From the idealistic rookie to the burnt-out veteran, here are the unforgettable voices of over 100 police men and women across the country... cops who shoot and are shot at, who pick up the pieces of shattered bodies and shattered lives, who face the danger, the fear, and the depravity... who live every day in the frightening, hard world of COPS.

    You find your feelings swinging between joy and uncertainty, intense love and anxiety, laughter and tears. Through it all, you constantly ask yourself, “Am I the only one who feels this way?” The Magic of Motherhood will reassure you that you’re not alone. Full of encouragement, humor, and wisdom that will speak to you right where you are, The Magic of Motherhood is like a long-overdue coffee date with your best girlfriend.In this book you’ll find heartwarming essays about identity, adoption, body image, miscarriage, friendship, faith, infertility, and more. The Magic of Motherhood is a curated collection of honest stories that weave together the love, joy, and magnificent heartache of motherhood. Instead of offering advice, the writers offer something even better: their hearts.The Magic of Motherhood is a love letter to mothers everywhere; it’s a story about the magic that happens in between calm and chaos, the joy that can be found in both beauty and mess, and the valuable lessons we learn about ourselves in between cups of reheated coffee and kitchen tables covered in crumbs.Find a new strength, beauty, and sisterhood you never believed possible in The Magic of Motherhood, an inspiring and encouraging book written for an imperfect, trying-her-best mom just like you.A letter to my pre-mom self / Ashlee Gadd --In defense of mom jeans / Callie R. Feyen --The things that come around again / Elena Krause --Asking for help / Lesley Miller --The woman in the hall / April Hoss --Wonder woman / Anna Quinlan --Being the village / Anna Jordan --Hidden gift / Ashlee Gadd --Seven pounds of redemption / N'tima Preusser --Which sweater? / Melanie Dale --The glitter and the glue / Anna Quinlan --The mom they need / Katie Blackburn --Bad math / April Hoss --Profile of a superhero / Callie R. Feyen --Trust and forgotten lunches / Lesley Miller --A sky full of grace / Ashlee Gadd --I'm gonna need backup / Anna Jordan --A break in the clouds / Katie Blackburn --When love feels heavy / N'tima Preusser --Bad words / Melanie Dale --Blackbird, fly / Callie R. Feyen --Climbing mountains / Elena Krause --The family baby / Lesley Miller --Mommy has two arms / Anna Jordan --Still us / Ashlee Gadd --Anxious / N'tima Preusser --A lot of both / Elena Krause --The invisible thread / Anna Quinlan --Reckless / April Hoss --The Pacific / N'tima Preusser --My body is yours / Melanie Dale --It's their day too / Katie Blackburn --This time around / Lesley Miller

    With more than one in every five people over the age of fourteen addicted, drug abuse has been called the most formidable health problem worldwide. If we are not victims ourselves, we all know someone struggling with the merciless compulsion to alter their experience by changing how their brain functions.Drawing on years of research--as well as personal experience as a recovered addict--researcher and professor Judy Grisel has reached a fundamental conclusion: for the addict, there will never be enough drugs. The brain's capacity to learn and adapt is seemingly infinite, allowing it to counteract any regular disruption, including that caused by drugs. What begins as a normal state punctuated by periods of being high transforms over time into a state of desperate craving that is only temporarily subdued by a fix, explaining why addicts are unable to live either with or without their drug. One by one, Grisel shows how different drugs act on the brain, the kind of experiential effects they generate, and the specific reasons why each is so hard to kick.Grisel's insights lead to a better understanding of the brain's critical contributions to addictive behavior, and will help inform a more rational, coherent, and compassionate response to the epidemic in our homes and communities.

    Yet somehow, this normal boy became one of the youngest people on whom Dr. Walter Freeman performed his barbaric transorbital—or ice pick—lobotomy.Abandoned by his family within a year of the surgery, Howard spent his teen years in mental institutions, his twenties in jail, and his thirties in a bottle. It wasn’t until he was in his forties that Howard began to pull his life together. But even as he began to live the “normal” life he had been denied, Howard struggled with one question: Why?“October 8, 1960. I gather that Mrs. Dully is perpetually talking, admonishing, correcting, and getting worked up into a spasm, whereas her husband is impatient, explosive, rather brutal, won’t let the boy speak for himself, and calls him numbskull, dimwit, and other uncomplimentary names.”There were only three people who would know the truth: Freeman, the man who performed the procedure; Lou, his cold and demanding stepmother who brought Howard to the doctor’s attention; and his father, Rodney. Of the three, only Rodney, the man who hadn’t intervened on his son’s behalf, was still living. Time was running out. Stable and happy for the first time in decades, Howard began to search for answers. “December 3, 1960. Mr. and Mrs. Dully have apparently decided to have Howard operated on. I suggested [they] not tell Howard anything about it.”Through his research, Howard met other lobotomy patients and their families, talked with one of Freeman’s sons about his father’s controversial life’s work, and confronted Rodney about his complicity. And, in the archive where the doctor’s files are stored, he finally came face to face with the truth.Revealing what happened to a child no one—not his father, not the medical community, not the state—was willing to protect, My Lobotomy exposes a shameful chapter in the history of the treatment of mental illness. Yet, ultimately, this is a powerful and moving chronicle of the life of one man. Without reticence, Howard Dully shares the story of a painfully dysfunctional childhood, a misspent youth, his struggle to claim the life that was taken from him, and his redemption.

    

    He enjoyed a successful career and drew happiness from his wife, children, family and close friends. Then in May 2005, Gene was diagnosed with late-stage brain cancer. This is his account of his final journey.

    Using a very personal approach, he offers practical guidance to help others avoid the anguish he has endured.An Academy and Tony Award nominee and a 2007 recipient of Golden Globe, SAG, and Television Critics Association Awards for best actor in a comedy, Alec Baldwin is one of the best-known, most successful actors in the world. His relationship with Kim Basinger, the Academy Award–winning actress, lasted nearly a decade. They have a daughter named Ireland, and for a time, theirs seemed to be the model of a successful Hollywood marriage. But in 2000 they separated and in 2002 divorced. Their split---specifically the custody battle surrounding Ireland---would be the subject of media attention for years to come.In his own life and others’, Baldwin has seen the heavy toll that divorce can take---psychologically, emotionally, and financially. He has been extensively involved in divorce litigation, and he has witnessed the way that noncustodial parents, especially fathers, are often forced to abandon hopes of equitable rights when it comes to their children. He makes a powerful case for reexamining and changing the way divorce and child custody is decided in this country and levels a scathing attack at what he calls the “family law industry.”When it comes to his experiences with judges, court-appointed therapists, and lawyers, Baldwin pulls no punches. He casts a light on his own divorce and the way the current family law system affected him, his ex-wife, and his daughter, as well as many other families. This is an important, informative, and deeply felt book on a contentious subject that offers hope of finding a better way.

    As the Iraq War draws to an official close, Joshuah Bearman tells the funny and poignant tale of the real-life Baghdad Country Club, a bar in the Green Zone during the conflict's bloodiest years. Against all odds, its proprietors struggle to keep their raucous watering hole safe and well-stocked as the insurgency rages outside.

    Here, nurses remember their first “sticks,” first births, and first deaths, and reflect on what gets them though long, demanding shifts, and keeps them in the profession. The stories reveal many voices from nurses at different stages of their careers: One nurse-in-training longs to be trusted with more “important” procedures, while another questions her ability to care for nursing home residents. An efficient young emergency room nurse finds his life and career irrevocably changed by a car accident. A nurse practitioner wonders whether she has violated professional boundaries in her care for a homeless man with AIDS, and a home care case manager is the sole attendee at a funeral for one of her patients. What connects these stories is the passion and strength of the writers, who struggle against burnout and bureaucracy to serve their patients with skill, empathy, and strength.

    That means most people alive today will spend more years in elderhood than in childhood, and many will be elders for 40 years or more. Yet at the very moment that humans are living longer than ever before, we've made old age into a disease, a condition to be dreaded, denigrated, neglected, and denied. Reminiscent of Oliver Sacks, noted Harvard-trained geriatrician Louise Aronson uses stories from her quarter century of caring for patients, and draws from history, science, literature, popular culture, and her own life to weave a vision of old age that's neither nightmare nor utopian fantasy--a vision full of joy, wonder, frustration, outrage, and hope about aging, medicine, and humanity itself. Elderhood is for anyone who is, in the author's own words, "an aging, i.e., still-breathing human being."

    Everything was an uphill battle--to get the school approved, to recruit faculty and students, to solve a million new problems every day, from violent crime to vanishing supplies--but Lopez was determined to break the downward spiral that had trapped too many inner-city children. The lessons came fast: unengaged teachers, wayward students, and the educational system itself, rarely in tune with the already disadvantaged and underprepared.Things were at a low ebb for everyone when one of her students told a photographer that his principal, "Ms. Lopez," was the person who most influenced his life. The posting on Brandon Stanton's Humans of New York site was the pebble that started a lucky landslide for Lopez and her team. Lopez found herself in the national spotlight and headed for a meeting with President Obama, as well as the beneficiary of a million-dollar campaign for the school, to fund her next dream: a field trip for her students to visit another school--Harvard.The Bridge to Brilliance is a book filled with common sense and caring that will carry her message to communities and classrooms far from Brooklyn. As she says, modestly, "There are hundreds of Ms. Lopezes around this country doing good work for kids. This honors all of them."

    Fifteen-year-old Jen suffered multiple skull fractures and severe brain trauma and was not expected to survive the night. But against all odds, she did. As she lingered in a coma, doctors warned that if Jen ever woke up, she would be cursing and screaming in confusion due to her brain injuries. Instead, after five weeks she opened her eyes and began praying and praising God. Jen didn't remember her middle name, recognize her parents, or recall that she had a little brother, but she remembered Jesus and every word to every praise song and scripture she had hidden in her heart before the accident. As any loving mother would, Jen's mother Linda wanted God to heal Jen, make her like she was before. Normal. But a loving God had something else in mind--instead of making her normal, God is making Jennifer and the whole Barrick family--extraordinary, miraculous. Miracle for Jen is the remarkable true story of a family who overcame tragedy and learned to trust God's plan for their lives in a whole new way.

    A lighthearted, 9 a.m. appointment to help a woman manage a husband who won't take out the garbage (even when pants are optional) quickly shifts to an emotionally intense session with a convicted rapist to cope with criminal urges at 10 a.m. After talking with a child about his fears of school an hour later, the psychologist then meets with a therapist to deal with his own fears, followed by lunch with his socially-phobic colleague who's already had four martinis by 1 p.m. All this, and it's only Monday. What most don't realize is that while the professionals are trying to help people resolve their problems, the therapists themselves are often depressed, anxious, and prone to panic attacks. They take antipsychotics, self-medicate with booze, and struggle in their own relationships. The ones who are providing the perspective are often the ones with the most on their plate. In short, they are just as "crazy" as the patients. Crazy is the story of how one mental health professional deals with his own personal problems and those of the people he treats. Part exposé and part memoir, it reveals what therapists really think about their profession, their colleagues, their patients, and their own lives.

    in the fall of 2016, Chelsea Handler daydreams about what life will be like with a woman in the White House. And then Donald Trump happens. In a torpor of despair, she decides that she's had enough of the privileged bubble she's lived in--a bubble within a bubble--and that it's time to make some changes, both in her personal life and in the world at large.At home, she embarks on a year of self-sufficiency--learning how to work the remote, how to pick up dog shit, where to find the toaster. She meets her match in an earnest, brainy psychiatrist and enters into therapy, prepared to do the heavy lifting required to look within and make sense of a childhood marked by love and loss and to figure out why people are afraid of her. She becomes politically active--finding her voice as an advocate for change, having difficult conversations, and energizing her base. In the process, she develops a healthy fixation on Special Counsel Robert Mueller and, through unflinching self-reflection and psychological excavation, unearths some glittering truths that light up the road ahead.

    Doesn’t God work in the nighttime as well? In Learning to Walk in the Dark, Taylor asks us to put aside our fears and anxieties and to explore all that God has to teach us “in the dark.” She argues that we need to move away from our “solar spirituality” and ease our way into appreciating “lunar spirituality” (since, like the moon, our experience of the light waxes and wanes). Through darkness we find courage, we understand the world in new ways, and we feel God’s presence around us, guiding us through things seen and unseen. Often, it is while we are in the dark that we grow the most.With her characteristic charm and literary wisdom, Taylor is our guide through a spirituality of the nighttime, teaching us how to find our footing in times of uncertainty and giving us strength and hope to face all of life’s challenging moments.