Falling Into the Fire: A Psychiatrist's Encounters with the Mind in Crisis


Christine Montross - 2013
    A new mother is admitted with incessant visions of harming her child. A recent graduate, dressed in a tunic and declaring that love emanates from everything around him, is brought to A&E by his alarmed girlfriend. These are among the patients new physician Christine Montross meets during rounds at her hospital’s locked inpatient ward – and who we meet as she struggles to understand the mysteries of the mind, most especially when the tools of modern medicine are failing us. Beautifully written and deeply felt, Falling into the Fire is an intimate portrait of psychiatry and a moving reminder, in the words of the New York Times, of 'our fragile, shared humanity'

Any Last Words?


Les Macdonald - 2014
    Each story features a short synopsis of the crime and the journey through the justice system that brought them to the execution chamber.

Women Who Kill: True Crime Stories Of Killer Women, Serial Killers And Psychopathic Women Who Kill For Pleasure


Brody Clayton - 2015
    Read on your PC, Mac, smart phone, tablet or Kindle device. When male serial killers are on the loose they tend to make headlines, for example Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer. Men like these are infamous for the terror that they inflicted in the general population. Many of these men are diagnosed as psychopaths. The reasons for them going down the paths that they chose are analysed and studied and read about. There was a time however that all such crimes were always automatically linked to a man. A general perception was quite common; that there is no such thing as women serial killers and psychopaths. In fact, women killers can sometimes be more lethal, and the murders that they have committed can be just as cold and calculated as a man's. When women and men turn to murder and crime, they leave a wake of disappearances and blood in their path, a path that may be discovered after years have passed. Now, be it male or female, analysts have sat them down and assessed their mental progress. Things have changed over the decades. Their crimes are weighed in the same scales as their male counterparts, and now they can't hide themselves by claiming to be absolutely innocent. Here Is A Preview Of What You'll Learn... Women Who Kill – Delphine La Laurie and Her House of Horrors Women Who Kill – Elizabeth Bathory – The Blood Countess Women Who Kill – Nannie Doss – Nancy Hazel – The Husband Killer Women Who Kill – Nannie Doss – The Second Husband Women Who Kill – Nannie Doss – The Third Victim Women Who Kill – Nannie Doss – Four Husbands in a Row Women Who Kill – Nannie Doss – Last Man Standing Much, much more! Download your copy today! Take action today and download this book for a limited time discount of only $2.99! If you're intrigued by the women killers of our time then download this book now! Tags: women who kill, women killers, killer women, true crime, true murder stories, murder mysteries, cold cases true crime, murders solved, killer families, unsolved murders, crimes, true crime stories,

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson | Chapter Compilation


Ethan Thomas - 2016
     The ship was called “magnificent”, consuming as much as one hundred forty tons of coal every day even if it just stands still on the dock, and standing seven stories tall from dock to bridge. She was considered by engineers and shipbuilders as one of the finest examples of man’s ingenuity and creativity. In addition, out of all the ships that were converted for use in the war, the Lusitania was the only one that was exempted and continued on as a cruise ship. However, its job of carrying passengers across the Atlantic Ocean was not the thing that made her famous today. Read more.... Download your copy today! for a limited time discount of only $2.99! Available on PC, Mac, smart phone, tablet or Kindle device. © 2015 All Rights Reserved by Unlimited Press Works, LLC

Hollywood Divas: The Good, the Bad, and the Fabulous


James Robert Parish - 2015
    This volume delivers an eye-popping backstage peek into the lusty private lives and cutthroat careers of Hollywood’s most memorable bad girls over the decades. The iconoclastic Hollywood Divas presented are: Jean Arthur, Lucille Ball, Tallulah Bankhead, Theda Bara, Drew Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, Kim Basinger, Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, Brett Butler, Mariah Carey, Cher, Joan Collins, Joan Crawford, Dorothy Dandridge, Bette Davis, Dolores Del Rio, Marlene Dietrich, Shannen Doherty, Patty Duke, Faye Dunaway, Jane Fonda, Kay Francis, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Greta Garbo, Ava Gardner, Judy Garland, Greer Garson, Paulette Goddard, Melanie Griffith, Jean Harlow, Susan Hayward, Rita Hayworth, Sonja Henie, Katharine Hepburn, Miriam Hopkins, Whitney Houston, Betty Hutton, Janet Jackson, Grace Kelly, Veronica Lake, Hedy Lamarr, Jennifer Lopez, Jeanette MacDonald, Madonna, Jayne Mansfield, Liza Minnelli, Marilyn Monroe, Maria Montez, Demi Moore, Mae Murray, Vera Ralston, Joan Rivers, Julia Roberts, Roseanne, Diane Ross, Meg Ryan, Norma Shearer, Cybill Shepherd, Britney Spears, Sharon Stone, Barbra Streisand, Gloria Swanson, Elizabeth Taylor, Lana Turner, Lupe Velez, Mae West, Shelley Winters, Natalie Wood, and Loretta Young.A must-have volume for every pop-culture fanatic, Hollywood Divas promises to tantalize you with juicy tidbits and saucy scandals that earned each of these devilish darlings the title of diva.

Mussolini's Arctic Airship (Kindle Single)


Eva Holland - 2017
    But on its return journey to Norway, the airship plunged from the sky and smashed into the Arctic pack ice. General Umberto Nobile and eight other survivors were stranded on an ice floe nearly two hundred miles from land.Nobile’s bitter rival, legendary Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen—the first man to sail the Northwest Passage and the first to reach the South Pole—announced his willingness to come to the general’s rescue. But Mussolini couldn’t bear the humiliation of his general being saved by an enemy, so Amundsen set off on an unauthorized recovery mission of his own.Journalist Eva Holland delivers a glittering portrayal of the ill-fated voyage of the airship Italia and the rescue missions it precipitated, set against the backdrop of rising nationalism in Europe. Mussolini’s Arctic Airship explores how the changing politics of interwar Europe shaped the lives and deaths of men—even in the farthest frozen reaches of the planet.Cover design by Pepe NYMI.

The South Carolina State Hospital: Stories from Bull Street (Landmarks)


William Buchheit - 2020
    Founded in 1821 as the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum, it housed, fed and treated thousands of patients incapable of surviving on their own. The patient population in 1961 eclipsed 6,600, well above its listed capacity of 4,823, despite an operating budget that ranked forty-fifth out of the forty-eight states with such large public hospitals. By the mid-1990s, the patient population had fallen under 700, and the hospital had become a symbol of captivity, horror and chaos. Author William Buchheit details this history through the words and interviews of those who worked on the iconic campus.

Natalie and R.J


Warren G. Harris - 1988
    Their devotion so intense they wed each other not once, but twice. In the first book to focus on both Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner, the author of the bestseller Gable & Lombard and the critically acclaimed book Cary Grant gives us a scintillating portrait of this glamorous and exciting couple from their early years working for the studio system to the final, shattering hours before Natalie Wood's life tragically ended. We follow them on their roller-coaster ride of the ups and downs and the magic and the madness of this couple who became Hollywood royalty.

Muses, Madmen, and Prophets: Rethinking the History, Science, and Meaning of Auditory Hallucination


Daniel B. Smith - 2007
     Auditory hallucination is one of the most awe-inspiring, terrifying, and ill-understood tricks the human psyche is capable of. Muses, Madmen, and Prophets reevaluates the popular conception of the phenomenon today and through the ages, and reveals the roots of the medical understanding and treatment of it. It probes history, literature, anthropology, psychology, and neurology to explain and demystify the experience of hearing voices, in a fascinating and at times funny quest for understanding. Daniel B. Smith's personal experience with the phenomenon-his father heard voices, and it was the great torment and shame of his father's life-and his discovery that some people learn to live in peace with their voices fuels this contemplative, brilliantly researched, and inspired book. Science has not been able to fully explain the phenomenon of auditory hallucination. It is a condition that has existed perhaps as long as we have-there is evidence of it in literature and even pre-literate oral histories from across all times and cultures. Smith presents the sophisticated and radical argument that a negative side effect of living as we do in this great age of medical science is that we have come to limit this phenomenon to nothing more than a biochemical glitch for which the only proper response is medical, pharmaceutical treatment. This "pathological assumption" can inflict great harm on the people who hear voices by ignoring the meaning and reality of the experience for them. But it also obscures from the rest of us a rich wellspring of knowledge about the essential source of faith and inspiration. As Smith examines the many incidences of people who have famously heard voices throughout history-Moses, Mohammed, Teresa of Avila, Joan of Arc, Rilke, William Blake, Socrates, and others-he considers the experience of auditory hallucination in light of its relationship to the nature of pure faith and as the key to the source of artistic inspiration. At the heart of Smith's exploration into the many extraordinary, strange, sometimes frightening and sometimes almost supernatural aspects of auditory hallucination is his driving personal need to comprehend an experience that, when considered in good faith, is as profound and complex as human consciousness itself.

Into the Darkness: The Harrowing True Story of the Titanic Disaster: Riveting First-Hand Accounts of Agony, Sacrifice and Survival


Alan J. Rockwell - 2017
    No human being who stood on her decks that fateful night was alive to commemorate the event on its 100th anniversary. Their stories are with us, however, and the lessons remain. From the moment the world learned the Titanic had sunk, we wanted to know, who had survived? Those answers didn’t come until the evening of Thursday, April 18, 1912―when the Cunard liner Carpathia finally reached New York with the 706 survivors who had been recovered from Titanic’s lifeboats. Harold Bride, “Titanic’s surviving wireless operator,” relayed the story of the ship’s band. “The way the band kept playing was a noble thing. I heard it first while still we were working wireless when there was a ragtime tune for us. The last I saw of the band, when I was floating out in the sea with my lifebelt on, it was still on deck playing ‘Autumn.’ How they ever did it I cannot imagine.” There were stories of heroism―such as that of Edith Evans, who was waiting to board collapsible Lifeboat D, the last boat to leave Titanic, when she turned to Caroline Brown and said, “You go first. You have children waiting at home.” The sacrifice cost Evans her life, but as Mrs. Brown said later, “It was a heroic sacrifice, and as long as I live I shall hold her memory dear as my preserver, who preferred to die so that I might live.” There was mystery. There was bravery. There was suspense. There was cowardice. Most men who survived found themselves trying to explain how they survived when women and children had died. But mostly, there was loss. On her return to New York after picking up Titanic’s survivors, Carpathia had become known as a ship of widows. Rene Harris, who lost her husband, Broadway producer Henry Harris, in the disaster, later spoke of her loss when she said, “It was not a night to remember. It was a night to forget.” Drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished letters, memoirs, and diaries as well as interviews with survivors and family members, veteran author and writer Alan Rockwell brings to life the colorful voices and the harrowing experiences of many of those who lived to tell their story. More than 100 years after the RMS Titanic met its fatal end, the story of the tragic wreck continues to fascinate people worldwide. Though many survivors and their family members disappeared into obscurity or were hesitant to talk about what they went through, others were willing to share their experiences during the wreck and in its aftermath. This book recounts many of these first-hand accounts in graphic, compelling detail.

The Age of Anxiety: A History of America's Turbulent Affair with Tranquilizers


Andrea Tone - 2008
    In 2006, the National Institute of Mental Health estimated that 40 million adult Americans suffer from an anxiety disorder in any given year: more than double the number thought to have such a disorder in 2001. Anti-anxiety drugs are a billion-dollar business. Yet as recently as 1955, when the first tranquilizer—Miltown—went on the market, pharmaceutical executives worried that there wouldn’t be interest in anxiety-relief. At mid-century, talk therapy remained the treatment of choice.But Miltown became a sensation—the first psychotropic blockbuster in United States history. By 1957, Americans had filled 36 million prescriptions. Patients seeking made-to-order tranquility emptied drugstores, forcing pharmacists to post signs reading “more Miltown tomorrow.” The drug’s financial success and cultural impact revolutionized perceptions of anxiety and its treatment, inspiring the development of other lifestyle drugs including Valium and Prozac.In The Age of Anxiety, Andrea Tone draws on a broad array of original sources—manufacturers’ files, FDA reports, letters, government investigations, and interviews with inventors, physicians, patients, and activists—to provide the first comprehensive account of the rise of America’s tranquilizer culture. She transports readers from the bomb shelters of the Cold War to the scientific optimism of the Baby Boomers, to the “just say no” Puritanism of the late 1970s and 1980s.A vibrant history of America’s long and turbulent affair with tranquilizers, The Age of Anxiety casts new light on what it has meant to seek synthetic solutions to everyday angst.

Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals


Christopher J. Payne - 2009
    From the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth, over 250 institutions for the insane were built throughout the United States; by 1948, they housed more than a half million patients. The blueprint for these hospitals was set by Pennsylvania hospital superintendent Thomas Story Kirkbride: a central administration building flanked symmetrically by pavilions and surrounded by lavish grounds with pastoral vistas. Kirkbride and others believed that well-designed buildings and grounds, a peaceful environment, a regimen of fresh air, and places for work, exercise, and cultural activities would heal mental illness. But in the second half of the twentieth century, after the introduction of psychotropic drugs and policy shifts toward community-based care, patient populations declined dramatically, leaving many of these beautiful, massive buildings--and the patients who lived in them--neglected and abandoned. Architect and photographer Christopher Payne spent six years documenting the decay of state mental hospitals like these, visiting seventy institutions in thirty states. Through his lens we see splendid, palatial exteriors (some designed by such prominent architects as H. H. Richardson and Samuel Sloan) and crumbling interiors--chairs stacked against walls with peeling paint in a grand hallway; brightly colored toothbrushes still hanging on a rack; stacks of suitcases, never packed for the trip home. Accompanying Payne's striking and powerful photographs is an essay by Oliver Sacks (who described his own experience working at a state mental hospital in his book Awakenings). Sacks pays tribute to Payne's photographs and to the lives once lived in these places, "where one could be both mad and safe."

The Curse: The Colorful & Chaotic History of the LA Clippers


Mick Minas - 2016
    Author Mick Minas goes behind the scenes-- interviewing players, coaches, and front office personnel--to create the first in-depth look at the history of the Clippers.The Curse is filled with drama: the unauthorized relocation of the franchise that led to the NBA filing a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the Clippers, the disruption of the team's first playoff appearance by the Los Angeles riots, the bold but unsuccessful attempt to sign Kobe Bryant at the peak of his career, and the scandal that ultimately resulted in owner Donald Sterling being banned from the NBA for life. Featuring some of basketball's biggest names, including World B. Free, Elgin Baylor, Danny Manning, Doc Rivers, Larry Brown, Dominique Wilkins, Elton Brand, Baron Davis, Blake Griffin, and Chris Paul, The Curse delves into the disasters of the past and the complications of the present. This is the definitive history of the NBA's most dysfunctional franchise.

The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic


Darby Penney - 2008
     It is a remarkable portrait, too, of the life of a psychiatric asylum--the sort of community in which, for better and for worse, hundreds of thousands of people lived out their lives.More than four hundred abandoned suitcases filled with patients’ belongings were found when Willard Psychiatric Center closed in 1995 after 125 years of operation. They are skillfully examined here and compared to the written record to create a moving—and devastating—group portrait of twentieth-century American psychiatric care.

3000 Facts about TV Shows


James Egan - 2016
    The producers refused. In Doctor Who, the Twelfth Doctor's costume was inspired by David Bowie. In Game of Thrones, Hodor's real name is Wyllis. Matthew Perry plays Chandler in Friends. He says he can't remember a single thing from the show throughout three seasons. In The Simpsons, Hans Moleman has died at least 15 times. Many mobsters contacted James Gandolfini to tell him his performance was excellent in The Sopranos but warned him not to wear shorts in the show. Millie Bobby Brown was 11 when she was cast as Eleven in Stranger Things. The Tourette Syndrome Association praised the show, South Park, for its accurate portrayal of the Tourette's condition. In Family Guy, Meg's full name is Megatron Griffin.