The Last Asylum: A Memoir of Madness in our Times


Barbara Taylor - 2014
    Her journey there began when, overwhelmed by anxiety as she completed her doctoral studies in London, England, she found relief by dosing herself with alcohol and tranquillizers. She then embarked on what would turn out to be a decades- long psychoanalysis.The analysis dredged up acutely painful memories of an unhappy and confusing childhood back in Saskatoon. As Taylor struggled to cope with these, she would twice be re-admitted to Friern. She took refuge in day-care institutions and a psychiatric hostel, all the while continuing her therapy, which eventually put her on the road to recovery.This searingly honest, beautifully written memoir is the narrative of the author’s madness years, set inside the wider story of our treatment of psychiatric illness: from the great age of asylums to the current era of community care, ‘Big Pharma’, and quick fixes. It is a meditation on her own experience as well as that of millions of others – both in Europe and in North America – who have suffered, are suffering, and will suffer from mental illness.

First Nations 101


Lynda Gray - 2011
    Written in an accessible style and with a wry sense of humor, Lynda Gray provides readers with a broad overview of the diverse and complex day-to-day realities of Firs Nations people. Jam-packed with information on more than 70 subjects including urbanization, veterans, feminism, appropriate questions to ask a First Nations person, child welfare, the medicine wheel, food access, Two-spirit (LGBT), residential schools, the land bridge theory, National Aboriginal History Month, and language preservation, First Nations 101 endeavors to leave readers with a better understanding of the shared history of First Nations and non-First Nations people. Ultimately, the author calls upon all of us--individuals, communities, and governments--to play active roles in bringing about true reconciliation between First Nations and non-First Nations people.

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging


Sebastian Junger - 2016
    These are the very same behaviors that typify good soldiering and foster a sense of belonging among troops, whether they’re fighting on the front lines or engaged in non-combat activities away from the action. Drawing from history, psychology, and anthropology, bestselling author Sebastian Junger shows us just how at odds the structure of modern society is with our tribal instincts, arguing that the difficulties many veterans face upon returning home from war do not stem entirely from the trauma they’ve suffered, but also from the individualist societies they must reintegrate into.A 2011 study by the Canadian Forces and Statistics Canada reveals that 78 percent of military suicides from 1972 to the end of 2006 involved veterans. Though these numbers present an implicit call to action, the government is only just taking steps now to address the problems veterans face when they return home. But can the government ever truly eliminate the challenges faced by returning veterans? Or is the problem deeper, woven into the very fabric of our modern existence? Perhaps our circumstances are not so bleak, and simply understanding that beneath our modern guises we all belong to one tribe or another would help us face not just the problems of our nation but of our individual lives as well.Well-researched and compellingly written, this timely look at how veterans react to coming home will reconceive our approach to veteran’s affairs and help us to repair our current social dynamic.

The Power of Partnership: Seven Relationships that Will Change Your Life


Riane Eisler - 2002
    The Power of Partnership provides us with the necessary tools to make major changes in our lives, to break free of the old habits and patterns of domination with their tension, fear, and unhappiness, and to grow and thrive in partnership with all.

Unreported Truths About Covid-19 and Lockdowns: Part 4: Vaccines


Alex Berenson - 2021
    

Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order


Michel Chossudovsky - 2001
    This book is a skilful combination of lucid explanation and cogently argued critique of the fundamental directions in which our world is moving financially and economically. The author reviews the causes and consequences of famine in Sub-Saharan Africa, the dramatic meltdown of financial markets, the demise of State social programs and the devastation resulting from corporate downsizing and trade liberalisation."A leading intellectual of the antiwar movement. He works his tail off documenting the material he presents and is rigorous." -Jude Wanniski, Polyconomics."The book can and should be read by all with an interest in world peace and the causes of poverty." -Frances Hutchinson, The Ecologist"Michel Chossudovsky's valuable study addresses some of the most important issues of the current era." -Noam Chomsky

Crunch: If the Economy's Doing So Well, Why Do I Feel So Squeezed? (BK Currents)


Jared Bernstein - 2008
    In "Crunch" he answers these as well as dozens of others he has fielded from working Americans by email, on blogs, and at events where he speaks. Chances are if there's a stumper you've always wanted to ask an economist, it's solved in this book.

Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party


Max Blumenthal - 2007
    Whether it was his revelation that Sarah Palin was "anointed" by a Kenyan priest famous for casting out witches, or his confronting Republican congressional leaders and John McCain's family at the GOP convention about the party's opposition to sex education (and hence, the rise in teen pregnancies like that of Palin's daughter), or his exposé of the eccentric multimillionaire theocrat behind California's Prop 8 anti-gay marriage initiative, Blumenthal has become one of the most important and most constantly cited journalists on how fringe movements are becoming the Republican Party mainstream.Republican Gomorrah is a bestiary of dysfunction, scandal and sordidness from the dark heart of the forces that now have a leash on the party. It shows how those forces are the ones that establishment Republicans-like John McCain-have to bow to if they have any hope of running for President. It shows that Sarah Palin was the logical choice of a party in the control of theocrats. But more that just an expose, Republican Gomorrah shows that many of the movement's leading figures have more in common than just the power they command within conservative ranks. Their personal lives have been stained by crisis and scandal: depression, mental illness, extra-marital affairs, struggles with homosexual urges, heavy medication, addiction to pornography, serial domestic abuse, and even murder. Inspired by the work of psychologists Erich Fromm, who asserted that the fear of freedom propels anxiety-ridden people into authoritarian settings, Blumenthal explains in a compelling narrative how a culture of personal crisis has defined the radical right, transforming the nature of the Republican Party for the next generation and setting the stage for the future of American politics.

Emotional Intimacy: Your Untapped Source of Strength, Freedom, and Connection


Robert Augustus Masters - 2013
    And the capacity to be intimate with our emotions, teaches Robert Augustus Masters, is the core skill for creating fulfilling relationships and living with awareness, love, and integrity. With Emotional Intimacy, this respected therapist and author invites us to explore: How to create a safe space for working with our emotions The ways that we numb our unwanted feelings, and how to revive them and welcome them back How to identify our emotions and experience them skillfully Resolving and healing from old emotional wounds Steps for bringing greater intimacy into our relationships In-depth guidance for those facing depression and loneliness Why blowing steam can often make us feel worse, and healthier options for emotional catharsis Navigating activity and stimulus overload, a collective emotional pandemic of our times Individual chapters for engaging with fear, joy, jealousy, shame, grief, awe, and the full spectrum of our emotions There are no negative or unwholesome emotions only harmful things we do with them. Through real life examples, exercises, and many useful insights, Masters provides here a lucid guide for reclaiming our emotions, holding them skillfully, and allowing them to resonate in ourselves and with others more deeply and richly.

Acting with Power: Why We Are More Powerful Than We Believe


Deborah Gruenfeld - 2020
    This eye-opening look at the true nature of power explores who has it, what it looks like, and the role it plays in our lives.Grounded in over two decades' worth of scientific research and inspired by the popular class of the same name at Stanford's Graduate School of Business, Acting with Power offers a new and eye-opening paradigm that overturns everything we thought we knew about the nature of power.Although we all feel powerless sometimes, we have more power than we tend to believe. That's because power exists in every relationship, by virtue of the roles we play in others' lives. But it isn't a function of status or hierarchy. Rather, it's about how much we are needed, and the degree to which we fulfill our responsibilities. Power isn't a tool for self-enhancement or a resource for personal consumption. It's a part you play in someone else's story.We often assume that power flows to those with the loudest voice or the most commanding presence in the room. But, in fact, true power is often much quieter and more deferential than we realize. Moreover, it's not just how much power we have but how we use it that determines how powerful we actually are.Actors aren't the only ones who play roles for a living. We all make choices about how to use the power that comes with our given circumstances. We aren't always cast in the roles we desire or the ones we feel prepared to play. Some of us struggle to step up and be taken more seriously, while others have trouble standing back and ceding the spotlight. Some of us are used to hearing we are too aggressive, while others are constantly being told we are too nice. Gruenfeld shows how we can all get more comfortable with power by adopting an actor's mindset.We all know what it looks like to use power badly. This book is about how to use power well.

Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice and 21st Century Potential


Gene Sharp - 1988
    Recently, advocates have applied these methods and strategies with great success in Serbia and Ukraine. In his most recent work, Dr. Sharp shows how to strategically plan nonviolent struggle and make it more effective. In Waging Nonviolent Struggle, Dr. Sharp documents 23 significant�and often successful�20th century nonviolent struggles in a range of cultural and political contexts, and reaffirms nonviolent action as a realistic and powerful alternative to both passivity and violence. Building on the power analysis of his seminal Politics of Nonviolent Action, Dr. Sharp coherently integrates his theories into praxis, with a vitality tested on the frontlines, often under extreme violence. Any serious student�or practitioner�of nonviolent struggle will find this book an invaluable resource. Skeptics will be compelled to seriously consider nonviolent action�s viability. Today�s world is in desperate need of realistic alternatives to violent conflict. Waging Nonviolent Struggle demonstrates that these alternatives exist.

Coping with Difficult People


Robert M. Bramson - 2012
    Robert Bramson's  proven-effective techniques are guaranteed to help  you right the balance and take charge of your  life. Learn how to: Stand up to anyone --  without fighting. Blunt a sniper's  attack. Get a clam to talk. Cut off a  Sherman tank at the pass. Manage  bulldozers. Get stallers off the dime.  Move a complainer into a problem-solving  mode. Learn the six basic steps that allow you to  cope with just about anyone. Reclaim the power  the rightfully belongs to you in any relationship!

The World's Most Travelled Man: A Twenty-Three-Year Odyssey to and through Every Country on the Planet


Mike Spencer Bown - 2017
    There was no specific destination in mind except to visit countries, not the airports and luxury hotels but the country itself, to experience local culture and ways of life. This entailed sleeping in tribesmen's huts and cheap hostels and using local transportation whenever possible: traversing jungle roads packed eighteen souls to a single Peugeot station wagon in Guinea-Bissau, boating the length of the Amazon snacking on roasted piranha, and hitchhiking across Iraq during the war. I've floated on dilapidated ferries across surging estuaries, ridden horseback or in military trucks across deserts and plains, followed the course of rivers, crossed wastelands, bused and trekked through deep jungle, traversed mountain ranges and lounged on the remotest beaches. I adopted local customs and ate local food: roasted goat's eye as the guest of honour at a Mongolian tribal feast, alligator nuggets, mystery kabobs, ‘bush meat' ubiquitous to certain regions of Africa ... but drew the line at wheelbarrows brimming over with smoked monkey corpses. A man's got to know his limitations." --Mike Spencer BownIn 1990, Calgary-raised Mike Spencer Bown packed a backpack and began a journey that would eventually take him through each of the world's 195 countries and span more than two decades. From relaxing on the white sand beaches of Bali to waiting out blizzards in Tibetan caves, Bown trekked from country to country, driven by a desire to see the world in the most authentic way possible, not to just collect stamps on his passport. Eventually, he began to earn international recognition for some of his more unconventional destinations--such as a memorable trip to war-torn Mogadishu.The World's Most Travelled Man is an eye-opening account of the universal human experience as seen from each corner of the changing world. Blending a romantic connection to nature through solitude and the social examination of culture, Bown fully immerses himself in each experience, however diverse, dangerous or dirty, veering way, way off the backpacker circuit to see the world through an unparalleled perspective. The World's Most Travelled Man is a journey of global proportions shared with the humility of a man who simply wants to satisfy his own curiosity and live life to the fullest.

Vital Little Plans: The Short Works of Jane Jacobs


Jane Jacobs - 2016
    It offers readers a unique survey of her entire career in forty short pieces that have never been collected in a single volume, from charming and incisive urban vignettes from the 1930s to the raw materials of her two unfinished books of the 2000s, together with introductions and annotations by editors Samuel Zipp and Nathan Storring. Readers will find classics here, including Jacobs's breakout article "Downtown Is for People," as well as lesser-known gems like her speech at the inaugural Earth Day and a host of other rare or previously unavailable essays, articles, speeches, interviews, and lectures. Some pieces shed light on the development of her most famous insights, while others explore topics rarely dissected in her major works, from globalization to feminism to universal health care.With this book, published in Jacobs's centenary year, contemporary readers--whether well versed in her ideas or new to her writing--are finally able to appreciate the full scope of her remarkable voice and vision. At a time when urban life is booming and people all over the world are moving to cities, the words of Jane Jacobs have never been more significant. Vital Little Plans weaves a lifetime of ideas from the most prominent urbanist of the twentieth century into a book that's indispensable to life in the twenty-first.Praise for Vital Little Plans"Jacobs's work . . . was a singularly accurate prediction of the future we live in."--The New Republic"In Vital Little Plans, a new collection of the short writings and speeches of Jane Jacobs, one of the most influential thinkers on the built environment, editors Samuel Zipp and Nathan Storring have done readers a great service."--The Huffington Post"A wonderful new anthology that captures [Jacobs's] confident prose and her empathetic, patient eye for the way humans live and work together."--The Globe and Mail"[A timely reminder] of the clarity and originality of [Jane Jacobs's] thought."--Toronto Star"[Vital Little Plans] comes to the foreground for [Jane Jacobs's] centennial, and in a time when more of Jacobs's prescient wisdom is needed."--Metropolis"[Jacobs] changed the debate on urban planning. . . . As [Vital Little Plans] shows, she never stopped refining her observations about how cities thrived."--Minneapolis Star Tribune"[Jane Jacobs] was one of three people I have met in a lifetime of meeting people who had an aura of sainthood about them. . . . The ability to radiate certainty without condescension, to be both very sure and very simple, is a potent one, and witnessing it in life explains a lot in history that might otherwise be inexplicable."--Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker"A rich, provocative, and insightful collection."--Reason

Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward


Gemma Hartley - 2018
    In relationships, we initiate the hard conversations. At home, we shoulder the mental load required to keep our households running. At work, we moderate our tone, explaining patiently and speaking softly. In the world, we step gingerly to keep ourselves safe. We do this largely invisible, draining work whether we want to or not—and we never clock out. No wonder women everywhere are overtaxed, exhausted, and simply fed up.In her ultra-viral article “Women Aren’t Nags—We’re Just Fed Up,” shared by millions of readers, Gemma Hartley gave much-needed voice to the frustration and anger experienced by countless women. Now, in Fed Up, Hartley expands outward from the everyday frustrations of performing thankless emotional labor to illuminate how the expectation to do this work in all arenas—private and public—fuels gender inequality, limits our opportunities, steals our time, and adversely affects the quality of our lives.More than just name the problem, though, Hartley teases apart the cultural messaging that has led us here and asks how we can shift the load. Rejecting easy solutions that don’t ultimately move the needle, Hartley offers a nuanced, insightful guide to striking real balance, for true partnership in every aspect of our lives. Reframing emotional labor not as a problem to be overcome, but as a genderless virtue men and women can all learn to channel in our quest to make a better, more egalitarian world, Fed Up is surprising, intelligent, and empathetic essential reading for every woman who has had enough with feeling fed up.