But despite the unprecedented attention, our understanding of addiction is trapped in unfounded 20th century ideas, addiction as a crime or as brain disease, and in equally outdated treatment.Challenging both the idea of the addict's "broken brain" and the notion of a simple "addictive personality," The New York Times Bestseller, Unbroken Brain, offers a radical and groundbreaking new perspective, arguing that addictions are learning disorders and shows how seeing the condition this way can untangle our current debates over treatment, prevention and policy. Like autistic traits, addictive behaviors fall on a spectrum -- and they can be a normal response to an extreme situation. By illustrating what addiction is, and is not, the book illustrates how timing, history, family, peers, culture and chemicals come together to create both illness and recovery- and why there is no "addictive personality" or single treatment that works for all.Combining Maia Szalavitz's personal story with a distillation of more than 25 years of science and research, Unbroken Brain provides a paradigm-shifting approach to thinking about addiction.Her writings on radical addiction therapies have been featured in The Washington Post, Vice Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, in addition to multiple other publications. She has been interviewed about her book on many radio shows including Fresh Air with Terry Gross and The Brian Lehrer show.

    And with a thump, down came Father Iggy.From shoot-outs at funerals to dead men screaming and runaway corpses, undertakers have plenty of unusual stories to tell--and a special way of telling them.In this macabre and moving compilation, funeral directors across the country share their most embarrassing, jaw-dropping, irreverent, and deeply poignant stories about life at death's door. Discover what scares them and what moves them to tears. Learn about rookie mistakes and why death sometimes calls for duct tape.Enjoy tales of the dearly departed spending eternity naked from the waist down and getting bottled and corked--in a wine bottle. And then meet their families--the weepers, the punchers, the stolidly dignified, and the ones who deliver their dead mother in a pickup truck.If there's one thing undertakers know, it's that death drives people crazy. These are the best "bodies of work" from America's darkest profession."Sick, funny, and brilliant! I love this book." --Jonathan Maberry

    In the first anguished days, she began to create a record of her interior life as a mourner, trying to capture the paradox of grief-its monumental agony and microscopic intimacies-an endeavor that ultimately bloomed into a profound look at how caring for her mother during her illness changed and strengthened their bond. O'Rourke's story is one of a life gone off the rails, of how watching her mother's illness-and separating from her husband-left her fundamentally altered. But it is also one of resilience, as she observes her family persevere even in the face of immeasurable loss. With lyricism and unswerving candor, The Long Goodbye conveys the fleeting moments of joy that make up a life, and the way memory can lead us out of the jagged darkness of loss. Effortlessly blending research and reflection, the personal and the universal, it is not only an exceptional memoir, but a necessary one.

    She finds solace in the notion that midlife is also a time of unprecedented opportunity for growth as old roles and responsibilities fall away, and unanticipated possibilities appear on the horizon. More a spiritual journey than a physical one, Kenison's beautifully crafted exploration begins and ends with a home, a life, a marriage. But this metamorphosis proves as demanding as any trek or pilgrimage to distant lands-it will guide and inspire every woman who finds herself asking "What now?"

    Arthur Kleinman, an eminent Harvard psychiatrist and social anthropologist, began caring for his wife, Joan, after she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, he found just how far the act of caregiving extended beyond the boundaries of medicine. In The Soul of Care: The Moral Education of a Husband and a Doctor, Kleinman delivers a deeply humane and inspiring story of his life in medicine and his marriage to Joan, and he describes the practical, emotional and moral aspects of caretaking. He also writes about the problems our society faces as medical technology advances and the cost of health care soars but caring for patients no longer seems important.Caregiving is long, hard, unglamorous work--at moments joyous, more often tedious, sometimes agonizing, but it is always rich in meaning. In the face of our current political indifference and the challenge to the health care system, he emphasizes how we must ask uncomfortable questions of ourselves, and of our doctors. To give care, to be present for someone who needs us, and to feel and show kindness are deep emotional and moral experiences, enactments of our core values. The practice of caregiving teaches us what is most important in life, and reveals the very heart of what it is to be human.

    In the year since the publication of her second memoir, Resilience, Elizabeth Edwards has once again found herself living in the glare of the media spotlight.  Now, in an eloquent, intimate, and emotionally powerful new afterword to her #1 national bestselling book, she offers readers a window into her world at a time when she is required to adjust once more to a new reality and to forge a new life for herself and her children.     In writing candidly about the gulf between her private self and her public image, the dissolution of her thirty-year marriage, and the blessings she continues to find in family, friends, and strangers, Elizabeth comes to grips with the narrative of her life story and reflects on who she is and what she wants for her future.  Anyone who has followed Elizabeth’s story will want to read this thoughtful and affecting new chapter from one of America’s most beloved female role models.

    Homesick—why? She was standing right in her own kitchen. She felt homesick, she realized, with love for home itself. “Of all the elements of a happy life,” she thought, “my home is the most important.” In a flash, she decided to undertake a new happiness project, and this time, to focus on home.And what did she want from her home? A place that calmed her, and energized her. A place that, by making her feel safe, would free her to take risks. Also, while Rubin wanted to be happier at home, she wanted to appreciate how much happiness was there already. So, starting in September (the new January), Rubin dedicated a school year—September through May—to making her home a place of greater simplicity, comfort, and love.  In The Happiness Project, she worked out general theories of happiness. Here she goes deeper on factors that matter for home, such as possessions, marriage, time, and parenthood. How can she control the cubicle in her pocket? How might she spotlight her family’s treasured possessions? And it really was time to replace that dud toaster. Each month, Rubin tackles a different theme as she experiments with concrete, manageable resolutions—and this time, she coaxes her family to try some resolutions, as well.  With her signature blend of memoir, science, philosophy, and experimentation, Rubin’s passion for her subject jumps off the page, and reading just a few chapters of this book will inspire readers to find more happiness in their own lives.

    The topics range from the psychological responses to a parent's death such as shock, depression, and guilt, to the practical consequences such as dealing with estates and funerals.

    How can we recapture the confidence we once had as we stumble through the dark times that seem increasingly bleak? As bad newspiles up--from climate crises to daily assaults on civility--how can we cope? Where, she asks, "do we start to our world and joy and hope and our faith in life itself back . . . with our sore feet, hearing loss, stiff fingers, poor digestion, stunned minds, broken hearts?"We begin, Lamott says, by accepting our flaws and embracing our humanity.Drawing from her own experiences, Lamott shows us the intimate and human ways we can adopt to move through life's dark places and toward the light of hope that still burns ahead for all of us.As she does in Help, Thanks, Wow and her other bestselling books, Lamott explores the thorny issues of life and faith by breaking them down into manageable, human-sized questions for readers to ponder, in the process showing us how we can amplify life's small moments of joy by staying open to love and connection. As Lamott notes in Dusk Night Dawn, "I got Medicare three days before I got hitched, which sounds like something an old person might do, which does not describe adorably ageless me." Marrying for the first time with a grown son and a grandson, Lamott explains that finding happiness with a partner isn't a function of age or beauty but of outlook and perspective.Full of the honesty, humor, and humanity that have made Lamott beloved by millions of readers, Dusk Night Dawn is classic Anne Lamott--thoughtful and comic, warm and wise--and further proof that Lamott truly speaks to the better angels in all of us.

    Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave, 'Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams', wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because time is all you have and you may find one day that you have less than you think). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humour, inspiration, and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

    She elected to specialize in critical care--to become an ICU physician--and imagined herself swooping in to rescue patients from the brink of death. But then during her first code she found herself cracking the ribs of a patient so old and frail it was unimaginable he would ever come back to life. She began to question her choice. Extreme Measures charts Zitter's journey from wanting to be one kind of hero to becoming another--a doctor who prioritizes the patient's values and preferences in an environment where the default choice is the extreme use of technology. In our current medical culture, the old and the ill are put on what she terms the End-of-Life Conveyor belt. They are intubated, catheterized, and even shelved away in care facilities to suffer their final days alone, confused, and often in pain. In her work Zitter has learned what patients fear more than death itself: the prospect of dying badly. She builds bridges between patients and caregivers, formulates plans to allay patients' pain and anxiety, and enlists the support of loved ones so that life can end well, even beautifully.

    Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage–and a life, in good times and bad–that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child.Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later–the night before New Year's Eve–the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma.This powerful book is Didion's attempt to make sense of the "weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness . . . about marriage and children and memory . . . about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself."

    But as a novice mountain climber and newlywed, could he really leave his wife, Rachel, on the other side of the world to pursue such a dangerous quest? After all, Rachel's dream was to be a wife and mother. She knew that her husband's audacious goal might lead to her to give up everything.A Higher Calling takes us on a beautiful journey through the ups and downs of their relationship, from their unlikely introduction and whirlwind romance to their fairy-tale wedding and the dreams they shared. Dreams that required tremendous sacrifice and faith--in each other and in God.As their dreams are realized, witness how Harold and Rachel used their powerful bond of love to overcome obstacles and learn that life is about doing versus having, serving versus getting, being versus wanting.A Higher Calling shows each of us that when God's purpose and our passion meet, we can transcend any sacrifice we make on the mountains of adversity. And as we approach life with an attitude of thanksgiving, we realize that being joyful and living in love is worth it. Every time.

    She chose to drop college temporarily, and take the lead in caring for her beloved grandfather after he was unable to live alone due to Alzheimer's disease. In "Beyond Forgetting" you will read a harrowing tale-first of a kind and brilliant man's love for his granddaughter, and of her selfless return of that love. You will laugh and cry along with the Nelson family as that once-formidable man experiences many surprising, upsetting, and sometimes fascinating changes. You will be astounded by the admirable strength of Zimmerman in the face of shock, frustration, sadness, and guilt. Finally, you will watch her grandfather undergo the downward turn that makes Alzheimer's a singularly devastating illness.Alzheimer's is a cruel disease that can rob the sufferer of his dignity, memory, strength, and even basic functions. "Beyond Forgetting" is an important book with something to teach everyone. Never macabre, maudlin, or miserable, the book maintains a positive, loving tone. It is a rare insight into an often-closed moment in the hardest part of many people's lives. If you have a loved one with Alzheimer's disease, or know someone who does, it should be required reading."

    He was told—like his entire generation—that his problem was caused by a chemical imbalance in his brain. As an adult, trained in the social sciences, he began to investigate this question—and he learned that almost everything we have been told about depression and anxiety is wrong. Across the world, Hari discovered social scientists who were uncovering the real causes—and they are mostly not in our brains, but in the way we live today. Hari’s journey took him from the people living in the tunnels beneath Las Vegas, to an Amish community in Indiana, to an uprising in Berlin—all showing in vivid and dramatic detail these new insights. They lead to solutions radically different from the ones we have been offered up until now.Just as Chasing the Scream transformed the global debate about addiction, with over twenty million views for his TED talk and the animation based on it, Lost Connections will lead us to a very different debate about depression and anxiety—one that shows how, together, we can end this epidemic.