A mid-century doctor's raw, unvarnished account of his own descent into madness, and his daughter's attempt to piece his life back together and make sense of her own.
Texas-born and Harvard-educated, Dr. 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,
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A child of the Rhodesian wars and daughter of two deeply complicated parents, Alexandra Fuller is no stranger to pain. But the disintegration of Fuller’s own marriage leaves her shattered. Looking to pick up the pieces of her life, she finally confronts the tough questions about her past, about the American man she married, and about the family she left behind in Africa. A breathtaking achievement, Leaving Before the Rains Come is a memoir of such grace and intelligence, filled with such wit and courage, that it could only have been written by Alexandra Fuller.
Leaving Before the Rains Come begins with the dreadful first years of the American financial crisis when Fuller’s delicate balance—between American pragmatism and African fatalism,
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A groundbreaking health guide for women of all ages that shows women’s inherent moodiness is a strength, not a weakness, and medication is not always the answer.
Women are leaders, breadwinners, and caregivers. We’re leaning in so much we’re about to fall over. To take the edge off, many women pop a pill, eat something sugary, have a drink, or spend mindless time online. These activities quickly become patterns that take an enormous toll on women’s bodies and natural hormonal balance.
Women are made to be moody and, according to Dr. Holland, that’s a strength—not a weakness.
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Edith Hahn was an outspoken young woman in Vienna when the Gestapo forced her into a ghetto and then into a slave labor camp. When she returned home months later, she knew she would become a hunted woman and went underground. With the help of a Christian friend, she emerged in Munich as Grete Denner. There she met Werner Vetter, a Nazi Party member who fell in love with her. Despite Edith's protests and even her eventual confession that she was Jewish, he married her and kept her identity a secret.
In wrenching detail, Edith recalls a life of constant,
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When Elaine Lui was growing up, her mother told her, “Why do you need to prepare for the good things that happen? They’re good. They won’t hurt you. My job is to prepare you for the hard times, and teach you how to avoid them, whenever possible.” Neither traditionally Eastern nor conventionally Western, the Squawking Chicken raised her daughter drawing on Chinese fortune-telling, feng shui blackmail, good old-fashioned ghost stories, and shame and embarrassment in equal measure. And despite years of chafing against her mother’s parenting style, Elaine came to recognize the hidden wisdom—and immeasurable value—in her rather unorthodox upbringing.
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One summer, Melissa Cistaro’s mother drove off without a word. Devastated, Melissa and her brothers were left to pick up the pieces, wondering why their mother abandoned them. Decades later, Melissa finds herself in Olympia, Washington with her dying mother and just days to find out what happened that summer and confront the fear she could do the same to her kids. She never expects to stumble on a cache of letters her mother wrote but never sent her, which could hold the answers she seeks. Haunting yet ultimately uplifting, Pieces of My Mother reveals how our parents’
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