Her job was important and satisfying, but so, too, was her personal life. For a number of years she had shared her life and her Greenwich Village apartment with the attractive Paul Davenport. To all who knew them, the couple seemed devoted and happy. Only Janet knew how fragile her present happiness was and how quickly it would crumble if the secrets of her past were revealed. She would do almost anything to keep that from happening. Then, on an otherwise perfectly ordinary day at the office, the first of a chain of events takes place that threatens to undo all of her careful planning. Confused, scared and panicked, she turns to Claire Aldington, minister at St. Anselm's Church and a highly successful amateur detective. Claire wants to help, and tries to, but as the days pass she becomes convinced that there is one final secret that Janet cannot reveal... even to herself. All of the books in the Claire Aldington St. Anselm's series are in Bookshare's library. Look for: #1 A Death At St. Anselm's, #2 Flight of the Archangel, #3 A Lover Scorned and #4 A Fatal Advent In addition Isabelle Holland has written over 45 novels for children and adults. For adults look for Grenelle, a suspense novel, For Children there is The Christmas Cat
To Thine Own Self Be True: The Relationship Between Spiritual Values and Emotional Health
by Lewis M. Andrews"There is a newfound confidence and enthusiasm for living. But perhaps the most remarkable development of all is the recognition that this spiritual therapy is not really a new discovery, revealed by some outside authority, as much as it is a reminder of the basic truths we have always known in our own hearts. In healing ourselves, we learn that the greatest wisdom of all lies not in listening to others but in being true to our deepest selves".
The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time
by Edward T. Hall<p>In his pioneering work The Hidden Dimension, Edward T. Hall spoke of different cultures' concepts of space. Now The Dance of Life reveals the ways in which individuals in culture are tied together by invisible threads of rhythm and yet isolated from each other by hidden walls of time. Hall shows how time is an organizer of activities, a synthesizer and integrator, and a special langauge that reveals how we really feel about each other. <p>Time plays a central role in the diversity of cultures such as the American and the Japanese, which Hall shows to be mirror images of each other. He also deals with how time influences relations among Western Europeans, Latin Americans, Anglo-Americans, and Native Americans.</p>
I'm Eve
by Chris C. Sizemore Elen S. PittilloAfter many years and many lifetimes of silence, Chris Costner Sizemore has decided to tell the full story of her most extraordinary past. ... She was "Eve" of The Three Faces of Eve . . . the woman whose classic case of multiple personality--described in books, articles, and movies -- captured the world's imagination. But she has never before revealed in print the complete, unvarnished truth about her own life, as she lived it. . . . Included here are many crucial but hitherto unknown details of her childhood and two marriages as well as the startling fact that "Eve" was not then cured of her illness, as previous versions of her case have reported. Her personality continued to fragment until three years ago, producing in all more than twenty separate "beings" -- "strangers" in her body. . . Here you will learn what it was like to endure the trauma of split-second changes in personality, often in mid sentence; to answer for actions that one has no memory of committing; to struggle constantly for psychic survival against forces that one hardly dares to admit are real. And you will also learn what it was like to conquer such an illness-- for in recent years Chris Sizemore has broken through her terror and loneliness to seek the truly integrated self she had always been denied.
The Presentation of Self In Everyday Life
by Erving GoffmanA study of human behavior in social situations and the way we appear to others. Dr. Goffman has employed as a framework the metaphor of theatrical performance. Discussions of social techniques are based upon detailed research and observation of social customs in many regions.
The Silent Language
by Edward T. HallIn the everyday, but unspoken give-and-take of human relationships, the "silent language" plays a vitally important role. Here, a leading American anthropologist has analyzed the many ways in which people "talk" to one another without the use of words. The pecking order in a chicken yard, the fierce competition in a school playground, every unwitting gesture and action--this is the vocabulary of the "silent language. " According to Dr. Hall, the concepts of space and time are tools with which all human beings may transmit messages. Space, for example, is the outgrowth of an animal's instinctive defense of his lair and is reflected in human society by the office worker's jealous defense of his desk, or the guarded, walled patio of a Latin-American home. Similarly, the concept of time, varying from Western precision to Easter vagueness, is revealed by the businessman who pointedly keeps a client waiting, or the South Pacific islander who murders his neighbor for an injustice suffered twenty years ago. THE SILENT LANGUAGE shows how cultural factors influence the individual behind his back, wihtout his knowledge.
Your Child's Self-Esteem
by Dorothy Corkille BriggsThis book provides step-by step guidelines for raising responsible, productive, happy children.
Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates
by Erving Goffman'Asylums' is an analysis of life in "total institutions"--closed worlds like prisons, army camps, boarding schools, nursing homes and mental hospitals. It focuses on the relationship between the inmate and the institution, how the setting affects the person and how the person can deal with life on the inside.
Music, The Brain, And Ecstasy
by Robert JourdainWhat makes a distant oboe's wail beautiful? Why do some kinds of music lift us to ecstasy, but not others? How can music make sense to an ear and brain evolved for detecting the approaching lion or tracking the unsuspecting gazelle? Lyrically interweaving discoveries from science, psychology, music theory, paleontology, and philosophy, Robert Jourdian brilliantly examines why music speaks to us in ways that words cannot, and why we form such powerful connections to it. In clear, understandable language, Jourdian expertly guides the reader through a continuum of musical experience: sound, tone, melody, harmony, rhythm, composition, performance, listening, understanding--and finally to ecstasy. Along the way, a fascinating cast of characters brings Jourdian's narrative to vivid life: "idiots savants" who absorb whole pieces on a single hearing, composers who hallucinate entire compositions, a psychic who claims to take dictation from long-dead composers, and victims of brain damage who can move only when they hear music. Here is a book that will entertain, inform, and stimulate everyone who loves music--and make them think about their favorite song in startling new ways.