- Table View
- List View
Stranger Care: A Memoir of Loving What Isn't Ours
by Sarah Sentilles&“A powerful, heartbreaking, necessary masterpiece.&”—Cheryl Strayed, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wild The moving story of what one woman learned from fostering a newborn—about injustice, about making mistakes, about how to better love and protect people beyond our immediate kin May you always feel at home. After their decision not to have a biological child, Sarah Sentilles and her husband, Eric, decide to adopt via the foster care system. Despite knowing that the system&’s goal is the child&’s reunification with the birth family, Sarah opens their home to a flurry of social workers who question them, evaluate them, and ultimately prepare them to welcome a child into their lives—even if it means most likely having to give the child back. After years of starts and stops, and endless navigation of the complexities and injustices of the foster care system, a phone call finally comes: a three-day-old baby girl named Coco, in immediate need of a foster family. Sarah and Eric bring this newborn stranger home. &“You were never ours,&” Sarah tells Coco, &“yet we belong to each other.&” A love letter to Coco and to the countless children like her, Stranger Care chronicles Sarah&’s discovery of what it means to mother—in this case, not just a vulnerable infant but the birth mother who loves her, too. Ultimately, Coco&’s story reminds us that we depend on family, and that family can take different forms. With prose that Nick Flynn has called &“fearless, stirring, rhythmic,&” Sentilles lays bare an intimate, powerful story with universal concerns: How can we care for and protect one another? How do we ensure a more hopeful future for life on this planet? And if we&’re all related—tree, bird, star, person—how might we better live?
Stranger (En espanol): El Desafio De Un Inmigrante Latino En La Era De Trump
by Jorge Ramos Ezra E. Fitz“Hay veces en que me siento como un extraño en el país donde he pasado más de la mitad de mi vida. No es por falta de oportunidades, ni una queja. Es, más bien, una especie de desilusión. Jamás me imaginé que después de 35 años en Estados Unidos iba a seguir siendo un stranger para muchos. Pero eso soy.” Jorge Ramos, periodista galardonado con premios Emmy, reconocido presentador del Noticiero Univisión y considerado “la voz de los sin voz” de la comunidad latina, fue expulsado de una rueda de prensa del candidato presidencial Donald Trump en Iowa en el año 2015 tras cuestionar sus planes sobre inmigración. En este manifiesto personal, Ramos explora qué significa ser un inmigrante latino, o simplemente un inmigrante, en los Estados Unidos de nuestros días. Mediante datos y estadísticas, su olfato para encontrar historias y su propia memoria personal, Ramos nos muestra el rostro cambiante de America y explora las razones por las que él, y muchos otros millones de inmigrantes, aún se sienten como strangers en este país. “Es precisamente su estilo de confrontación… el que le ha ganado a Ramos la confianza de tantos hispanos. Ellos saben que en muchos países al sur de Estados Unidos las preguntas directas pueden significar, no solo perder el acceso, sino también perder la vida”. --Marcela Valdes, The New York Times
Stranger Here: How Weight-Loss Surgery Transformed My Body and Messed with My Head
by Jen LarsenJen Larsen always thought that if she could only lose some weight, she would be unstoppable. She was convinced that once she found a way to not be fat any more, she would have the perfect existence she’d always dreamed of. When diet after diet failed, she decided to try bariatric surgery, and it worked better than she ever could have dreamed: she lost 180 pounds. As the weight fell away, though, Larsen realized that getting skinny was not the magical cure she thought it would be-and suddenly, she wasn’t sure who she was anymore. Stranger Hereis the brutally honest, surprisingly hilarious story of one woman’s journey from one extreme of the weight spectrum to the other, and of the unexpected emotional chaos it created. Insightful and unsparing in her self-examination, Larsen depicts the exhilarating highs and devastating lows she experienced as a result of her weight loss-the incredible joy of finally beginning to look like the image of herself she’s always carried inside her head, and the crushing pain and confusion of feeling like a stranger in her own body after losing the weight that has always defined her.
Stranger in a Strange Land: Searching for Gershom Scholem and Jerusalem
by George ProchnikTaking his lead from his subject, Gershom Scholem—the 20th century thinker who cracked open Jewish theology and history with a radical reading of Kabbalah—Prochnik combines biography and memoir to counter our contemporary political crisis with an original and urgent reimagining of the future of Israel.In Stranger in a Strange Land, Prochnik revisits the life and work of Gershom Scholem, whose once prominent reputation, as a Freud-like interpreter of the inner world of the Cosmos, has been in eclipse in the United States. He vividly conjures Scholem’s upbringing in Berlin, and compellingly brings to life Scholem’s transformative friendship with Walter Benjamin, the critic and philosopher. In doing so, he reveals how Scholem’s frustration with the bourgeois ideology of Germany during the First World War led him to discover Judaism, Kabbalah, and finally Zionism, as potent counter-forces to Europe’s suicidal nationalism. Prochnik’s own years in the Holy Land in the 1990s brings him to question the stereotypical intellectual and theological constructs of Jerusalem, and to rediscover the city as a physical place, rife with the unruliness and fecundity of nature. Prochnik ultimately suggests that a new form of ecological pluralism must now inherit the historically energizing role once played by Kabbalah and Zionism in Jewish thought.
Stranger in My Bed: The Intimate Story of a Woman's Courageous Struggle to Rebuild Her Life After Amnesia
by Beverly Slater Frances Spatz LeightonWednesday, February 13, 1980: It was an ordinary morning for Beverly Slater, forty-eight-year-old wife and mother, as she made her way to work in downtown Philadelphia. But as she crossed the street, she was hit by a car--and when she woke up in the hospital, she didn’t know who she was. She also didn’t recognize the face of the solicitous stranger who said he was her husband, who spoke of a daughter she didn’t remember. Beverly had lost not only her memory, but her identity--everything she was to herself and all who knew her. So begins the author’s incredible story of rebirth, of her valiant attempt to reconstruct a life now forgotten, to forge a new rapport with family and friends. We share her moments of hope, joy, despair, as Beverly contends with the most fundamental elements of daily life: from learning what an elevator door is (“Why are the walls opening?”) to meeting her daughter (“Who the hell are you?”). Beverly Slater bravely meets the challenge of a brand new world, seeking--and conquering--seemingly insurmountable obstacles. She explores the most intimate aspects of her transformation: from her sexual relationship with her husband, now a stranger, to her psychoanalysis... and at last she emerges with a deep understanding of the "new" Beverly Slater--gutsy and outspoken, no longer a stranger to her family or herself. This is a powerful, heartwarming story from a woman whose life is a testament to the resilience of love and the triumph of hope.
Stranger In My Own Country: A Jewish Family In Modern Germany
by Yascha MounkA moving and unsettling exploration of a young man's formative years in a country still struggling with its past. As a Jew in postwar Germany, Yascha Mounk felt like a foreigner in his own country. When he mentioned that he is Jewish, some made anti-Semitic jokes or talked about the superiority of the Aryan race. Others, sincerely hoping to atone for the country's past, fawned over him with a forced friendliness he found just as alienating. Vivid and fascinating, the book traces the contours of Jewish life in a country still struggling with the legacy of the Third Reich and portrays those who, inevitably, continue to live in its shadow. Marshaling an extraordinary range of material into a lively narrative, Mounk surveys his countrymen's responses to "the Jewish question." Examining history, the story of his family, and his own childhood, he shows that anti-Semitism and far-right extremism have long coexisted with self-conscious philo-Semitism in postwar Germany. But of late a new kind of resentment against Jews has come out in the open. Unnoticed by much of the outside world, the desire for a "finish line" that would spell a definitive end to the country's obsession with the past is feeding an emphasis on German victimhood. Mounk shows how, from the government's pursuit of a less "apologetic" foreign policy to the way the country's idea of the Volk makes life difficult for its immigrant communities, a troubled nationalism is shaping Germany's future.
The Stranger in the Mirror: A Memoir of Middle Age
by Jane ShillingMiddle age took Jane Shilling by surprise. She hadn't seen it coming, and she certainly wasn't ready for it. Living a flawed, bittersweet version of the idyll she dreamed of in her twenties, in a tumbledown urban cottage by the Thames, with a son, a cat and a horse in a livery fifty miles away, she wondered whether middle age was the beginning of the end. Or was there one last great adventure to be had? The Stranger in the Mirror is one woman's attempt to understand what middle age means for her and whether, as a new generation of women turns fifty, a revolution is under way. It definitely won't reverse the signs of ageing - but it will make you laugh, it will make you think and it could just make you look in the mirror in a slightly different way...
The Stranger in the Woods: The extraordinary story of the last true hermit
by Michael FinkelIn 1986, twenty-year-old Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the woods. He would not speak to another human being until three decades later when he was arrested for stealing food. Christopher survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store food and water in order to avoid freezing to death in his tent during the harsh Maine winters. He broke into nearby cottages for food, clothes, reading material and other provisions, taking only what he needed. In the process, he unwittingly terrified a community unable to solve the mysterious burglaries. Myths abounded amongst the locals eager to find this legendary hermit. Based on extensive interviews with Knight himself, this is a vividly detailed account of his secluded life and the challenges he faced returning to the world. The Stranger in the Woods is a riveting story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude and what makes for a good life. Above all, this is a deeply moving portrait of a man determined to live life his own way.
The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
by Michael FinkelNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The remarkable true story of a man who lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, making this dream a reality—not out of anger at the world, but simply because he preferred to live on his own.&“A meditation on solitude, wildness and survival.&” —The Wall Street JournalIn 1986, a shy and intelligent twenty-year-old named Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the forest. He would not have a conversation with another human being until nearly three decades later, when he was arrested for stealing food. Living in a tent even through brutal winters, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store edibles and water, and to avoid freezing to death. He broke into nearby cottages for food, clothing, reading material, and other provisions, taking only what he needed but terrifying a community never able to solve the mysterious burglaries. Based on extensive interviews with Knight himself, this is a vividly detailed account of his secluded life—why did he leave? what did he learn?—as well as the challenges he has faced since returning to the world. It is a gripping story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude, community, and what makes a good life, and a deeply moving portrait of a man who was determined to live his own way, and succeeded.
The Stranger Inside
by Shannon MoroneyWhen Shannon Moroney married Jason Staples in October 2005, she had no idea that her happy life as a newlywed was about to come crashing down around her. One month after her wedding, a police officer arrived at her hotel door while she was out of town with the news that her husband had been arrested and charged with the brutal sexual assault and kidnapping of two women, taking them to the house he shared with Shannon to commit the acts of violence. In the aftermath of the crimes, Shannon dealt with a heavy burden of grief, the stress and publicity of a major criminal investigation, and the painful stigma of guilt by association - all the while attempting to understand what had made Jason commit such violence. In this intimate and gripping journey into the human heart, Shannon reveals the far-reaching impact of Jason's crimes and the agonizing choices faced by the loved ones of offenders. She also tells the powerful story of how she made the amazing transition from being a member of the 'trauma club' to completely rebuilding her life. This is an impassioned, harrowing and ultimately hopeful story of one woman's pursuit of justice, forgiveness and healing.
Stranger No More: A Muslim Refugee’s Story of Harrowing Escape, Miraculous Rescue, and the Quiet Call of Jesus
by Craig Borlase Annahita ParsanThere will be pain ahead, and trouble and problems that I won’t be able to fix on my own.But in them all, I know God will be there, calling me to look to him. Inviting me to take the next step toward his open arms.And I will say yes.And yes.And yes.Annahita Parsan was born into a Muslim family in Iran and grew up with the simple hope of one day finding a good husband, having children, and doing some good in the world. Married and a mother before she turned eighteen, Annahita found herself unexpectedly widowed and trapped for years in an abusive second marriage that she later fled—discovering instead a God who might love her.Stranger No More is the remarkable true story of Annahita’s path from oppression to the life-changing hope of Jesus. Fleeing Iran across the mountains into Turkey, she spent months in the terrifying Agri prison before a miraculous release and flight to Europe, where she and her two children knelt in a church and prayed, “God, from this day on we are Christians.”Filled with unthinkable circumstances, miraculous rescues, and the quietly constant voice of Jesus, Stranger No More leads readers deep into the heart of God and draws them toward the same call that Annahita heeds today: using her past to save others from theirs. As the leader of two congregations in Sweden, Annahita has baptized hundreds of former Muslims since her own conversion, has seen firsthand the powerful ways God is at work among those who have left Islam behind, and is reminded every day that saying yes to God is always worth the risk.
Stranger than Fiction
by Denise RobinsThe autobiography of Denise Robins, the 100-million-copy bestselling Queen of Romance, first published in 1965, and available now for the first time in eBook.Apart from writing over two hundred novels which have sold over one hundred million copies worldwide, Denise Robins led a remarkable life. Love and romance were always dominant influences and were reflected not only in her work but in her attitude to life. All the warmth, compassion and deep understanding of the frailty if the human heart that shine through her novels, can be seen here in her autobiography. It is a story that will captivate her huge audience of readers.
Stranger than Fiction
by Denise RobinsThe autobiography of Denise Robins, the 100-million-copy bestselling Queen of Romance, first published in 1965, and available now for the first time in eBook. Apart from writing over two hundred novels which have sold over one hundred million copies worldwide, Denise Robins led a remarkable life. Love and romance were always dominant influences and were reflected not only in her work but in her attitude to life. All the warmth, compassion and deep understanding of the frailty if the human heart that shine through her novels, can be seen here in her autobiography. It is a story that will captivate her huge audience of readers.
Stranger Than Kindness
by Nick CaveA journey in images and words into the creative world of musician, storyteller, and cultural icon Nick Cave.One of the world’s most celebrated artists, Nick Cave has enthralled and intrigued fans for more than four decades. With Stranger Than Kindness he reveals his innermost creative process as never before. Vibrant, evocative, and startlingly intimate, this remarkable volume peels back the layers of a unique artist, illuminating the inspiration that drives his work and exploring his many universes, both real and imagined.Featuring full color reproductions of original artwork, handwritten lyrics, photographs, and collected personal artifacts, Stranger Than Kindness ponders the origins of our deepest influences—what shapes our lives and makes us who we are—and celebrates the curiosity and power of the creative spirit.
Stranger to History: A Son's Journey through Islamic Lands
by Aatish Taseer"Indispensable reading for anyone who wants a wider understanding of the Islamic world, of its history and its politics." —Financial TimesAatish Taseer's fractured upbringing left him with many questions about his own identity. Raised by his Sikh mother in Delhi, his father, a Pakistani Muslim, remained a distant figure. Stranger to History is the story of the journey he made to try to understand what it means to be Muslim in the twenty-firstcentury. Starting from Istanbul, Islam's once greatest city, he travels to Mecca, its most holy, and then home through Iran and Pakistan. Ending in Lahore, at his estranged father's home, on the night Benazir Bhutto was killed, it is also the story of Taseer's divided family over the past fifty years. Recent events have added a coda to Stranger to History, as his father was murdered by a political assassin. A new introduction by the author reflects on how this event changes the impact of the book, and why its message is more relevant than ever.
Strangers and Neighbors: What I Have Learned About Christianity by Living Among Orthodox Jews
by Maria Poggi JohnsonThe compelling, insightful, and challenging memoir of a Christian woman's exploration of her faith while living in community with strictly Orthodox Jews. As Maria Johnson explains: "I knew that Christianity is rooted deep in Judaism, but living in daily contact with a vital and vibrant Jewish life has been fascinating and transforming. I am and will remain a Christian, but I am a rather different Christian than I was before."
Strangers Assume My Girlfriend Is My Nurse
by Shane BurcawWith his signature acerbic wit and hilarious voice, twenty-something author, blogger, and entrepreneur Shane Burcaw is back with an essay collection about living a full life in a body that many people perceive as a tragedy. From anecdotes about first introductions where people patted him on the head instead of shaking his hand, to stories of passersby mistaking his able-bodied girlfriend for a nurse, Shane tackles awkward situations and assumptions with humor and grace. On the surface, these essays are about day-to-day life as a wheelchair user with a degenerative disease, but they are actually about family, love, and coming of age.
A Stranger's Gift: True Stories of Faith in Unexpected Places
by Tom HallmanIn this very personal, welcoming book, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tom Hallman, Jr., shares his journey of faith from indifferent agnostic to growing believer. Faith, Hallman tells us, is looking in the mirror in the morning and wondering why. It's about doubt and hope. It's catching a glimpse of a beacon piercing the fog of life and walking toward it, never knowing if you're headed in the right direction, but pressing onward. You'll meet ordinary people and be drawn into conversations that ask probing, almost intrusive questions--conversations that linger in your mind and resonate with your heart--from the ache of a mother who watched her baby die after only twenty days of struggling for life to the peaceful strength of a man working with those whose present situations mirror his past. Within these pages, you'll find real and honest accounts of everyday people whose discoveries of faith will inspire and comfort you on your own journey. *** The security lock thumped open, and I stepped into Level 3, a neonatal unit where I had been drawn to a drama played out minute by minute. As I stood above two cribs along a back wall, I wondered less about doctors, nurses, and medicine and more about God. Two babies had been born with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia. Both had been placed on a heart-lung bypass machine to let their organs rest. One boy had no name. His mother was a crack addict. After giving birth, she abandoned her baby and never returned to the hospital. In the adjacent crib lay Jonah Van Arnam. His parents were active members of a church and visited their son daily to pray for him and the nurses and doctors. One afternoon, a nurse pulled me aside and told me a miracle was taking place: the crack addict's baby was getting better. But ... Jonah was dying. Why had God abandoned this couple and their son? Where was this so-called loving God? --from chapter 6
Strangers in the House
by Dorothy GallagherHere are two acclaimed memoirs in one remarkable volume. In an extraordinarily compelling voice, Dorothy Gallagher tells stories taking us from her parents’ beginnings in the Ukraine to her own childhood in 1940s New York, through the many adventures of her extended family and into her own adult life. Her themes are universal: the fragility of friendship, the power of love, the marital crisis brought on by chronic illness, the role of dumb luck at the heart of life–Gallagher dramatizes her stories with acute insight, strong feeling, and edgy wit.
Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine
by Raja ShehadehThis "is not a political book," Anthony Lewis writes in his foreword. "Yet in a hundred different ways it is political.... Shehadeh shatters the stereotype many Americans have of Palestinians. Hath not a Palestinian senses, affections, passions?" This revealing memoir of a father-son relationship, the first o its kind by a Palestinian living in the occupied territories, is set against the backdrop of Middle East hostilities and more than thirty years of life under military occupation.Three years after his family was driven from the coastal city of Jaffa in 1948, Raja Shehadeh was born in the provincial town of Ramallah, in the rural hills of the West Bank. His early childhood was marked by his family's sense of loss and impermanence, vividly evoked by the glittering lights "on the other side of the hill."Growing up "in the shadow of home," he was introduced early to political conflict. He witnessed the numerous arrests of his father, Aziz Shehadeh, who, in 1967, was the first Palestinian to advocate a peaceful, two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He predicted that if peace were not acheived, what remained of the Palestinian homeland would be taken away, bit by bit, through Israeli settlement. Ostracized by his fellow Arabs and disillusioned by the failure of either side to recognize his prophetic vision, Aziz retreated from politics. He was murdered in 1985.Strangers in the House offers a moving description of the daily lives of those who have chosen to remain on their land. It is also the family drama of a difficult relationship between an idealistic son and his politically active father complicated by the arbitrary humiliation of the "occupier's law."
Strangers in the Night: A Novel of Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner
by Heather WebbIt was the tumultuous romance that scandalized the world: Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner fought, loved, and lived life to the hilt. Now their unbridled story is brought vividly to life by Heather Webb, the bestselling author of Meet Me in Monaco and The Next Ship Home. In the golden age of Hollywood, two of the brightest stars would define—and defy—an era…She was the small-town southern beauty transformed into a Hollywood love goddess. He was the legendary crooner whose voice transfixed the world. They were Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra. Separately they were irresistible; together they were an explosive combination.Ava’s star is rising just as Frank’s career—and public image as a family man—is taking a hit. Gone are the days of the screaming bobbysoxers and chart-topping hits. Ava, however, finds herself gracing the front page of every tabloid in America. Jealousy and cheating abound, and when the two succumb to their temperaments and their vices, their happiness is threatened at every turn.As the pair ride the rollercoaster of success and failure, passion and anger, they both wonder if the next turn will be the end of their careers, and most devastating of all—the end of all they’ve shared.A captivating novel with a star-studded cast spanning continents and decades, Strangers in the Night brings to life the most riveting love story of the twentieth century.
Strangers on a Bridge: The Case of Colonel Abel and Francis Gary Powers
by James DonovanThe #1 New York Times bestseller and subject of the acclaimed major motion picture Bridge of Spies directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Tom Hanks as James B. Donovan. Originally published in 1964, this is the &“enthralling…truly remarkable&” (The New York Times Book Review) insider account of the Cold War spy exchange—with a new foreword by Jason Matthews, New York Times bestselling author of Red Sparrow and Palace of Treason.In the early morning of February 10, 1962, James B. Donovan began his walk toward the center of the Glienicke Bridge, the famous “Bridge of Spies” which then linked West Berlin to East. With him, walked Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, master spy and for years the chief of Soviet espionage in the United States. Approaching them from the other side, under equally heavy guard, was Francis Gary Powers, the American U-2 spy plane pilot famously shot down by the Soviets, whose exchange for Abel Donovan had negotiated. These were the strangers on a bridge, men of East and West, representatives of two opposed worlds meeting in a moment of high drama. Abel was the most gifted, the most mysterious, the most effective spy in his time. His trial, which began in a Brooklyn United States District Court and ended in the Supreme Court of the United States, chillingly revealed the methods and successes of Soviet espionage. No one was better equipped to tell the whole absorbing history than James B. Donovan, who was appointed to defend one of his country’s enemies and did so with scrupulous skill. In Strangers on a Bridge, the lead prosecutor in the Nuremburg Trials offers a clear-eyed and fast-paced memoir that is part procedural drama, part dark character study and reads like a noirish espionage thriller. From the first interview with Abel to the exchange on the bridge in Berlin—and featuring unseen photographs of Donovan and Abel as well as trial notes and sketches drawn from Abel’s prison cell—here is an important historical narrative that is “as fascinating as it is exciting” (The Houston Chronicle).
Strangers Tend to Tell Me Things: A Memoir Of Love, Loss, And Coming Home
by Amy DickinsonIn STRANGERS TEND TO TELL ME THINGS--her follow-up memoir to the NYT bestselling The Mighty Queens of Freeville--America's most popular advice columnist, "Ask Amy," shares her journey of family, second chances, and finding love.By peeling back the curtain of her syndicated advice column, Amy Dickinson reveals much of the inspiration and motivation that has fueled her calling. Through a series of linked essays, this moving narrative picks up where her earlier memoir left off. Exploring central themes of romance, death, parenting, self-care, and spiritual awakening, this touching and heartfelt homage speaks to all who have faced challenges in the wake of life's twists and turns. From finding love in middle-age to her storied experience with stepparenting to overcoming disordered eating to her final moments spent with her late mother, Dickinson's trademark humorous tone delivers punch and wit that will empower, entertain, and heal.
Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us
by Rachel AvivThe highly anticipated debut from the acclaimed award-winning New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv compels us to examine how the stories we tell about mental illness shape our sense of who we are.Strangers to Ourselves poses fundamental questions about how we understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress. Drawing on deep, original reporting as well as unpublished journals and memoirs, Rachel Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are. She follows an Indian woman celebrated as a saint who lives in healing temples in Kerala; an incarcerated mother vying for her children's forgiveness after recovering from psychosis; a man who devotes his life to seeking revenge upon his psychoanalysts; and an affluent young woman who, after a decade of defining herself through her diagnosis, decides to go off her meds because she doesn't know who she is without them. Animated by a profound sense of empathy, Aviv's gripping exploration is refracted through her own account of living in a hospital ward at the age of six and meeting a fellow patient with whom her life runs parallel—until it no longer does.Aviv asks how the stories we tell about mental disorders shape their course in our lives—and our identities, too. Challenging the way we understand and talk about illness, her account is a testament to the porousness and resilience of the mind.
Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us
by Rachel AvivOne of the top ten books of the year at The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, Vulture/New York magazineA best book of the year at Los Angeles Times, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, Bookforum, The New Yorker, Vogue, KirkusThe acclaimed, award-winning New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv offers a groundbreaking exploration of mental illness and the mind, and illuminates the startling connections between diagnosis and identity.Strangers to Ourselves poses fundamental questions about how we understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress. Drawing on deep, original reporting as well as unpublished journals and memoirs, Rachel Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are. She follows an Indian woman celebrated as a saint who lives in healing temples in Kerala; an incarcerated mother vying for her children’s forgiveness after recovering from psychosis; a man who devotes his life to seeking revenge upon his psychoanalysts; and an affluent young woman who, after a decade of defining herself through her diagnosis, decides to go off her meds because she doesn’t know who she is without them. Animated by a profound sense of empathy, Aviv’s gripping exploration is refracted through her own account of living in a hospital ward at the age of six and meeting a fellow patient with whom her life runs parallel—until it no longer does.Aviv asks how the stories we tell about mental disorders shape their course in our lives—and our identities, too. Challenging the way we understand and talk about illness, her account is a testament to the porousness and resilience of the mind.