A celebrated science and health reporter offers a wry, bracingly honest account of living with anxiety. A racing heart. Difficulty breathing. Overwhelming dread. Andrea Petersen was first diagnosed with an anxiety disorder at the age of twenty, but she later realized that she had been experiencing panic attacks since childhood. With time her symptoms multiplied. She agonized over every odd physical sensation. She developed fears of driving on highways, going to movie theaters, even licking envelopes. Although having a name for her condition was an enormous relief, it was only the beginning of a journey to understand and master it - one that took her from psychiatrists' offices to yoga retreats to the Appalachian Trail. Woven into Petersen's personal story is a fascinating look at the biology of anxiety and the groundbreaking research that might point the way to new treatments. She compares psychoactive drugs to non-drug treatments, including biofeedback and exposure therapy. And she explores the role that genetics and the environment play in mental illness, visiting top neuroscientists and tracing her family history - from her grandmother, who, plagued by paranoia, once tried to burn down her own house, to her young daughter, in whom Petersen sees shades of herself. Brave and empowering, this is essential reading for anyone who knows what it means to live on edge.
CROWN
|
9780553418576
|
Hardcover
A Beautiful, Terrible Thing
By Waite, Jen
**An International Bestseller**"Like Big Little Lies, A Beautiful Terrible Thing is a startling reminder that fairy tales aren't real. A master class in suspenseful storytelling, Jen Waite recounts the lies, betrayals, and infidelity she endured with unrestrained honesty and deft candor. I couldn't turn away." - Jillian Lauren, New York Times bestselling author of Some Girls: My Life in a Harem and Everything You Ever WantedWhat do you do when you discover that the person you've built your life around never existed? When "it could never happen to me" does happen to you?These are the questions facing Jen Waite when she begins to realize that her loving husband - the father of her infant daughter, her best friend, the love of her life - fits the textbook definition of psychopath. In a raw, first-person account, Waite recounts each heartbreaking discovery, every life-destroying lie, and reveals what happens once the dust finally settles on her demolished marriage.After a disturbing email sparks Waite's suspicion that her husband is having an affair, she tries to uncover the truth and rebuild trust in her marriage. Instead, she finds more lies, infidelity, and betrayal than she could have imagined. Waite obsessively analyzes her relationship, trying to find a single moment from the last five years that isn't part of the long-con of lies and manipulation. With a dual-timeline narrative structure, we see Waite's romance bud, bloom, and wither simultaneously, making the heartbreak and disbelief even more affecting.
Plume
|
9780735216464
|
Hardcover
Piaget for Beginners
By Serulnicov, Adriana
This book discusses the landmarks of Piaget's personal and professional development that culminated in his seminal theory of genetic psychology.
Writers & Readers; illustrated edition edition
|
9780863162886
|
Illustrated]
The Price of Silence
By Long, Liza
Liza Long is the mother of a child who has bipolar disorder When she heard about the Newtown shooting her first thought was What if my son does that someday She wrote an emotional response to the tragedy which the Boise State University online journal published as I Am Adam Lanzas Mother The post went viral receiving million Facebook likes nearly tweets and emailsNow in The Price of Silence she takes a devastating look at how we address mental illness especially in children who are funneled through a system of education mental healthcare and juvenile detention that leads far too often to prison In the end she asks one central question If theres a poster child for cancer why cant there be one for mental illness The answer stigma She is speaking in a way that we cannot help but hear and she wont stop until something changes.
Hudson Street Press
|
9781594632570
|
Hardcover
Resilient
By Hanson, Rick
These days it's hard to count on the world outside. So it's vital to grow strengths inside like grit, gratitude, and compassion - the key to resilience, and to lasting well-being in a changing world. True resilience is much more than enduring terrible conditions. We need resilience every day to raise a family, work at a job, cope with stress, deal with health problems, navigate issues with others, heal from old pain, and simply keep on going. With his trademark blend of neuroscience, mindfulness, and positive psychology, New York Times bestselling author Dr. Rick Hanson shows you how to develop twelve vital inner strengths hardwired into your own nervous system. Then no matter what life throws at you, you'll be able to feel less stressed, pursue opportunities with confidence, and stay calm and centered in the face of adversity. This practical guide is full of concrete suggestions, experiential practices, personal examples, and insights into the brain. It includes effective ways to interact with others and to repair and deepen important relationships. Warm, encouraging, and down-to-earth, Dr. Hanson's step-by-step approach is grounded in the science of positive neuroplasticity. He explains how to overcome the brain's negativity bias, release painful thoughts and feelings, and replace them with self-compassion, self-worth, joy, and inner peace.
Harmony
|
9780451498847
|
Hardcover
A Really Good Day
By Waldman, Ayelet
A revealing, courageous, fascinating, and funny account of the author's experiment with microdoses of LSD in an effort to treat a debilitating mood disorder, of her quest to understand a misunderstood drug, and of her search for a really good day. When a small vial arrives in her mailbox from "Lewis Carroll," Ayelet Waldman is at a low point. Her mood storms have become intolerably severe; she has tried nearly every medication possible; her husband and children are suffering with her. So she opens the vial, places two drops on her tongue, and joins the ranks of an underground but increasingly vocal group of scientists and civilians successfully using therapeutic microdoses of LSD. As Waldman charts her experience over the course of a month--bursts of productivity, sleepless nights, a newfound sense of equanimity--she also explores the history and mythology of LSD, the cutting-edge research into the drug, and the byzantine policies that control it. Drawing on her experience as a federal public defender, and as the mother of teenagers, and her research into the therapeutic value of psychedelics, Waldman has produced a book that is eye-opening, often hilarious, and utterly enthralling.
Alfred A Knopf
|
9780451494092
|
Print book
But maybe we're wrong
By Klosterman, Charles
"But What If We re Wrong? " visualizes the contemporary world as it will appear to those who'll perceive it as the distant past. Chuck Klosterman asks questions that are profound in their simplicity: How certain are we about our understanding of gravity? How certain are we about our understanding of time? What will be the defining memory of rock music, five hundred years from today? How seriously should we view the content of our dreams? How seriously should we view the content of television? Are all sports destined for extinction? Is it possible that the greatest artist of our era is currently unknown (or weirder still widely known, but entirely disrespected) ? Is it possible that we overrate democracy? And perhaps most disturbing, is it possible that we ve reached the end of knowledge? Kinetically slingshotting through a broad spectrum of objective and subjective problems, "But What If We re Wrong? " is built on interviews with a variety of creative thinkers George Saunders, David Byrne, Jonathan Lethem, Kathryn Schulz, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, Junot Diaz, Amanda Petrusich, Ryan Adams, Nick Bostrom, Dan Carlin, and Richard Linklater, among others interwoven with the type of high-wire humor and nontraditional analysis only Klosterman would dare to attempt. It s a seemingly impossible achievement: a book about the things we cannot know, explained as if we did. It s about how we live now, once now has become then. "
Penguin Books
|
9780399184123
|
Print book
Abandon Me
By Febos, Melissa
In her critically acclaimed memoir, Whip Smart, Melissa Febos laid bare the intimate world of the professional dominatrix, turning an honest examination of her life into a lyrical study of power, desire, and fulfillment. In her dazzling Abandon Me, Febos captures the intense bonds of love and the need for connection -- with family, lovers, and oneself. First, her birth father, who left her with only an inheritance of addiction and Native American blood, its meaning a mystery. As Febos tentatively reconnects, she sees how both these lineages manifest in her own life, marked by compulsion and an instinct for self-erasure. Meanwhile, she remains closely tied to the sea captain who raised her, his parenting ardent but intermittent as his work took him away for months at a time. Woven throughout is the hypnotic story of an all-consuming, long-distance love affair with a woman, marked equally by worship and withdrawal. In visceral, erotic prose, Febos captures their mutual abandonment to passion and obsession -- and the terror and exhilaration of losing herself in another. At once a fearlessly vulnerable memoir and an incisive investigation of art, love, and identity, Abandon Me draws on childhood stories, religion, psychology, mythology, popular culture, and the intimacies of one writer's life to reveal intellectual and emotional truths that feel startlingly universal.
Bloomsbury USA
|
9781632866578
|
Print book
Champion of Choice
By Miller, Cathleen
Not many women can claim to have changed history, but Nafis Sadik set that goal in her youth, and change the world she did. Champion of Choice tells the remarkable story of how Sadik, born into a prominent Indian family in 1929, came to be the worlds foremost advocate for womens health and reproductive rights, the first female director of a United Nations agency, and one of the most powerful women in the world London Times.An obstetrician, wife, mother,and devout Muslim, Sadik has been a courageous and tireless advocate for women, insisting on discussing the difficult issues that impact their lives education, contraception, abortion, as well as rape and other forms of violence. After Sadik joined the fledgling UN Population Fund in 1971, her groundbreaking strategy for providing females with education and the tools to control their own fertility has dramatically influenced the global birthrate.
University of Nebraska Press
|
9780803211049
|
Hardcover
Fifty Major Philosophers
By Collinson, DianeĢ
ranging from Plato to Wittgenstein, the thinkers treated include Aristotle, medieval philosophers including those in the Arabic tradition, and modern philosophers from Descartes and Locke to the Continental schools. Designed as a reference tool for students and writers, Fifty Major Philosophers provides brief biographical data on each philosopher as well as extensive exegetical commentary on his work.
Routledge
|
9780415031356
|
Paperback
The Tell
By Hertenstein, Matthew J
Every day we make predictions based on limited information, in business and at home. Will this company's stock performance continue? Will the job candidate I just interviewed be a good employee? What kind of adult will my child grow up to be? We tend to dismiss our predictive minds as prone to bias and mistakes, but in The Tell, psychologist Matthew Hertenstein reveals that our intuition is surprisingly good at using small clues to make big predictions, and shows how we can make better decisions by homing in on the right details.Just as expert poker players use their opponents' tells to see through their bluffs, Hertenstein shows that we can likewise train ourselves to read physical cues to significantly increase our predictive acumen. By looking for certain clues, we can accurately call everything from election results to the likelihood of marital success, IQ scores to sexual orientation - even from flimsy evidence, such as an old yearbook photo or a silent one-minute video.
Basic Books
|
9780465031658
|
Print book
Baby Meets World
By Day, Nicholas
A dynamic new story about how babies make their way in the world -- and how grown-ups have tried to make sense of these tiny inscrutable beings.. As a new parent, Nicholas Day had some basic but confounding questions: Why does my son find the straitjacket of his swaddling blanket comforting and not terrifying? How can he never meet a developmental norm and still be OK? And when will he stop sucking my finger? So he went digging for answers. They were not what he expected.. Drawing on a wealth of perspectives -- scientific, historical, cross-cultural, personal -- Baby Meets World is organized around the mundane activities that dominate the life of an infant: sucking, smiling, touching, toddling. From these everyday activities, Day weaves together an account that is anything but ordinary: a fresh, surprising story, both weird and wondrous, about our first experience of the world.. Part hidden history of parenthood, part secret lives of babies, Baby Meets World steps back from the moment-to-moment chaos of babydom. It allows readers to see infancy anew in all its strangeness and splendor.
St. Martin's Press
|
9780312591342
|
Hardcover
Dopesick
By Macy, Beth
From the New York Times bestselling author of Factory Man comes the only book to fully chart the opioid crisis in America-an unforgettable portrait of the families and first responders on the front lines.In this masterful work, Beth Macy takes us into the epicenter of America's twenty-plus year struggle with opioid addiction. From distressed small communities in Central Appalachia to wealthy suburbs; from disparate cities to once-idyllic farm towns; it's a heartbreaking trajectory that illustrates how this national crisis has persisted for so long and become so firmly entrenched. Beginning with a single dealer who lands in a small Virginia town and sets about turning high school football stars into heroin overdose statistics, Macy endeavors to answer a grieving mother's question-why her only son died-and comes away with a harrowing story of greed and need. From the introduction of OxyContin in 1996, Macy parses how America embraced a medical culture where overtreatment with painkillers became the norm. In some of the same distressed communities featured in her bestselling book Factory Man, the unemployed use painkillers both to numb the pain of joblessness and pay their bills, while privileged teens trade pills in cul-de-sacs, and even high school standouts fall prey to prostitution, jail, and death. Through unsparing, yet deeply human portraits of the families and first responders struggling to ameliorate this epidemic, each facet of the crisis comes into focus. In these politically fragmented times, Beth Macy shows, astonishingly, that the only thing that unites Americans across geographic and class lines is opioid drug abuse. But in a country unable to provide basic healthcare for all, Macy still finds reason to hope-and signs of the spirit and tenacity necessary in those facing addiction to build a better future for themselves and their families.
Little, Brown and Company
|
9780316551243
|
Hardcover
Human Kindness and the Smell of Warm Croissants
By Ogien, Ruwen
Human Kindness and the Smell of Warm Croissants makes philosophy fun, tactile, and popular. Moral thinking is simple, Ruwen Ogien argues, and as inherent as the senses. In our daily experiences, in the situations we confront and in the scenes we witness, we develop an understanding of right and wrong as sophisticated as the moral outlook of the world's most gifted philosophers. By drawing on this knowledge to navigate life's most perplexing problems, ethics becomes second nature.Ogien explores, through experimental philosophy and other methods, the responses nineteen real-world conundrums provoke. Is a short, mediocre life better than no life at all? Is it acceptable to kill a healthy person so his organs can save five others? Would you swap a "natural" life filled with frustration, disappointment, and partial success for a world in which all of your needs are met, but through artificial and mechanical means? Ogien doesn't seek to show how difficult it is to determine right from wrong or how easy it is for humans to become monsters or react like saints.
Columbia University Press
|
9780231169226
|
Hardcover
The Twenty-four Hour Mind
By Cartwright, Rosalind
In January of 1997, an otherwise nonviolent man under great stress at work brutally murdered his wife in their backyard. He then went back to bed, awakening only when police entered his home. He claimed to have no memory of the event because, while his body was awake at the time, his mind was not. He had been sleepwalking. In The Twenty-four Hour Mind, sleep scientist Rosalind Cartwright brings together decades of research into the bizarre sleep disorders known as parasomnias to propose a new theory of how the human mind works consistently throughout waking and sleeping hours. Thanks to increasingly sophisticated EEG and brain imaging technologies, we now know that our minds do not simply "turn off" during sleep. Rather, they continue to be active, and research has indicated that one of the primary purposes of sleep is to aid in regulating emotions and processing experiences that occur during preceding waking hours.
On Edge
By Petersen, Andrea
A celebrated science and health reporter offers a wry, bracingly honest account of living with anxiety. A racing heart. Difficulty breathing. Overwhelming dread. Andrea Petersen was first diagnosed with an anxiety disorder at the age of twenty, but she later realized that she had been experiencing panic attacks since childhood. With time her symptoms multiplied. She agonized over every odd physical sensation. She developed fears of driving on highways, going to movie theaters, even licking envelopes. Although having a name for her condition was an enormous relief, it was only the beginning of a journey to understand and master it - one that took her from psychiatrists' offices to yoga retreats to the Appalachian Trail. Woven into Petersen's personal story is a fascinating look at the biology of anxiety and the groundbreaking research that might point the way to new treatments. She compares psychoactive drugs to non-drug treatments, including biofeedback and exposure therapy. And she explores the role that genetics and the environment play in mental illness, visiting top neuroscientists and tracing her family history - from her grandmother, who, plagued by paranoia, once tried to burn down her own house, to her young daughter, in whom Petersen sees shades of herself. Brave and empowering, this is essential reading for anyone who knows what it means to live on edge.
A Beautiful, Terrible Thing
By Waite, Jen
**An International Bestseller**"Like Big Little Lies, A Beautiful Terrible Thing is a startling reminder that fairy tales aren't real. A master class in suspenseful storytelling, Jen Waite recounts the lies, betrayals, and infidelity she endured with unrestrained honesty and deft candor. I couldn't turn away." - Jillian Lauren, New York Times bestselling author of Some Girls: My Life in a Harem and Everything You Ever WantedWhat do you do when you discover that the person you've built your life around never existed? When "it could never happen to me" does happen to you?These are the questions facing Jen Waite when she begins to realize that her loving husband - the father of her infant daughter, her best friend, the love of her life - fits the textbook definition of psychopath. In a raw, first-person account, Waite recounts each heartbreaking discovery, every life-destroying lie, and reveals what happens once the dust finally settles on her demolished marriage.After a disturbing email sparks Waite's suspicion that her husband is having an affair, she tries to uncover the truth and rebuild trust in her marriage. Instead, she finds more lies, infidelity, and betrayal than she could have imagined. Waite obsessively analyzes her relationship, trying to find a single moment from the last five years that isn't part of the long-con of lies and manipulation. With a dual-timeline narrative structure, we see Waite's romance bud, bloom, and wither simultaneously, making the heartbreak and disbelief even more affecting.
Piaget for Beginners
By Serulnicov, Adriana
This book discusses the landmarks of Piaget's personal and professional development that culminated in his seminal theory of genetic psychology.
The Price of Silence
By Long, Liza
Liza Long is the mother of a child who has bipolar disorder When she heard about the Newtown shooting her first thought was What if my son does that someday She wrote an emotional response to the tragedy which the Boise State University online journal published as I Am Adam Lanzas Mother The post went viral receiving million Facebook likes nearly tweets and emailsNow in The Price of Silence she takes a devastating look at how we address mental illness especially in children who are funneled through a system of education mental healthcare and juvenile detention that leads far too often to prison In the end she asks one central question If theres a poster child for cancer why cant there be one for mental illness The answer stigma She is speaking in a way that we cannot help but hear and she wont stop until something changes.
Resilient
By Hanson, Rick
These days it's hard to count on the world outside. So it's vital to grow strengths inside like grit, gratitude, and compassion - the key to resilience, and to lasting well-being in a changing world. True resilience is much more than enduring terrible conditions. We need resilience every day to raise a family, work at a job, cope with stress, deal with health problems, navigate issues with others, heal from old pain, and simply keep on going. With his trademark blend of neuroscience, mindfulness, and positive psychology, New York Times bestselling author Dr. Rick Hanson shows you how to develop twelve vital inner strengths hardwired into your own nervous system. Then no matter what life throws at you, you'll be able to feel less stressed, pursue opportunities with confidence, and stay calm and centered in the face of adversity. This practical guide is full of concrete suggestions, experiential practices, personal examples, and insights into the brain. It includes effective ways to interact with others and to repair and deepen important relationships. Warm, encouraging, and down-to-earth, Dr. Hanson's step-by-step approach is grounded in the science of positive neuroplasticity. He explains how to overcome the brain's negativity bias, release painful thoughts and feelings, and replace them with self-compassion, self-worth, joy, and inner peace.
A Really Good Day
By Waldman, Ayelet
A revealing, courageous, fascinating, and funny account of the author's experiment with microdoses of LSD in an effort to treat a debilitating mood disorder, of her quest to understand a misunderstood drug, and of her search for a really good day. When a small vial arrives in her mailbox from "Lewis Carroll," Ayelet Waldman is at a low point. Her mood storms have become intolerably severe; she has tried nearly every medication possible; her husband and children are suffering with her. So she opens the vial, places two drops on her tongue, and joins the ranks of an underground but increasingly vocal group of scientists and civilians successfully using therapeutic microdoses of LSD. As Waldman charts her experience over the course of a month--bursts of productivity, sleepless nights, a newfound sense of equanimity--she also explores the history and mythology of LSD, the cutting-edge research into the drug, and the byzantine policies that control it. Drawing on her experience as a federal public defender, and as the mother of teenagers, and her research into the therapeutic value of psychedelics, Waldman has produced a book that is eye-opening, often hilarious, and utterly enthralling.
But maybe we're wrong
By Klosterman, Charles
"But What If We re Wrong? " visualizes the contemporary world as it will appear to those who'll perceive it as the distant past. Chuck Klosterman asks questions that are profound in their simplicity: How certain are we about our understanding of gravity? How certain are we about our understanding of time? What will be the defining memory of rock music, five hundred years from today? How seriously should we view the content of our dreams? How seriously should we view the content of television? Are all sports destined for extinction? Is it possible that the greatest artist of our era is currently unknown (or weirder still widely known, but entirely disrespected) ? Is it possible that we overrate democracy? And perhaps most disturbing, is it possible that we ve reached the end of knowledge? Kinetically slingshotting through a broad spectrum of objective and subjective problems, "But What If We re Wrong? " is built on interviews with a variety of creative thinkers George Saunders, David Byrne, Jonathan Lethem, Kathryn Schulz, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, Junot Diaz, Amanda Petrusich, Ryan Adams, Nick Bostrom, Dan Carlin, and Richard Linklater, among others interwoven with the type of high-wire humor and nontraditional analysis only Klosterman would dare to attempt. It s a seemingly impossible achievement: a book about the things we cannot know, explained as if we did. It s about how we live now, once now has become then. "
Abandon Me
By Febos, Melissa
In her critically acclaimed memoir, Whip Smart, Melissa Febos laid bare the intimate world of the professional dominatrix, turning an honest examination of her life into a lyrical study of power, desire, and fulfillment. In her dazzling Abandon Me, Febos captures the intense bonds of love and the need for connection -- with family, lovers, and oneself. First, her birth father, who left her with only an inheritance of addiction and Native American blood, its meaning a mystery. As Febos tentatively reconnects, she sees how both these lineages manifest in her own life, marked by compulsion and an instinct for self-erasure. Meanwhile, she remains closely tied to the sea captain who raised her, his parenting ardent but intermittent as his work took him away for months at a time. Woven throughout is the hypnotic story of an all-consuming, long-distance love affair with a woman, marked equally by worship and withdrawal. In visceral, erotic prose, Febos captures their mutual abandonment to passion and obsession -- and the terror and exhilaration of losing herself in another. At once a fearlessly vulnerable memoir and an incisive investigation of art, love, and identity, Abandon Me draws on childhood stories, religion, psychology, mythology, popular culture, and the intimacies of one writer's life to reveal intellectual and emotional truths that feel startlingly universal.
Champion of Choice
By Miller, Cathleen
Not many women can claim to have changed history, but Nafis Sadik set that goal in her youth, and change the world she did. Champion of Choice tells the remarkable story of how Sadik, born into a prominent Indian family in 1929, came to be the worlds foremost advocate for womens health and reproductive rights, the first female director of a United Nations agency, and one of the most powerful women in the world London Times.An obstetrician, wife, mother,and devout Muslim, Sadik has been a courageous and tireless advocate for women, insisting on discussing the difficult issues that impact their lives education, contraception, abortion, as well as rape and other forms of violence. After Sadik joined the fledgling UN Population Fund in 1971, her groundbreaking strategy for providing females with education and the tools to control their own fertility has dramatically influenced the global birthrate.
Fifty Major Philosophers
By Collinson, DianeĢ
ranging from Plato to Wittgenstein, the thinkers treated include Aristotle, medieval philosophers including those in the Arabic tradition, and modern philosophers from Descartes and Locke to the Continental schools. Designed as a reference tool for students and writers, Fifty Major Philosophers provides brief biographical data on each philosopher as well as extensive exegetical commentary on his work.
The Tell
By Hertenstein, Matthew J
Every day we make predictions based on limited information, in business and at home. Will this company's stock performance continue? Will the job candidate I just interviewed be a good employee? What kind of adult will my child grow up to be? We tend to dismiss our predictive minds as prone to bias and mistakes, but in The Tell, psychologist Matthew Hertenstein reveals that our intuition is surprisingly good at using small clues to make big predictions, and shows how we can make better decisions by homing in on the right details.Just as expert poker players use their opponents' tells to see through their bluffs, Hertenstein shows that we can likewise train ourselves to read physical cues to significantly increase our predictive acumen. By looking for certain clues, we can accurately call everything from election results to the likelihood of marital success, IQ scores to sexual orientation - even from flimsy evidence, such as an old yearbook photo or a silent one-minute video.
Baby Meets World
By Day, Nicholas
A dynamic new story about how babies make their way in the world -- and how grown-ups have tried to make sense of these tiny inscrutable beings.. As a new parent, Nicholas Day had some basic but confounding questions: Why does my son find the straitjacket of his swaddling blanket comforting and not terrifying? How can he never meet a developmental norm and still be OK? And when will he stop sucking my finger? So he went digging for answers. They were not what he expected.. Drawing on a wealth of perspectives -- scientific, historical, cross-cultural, personal -- Baby Meets World is organized around the mundane activities that dominate the life of an infant: sucking, smiling, touching, toddling. From these everyday activities, Day weaves together an account that is anything but ordinary: a fresh, surprising story, both weird and wondrous, about our first experience of the world.. Part hidden history of parenthood, part secret lives of babies, Baby Meets World steps back from the moment-to-moment chaos of babydom. It allows readers to see infancy anew in all its strangeness and splendor.
Dopesick
By Macy, Beth
From the New York Times bestselling author of Factory Man comes the only book to fully chart the opioid crisis in America-an unforgettable portrait of the families and first responders on the front lines.In this masterful work, Beth Macy takes us into the epicenter of America's twenty-plus year struggle with opioid addiction. From distressed small communities in Central Appalachia to wealthy suburbs; from disparate cities to once-idyllic farm towns; it's a heartbreaking trajectory that illustrates how this national crisis has persisted for so long and become so firmly entrenched. Beginning with a single dealer who lands in a small Virginia town and sets about turning high school football stars into heroin overdose statistics, Macy endeavors to answer a grieving mother's question-why her only son died-and comes away with a harrowing story of greed and need. From the introduction of OxyContin in 1996, Macy parses how America embraced a medical culture where overtreatment with painkillers became the norm. In some of the same distressed communities featured in her bestselling book Factory Man, the unemployed use painkillers both to numb the pain of joblessness and pay their bills, while privileged teens trade pills in cul-de-sacs, and even high school standouts fall prey to prostitution, jail, and death. Through unsparing, yet deeply human portraits of the families and first responders struggling to ameliorate this epidemic, each facet of the crisis comes into focus. In these politically fragmented times, Beth Macy shows, astonishingly, that the only thing that unites Americans across geographic and class lines is opioid drug abuse. But in a country unable to provide basic healthcare for all, Macy still finds reason to hope-and signs of the spirit and tenacity necessary in those facing addiction to build a better future for themselves and their families.
Human Kindness and the Smell of Warm Croissants
By Ogien, Ruwen
Human Kindness and the Smell of Warm Croissants makes philosophy fun, tactile, and popular. Moral thinking is simple, Ruwen Ogien argues, and as inherent as the senses. In our daily experiences, in the situations we confront and in the scenes we witness, we develop an understanding of right and wrong as sophisticated as the moral outlook of the world's most gifted philosophers. By drawing on this knowledge to navigate life's most perplexing problems, ethics becomes second nature.Ogien explores, through experimental philosophy and other methods, the responses nineteen real-world conundrums provoke. Is a short, mediocre life better than no life at all? Is it acceptable to kill a healthy person so his organs can save five others? Would you swap a "natural" life filled with frustration, disappointment, and partial success for a world in which all of your needs are met, but through artificial and mechanical means? Ogien doesn't seek to show how difficult it is to determine right from wrong or how easy it is for humans to become monsters or react like saints.
The Twenty-four Hour Mind
By Cartwright, Rosalind
In January of 1997, an otherwise nonviolent man under great stress at work brutally murdered his wife in their backyard. He then went back to bed, awakening only when police entered his home. He claimed to have no memory of the event because, while his body was awake at the time, his mind was not. He had been sleepwalking. In The Twenty-four Hour Mind, sleep scientist Rosalind Cartwright brings together decades of research into the bizarre sleep disorders known as parasomnias to propose a new theory of how the human mind works consistently throughout waking and sleeping hours. Thanks to increasingly sophisticated EEG and brain imaging technologies, we now know that our minds do not simply "turn off" during sleep. Rather, they continue to be active, and research has indicated that one of the primary purposes of sleep is to aid in regulating emotions and processing experiences that occur during preceding waking hours.