You Are Here: An Owner's Manual for Dangerous Minds


Jenny Lawson - 2017
    Elaborate doodles, beautiful illustrations, often with captions that she posts online. At her signings, fans show up with printouts of these drawings for Jenny to autograph. And inevitably they ask her when will she publish a whole book of them. That moment has arrived.You Are Here is something only Jenny could create. A combination of inspiration, therapy, coloring, humor, and advice, this book is filled with Jenny’s amazingly intricate illustrations, all on perforated pages that can be easily torn out, hung up, and shared. Drawing on the tenets of art therapy—which you can do while hiding in the pillow fort under your bed—You Are Here is ready to be made entirely your own.Some of the material is dark, some is light; some is silly and profane and irreverent. Gathered together, this is life, happening right now, all around, in its messy glory, as only Jenny Lawson could show us.

My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey


Jill Bolte Taylor - 2006
    Through the eyes of a curious scientist, she watched her mind deteriorate whereby she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life. Because of her understanding of the brain, her respect for the cells in her body, and an amazing mother, Jill completely recovered. In My Stroke of Insight, she shares her recommendations for recovery and the insight she gained into the unique functions of the two halves of her brain. When she lost the skills of her left brain, her consciousness shifted away from normal reality where she felt "at one with the universe." Taylor helps others not only rebuild their brains from trauma, but helps those of us with normal brains better understand how we can consciously influence the neural circuitry underlying what we think, how we feel and how we react to life's circumstances.

A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership


James Comey - 2018
    His journey provides an unprecedented entry into the corridors of power, and a remarkable lesson in what makes an effective leader.Mr. Comey served as Director of the FBI from 2013 to 2017, appointed to the post by President Barack Obama. He previously served as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and the U.S. deputy attorney general in the administration of President George W. Bush. From prosecuting the Mafia and Martha Stewart to helping change the Bush administration's policies on torture and electronic surveillance, overseeing the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation as well as ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, Comey has been involved in some of the most consequential cases and policies of recent history.

He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and His Daughter's Quest to Know Him


Mimi Baird - 2015
    Perry Baird was a rising medical star in the late 1920s and 1930s. Early in his career, ahead of his time, he grew fascinated with identifying the biochemical root of manic depression, just as he began to suffer from it himself. By the time the results of his groundbreaking experiments were published, Dr. Baird had been institutionalized multiple times, his medical license revoked, and his wife and daughters estranged. He later received a lobotomy and died from a consequent seizure, his research incomplete, his achievements unrecognized.Mimi Baird grew up never fully knowing this story, as her family went silent about the father who had been absent for most of her childhood. Decades later, a string of extraordinary coincidences led to the recovery of a manuscript which Dr. Baird had worked on throughout his brutal institutionalization, confinement, and escape. This remarkable document, reflecting periods of both manic exhilaration and clear-headed health, presents a startling portrait of a man who was a uniquely astute observer of his own condition, struggling with a disease for which there was no cure, racing against time to unlock the key to treatment before his illness became impossible to manage.Fifty years after being told her father would forever be “ill” and “away,” Mimi Baird set off on a quest to piece together the memoir and the man. In time her fingers became stained with the lead of the pencil he had used to write his manuscript, as she devoted herself to understanding who he was, why he disappeared, and what legacy she had inherited. The result of his extraordinary record and her journey to bring his name to light is He Wanted the Moon, an unforgettable testament to the reaches of the mind and the redeeming power of a determined heart.Soon to be a major motion picture, from Brad Pitt and Tony Kushner

Some Bright Morning, I'll Fly Away: A Memoir


Alice Anderson - 2017
    Liam Rivers, one of the community's highly respected doctors.But in the wake of this natural disaster, a more terrifying challenge emerges as Liam's mental health spirals out of control, culminating in a violent attack at knifepoint, from which Alice is saved by their three-year-old son. Afraid for her life, she flees with her children.What ensues is an epic battle--emotional, psychological, spiritual, and legal--for her children's welfare, for self-preservation, and ultimately for redemption. It's an unrelenting battle that persists even as life goes on, finally coming full circle when the same son who saved Alice ten years before endures an eerily-familiar violent encounter at his father's hands. Yet even as she confronts the harsh realities of high-powered Southern lawyers and an inadequate legal system, Alice forges a new life with her blossoming children and an ultimate reclamation of her true self.

I'm Proud of You: My Friendship with Fred Rogers


Tim Madigan - 2006
    This fortuitous interview sparked a magnificent friendship between the two, one that would see both men through periods of grief as well as the hope of new beginnings. I’m Proud of You is the story of this friendship and of the enduring legacy left to us all by Fred Rogers. Tim’s career as a journalist was flourishing when he met Fred Rogers, but his personal life was a shambles. As Rogers welcomed Tim into his family, his church, and his life, Tim found an advisor who imparted a gentle but powerful perspective on spirituality, marriage, depression, and the nature of true friendship. With the television icon’s loving and patient guidance, Tim eventually came to understand that his emotional troubles were rooted in a deep fear that his father had never truly been proud of him. Hence the mantra of the friendship between the two, the phrase Rogers used to conclude dozens of letters and e-mail messages to Tim: “I’m Proud of You.” Tim’s friendship with Rogers helped him to mend his relationship with his father and become a better husband and father himself, all the while marveling at how many simple pleasures he had overlooked throughout his life.

Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream


Adam Shepard - 2007
    Scratch Beginnings is Shepard's response to the now-famous books Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch, where Barbara Ehrenreich has written on the hopeless pursuit of the American Dream. This book offers his observation of what it is like for so many people on the lower end of the spectrum, the blunt end of the stick. In this poignant account, Shepard goes on a search for the vitality of the American Dream, and, in turn, discovers so much more. Scratch Beginnings is unquestionably one of the most engaging works of the social science genre. No matter your reading interest, Shepard's facile writing style is sure to keep you turning the pages.

A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal


Jen Waite - 2017
    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.

438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea


Jonathan Franklin - 2015
    A vicious storm killed his engine and the current dragged his boat out to sea. The storm picked up and blasted him west. When he washed ashore on January 29, 2014, he had arrived in the Marshall Islands, 9,000 miles away—equivalent to traveling from New York to Moscow round trip.For fourteen months, Alvarenga survived constant shark attacks. He learned to catch fish with his bare hands. He built a fish net from a pair of empty plastic bottles. Taking apart the outboard motor, he fashioned a huge fishhook. Using fish vertebrae as needles, he stitched together his own clothes.He considered suicide on multiple occasions—including offering himself up to a pack of sharks. But Alvarenga never failed to invent an alternative reality. He imagined a method of survival that kept his body and mind intact long enough for the Pacific Ocean to toss him up on a remote palm-studded island, where he was saved by a local couple living alone in their own Pacific Island paradise.Based on dozens of hours of interviews with Alvarenga and interviews with his colleagues, search and rescue officials, the medical team that saved his life and the remote islanders who nursed him back to health, this is an epic tale of survival, an all-true version of the fictional Life of Pi. With illustrations, maps, and photographs throughout, 438 Days is a study of the resilience, will, ingenuity, and determination required for one man to survive fourteen months, lost at sea.

Maude


Donna Foley Mabry - 2014
    My older sister, Helen, came to my room, took me by the hand, and sat me down on the bed. She opened her mouth to say something, but then her face flushed, and she turned her head to look out the window. After a second, she squeezed my hand and looked back in my eyes. She said, “You’ve always been a good girl, Maude, and done what I told you. Now, you’re going to be a married woman, and he will be the head of the house. When you go home tonight after your party, no matter what he wants to do to you, you have to let him do it. Do you understand?"I didn’t understand, but I nodded my head anyway. It sounded strange to me, the way so many things did. I would do what she told me. I didn’t have a choice, any more than I had a choice in being born.

The Terrorist's Son: A Story of Choice


Zak Ebrahim - 2014
    While in prison, Nosair helped plan the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. In one of his infamous video messages, Osama bin Laden urged the world to “Remember El-Sayyid Nosair.”For Zak Ebrahim, a childhood amongst terrorism was all he knew. After his father’s incarceration, his family moved often, and as the perpetual new kid in class, he faced constant teasing and exclusion. Yet, though his radicalized father and uncles modeled fanatical beliefs, to Ebrahim something never felt right. To the shy, awkward boy, something about the hateful feelings just felt unnatural.In this book, Ebrahim dispels the myth that terrorism is a foregone conclusion for people trained to hate. Based on his own remarkable journey, he shows that hate is always a choice—but so is tolerance. Though Ebrahim was subjected to a violent, intolerant ideology throughout his childhood, he did not become radicalized. Ebrahim argues that people conditioned to be terrorists are actually well positioned to combat terrorism, because of their ability to bring seemingly incompatible ideologies together in conversation and advocate in the fight for peace. Ebrahim argues that everyone, regardless of their upbringing or circumstances, can learn to tap into their inherent empathy and embrace tolerance over hatred. His original, urgent message is fresh, groundbreaking, and essential to the current discussion about terrorism.

Confessions of an American Doctor: A true story of greed, ego and loss of ethics


Max Kepler - 2017
    At the time of my arrest, I was a thirty-seven year old Harvard graduate with medical and post-doctoral degrees. I attended one of the finest residency and fellowship training programs in the world at the University of California, San Francisco. I played two sports in college, earned awards at every level of education and training, had wonderful friends and a beautiful three-year-old daughter. Having grown up the son of a restaurant manager and a housewife, I had transcended the humble beginnings of a small Midwestern town to become the quintessential American Dream.Or so I thought. But with my arrest on felony importation charges, everything I had worked so hard for was swept away and the entire trajectory of my life was indelibly altered. I would embark on a three year battle not only for my medical license, but also for my freedom. This journey would lead to intense personal introspection, and in that process, I would discover with ugliness, there was also beauty, and with punishment, mercy.There are many reasons I have written this manuscript, with one of the most important being that I hoped my story would resonate with others who have gone through difficult circumstances as a consequence of a dark side of their personality. With this book, I hope to inspire others to accept and embrace the good and bad, while continually striving for improved self-understanding and acceptance.I have changed names primarily for legal purposes, but the facts are unchanged. Although the events described in the book occurred more than ten years ago, I think about them nearly every day. The shame and humiliation are ever-present. Any simple Google search of my name reveals the truth, and that truth has affected me over and over, despite the years, as it probably should. As the judge told me that day in a federal courtroom, "You have betrayed the public's trust." This is my confessional.

Ruby's Diary: Reflections on All I've Lost and Gained


Ruby Gettinger - 2009
    As the ad campaign for the show says, Ruby doesn′t know how she got to this weight, but she knows its killing her. Having been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes and told by doctors that she would die if she continued to carry all that weight, Ruby is changing her life to save it. Her honesty, optimism and genuine commitment to uncover all the underlying causes of her addiction--mental, physical and emotional--are inspiring millions of others in the process. So too is her progress. (She′s now down to 360 pounds!)While Style′s cameras have been following Ruby′s personal journey as she sheds the weight, gets healthier, battles discrimination daily, and struggles to recover lost childhood memories, these excerpts, taken from the journal Ruby carries with her everywhere on the show, include her most intimate reflections, insights and discoveries regarding her life "before" and "during" this incredibly transformative experience. It also includes her fears, hopes and dreams for life after her goal is realized. In addition, the book will feature thoughts from the doctors, dieticians, trainers, therapists, friends and family supporting Ruby′s mission. Everyone following and touched by Ruby′s story will want to read this book.

Hidden Girl: The True Story of a Modern-Day Child Slave


Shyima Hall - 2014
    When she was eight, her parents sold her into slavery. Shyima then moved two hours away to Egypt’s capitol city of Cairo to live with a wealthy family and serve them eighteen hours a day, seven days a week. When she was ten, her captors moved to Orange County, California, and smuggled Shyima with them. Two years later, an anonymous call from a neighbor brought about the end of Shyima’s servitude—but her journey to true freedom was far from over.A volunteer at her local police department since she was a teenager, Shyima is passionate about helping to rescue others who are in bondage. Now a US citizen, she regularly speaks out about human trafficking and intends to one day become an immigration officer. In Hidden Girl, Shyima candidly reveals how she overcame her harrowing circumstances and brings vital awareness to a timely and relevant topic.

Harvest of Yesterdays


Gladys Taber - 1976
    Taber shares memories of her childhood in the Southwest and Mexico as well as her married life and early pursuit of a writing career.