Its landscaped ground, chosen by Frederick Law Olmsted and dotted with Tudor mansions, could belong to a New England prep school. There are no fences,... no guards, no locked gates. But McLean Hospital is a mental institution-one of the most famous, most elite, and once most luxurious in America. McLean "alumni" include Olmsted himself, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, James Taylor and Ray Charles, as well as (more secretly) other notables from among the rich and famous. In its "golden age," McLean provided as genteel an environment for the treatment of mental illness as one could imagine. But the golden age is over, and a downsized, downscale McLean-despite its affiliation with Harvard University-is struggling to stay afloat. Gracefully Insane, by Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam, is a fascinating and emotional biography of McLean Hospital from its founding in 1817 through today. It is filled with stories about patients and doctors: the Ralph Waldo Emerson protégé whose brilliance disappeared along with his madness; Anne Sexton's poetry seminar, and many more. The story of McLean is also the story of the hopes and failures of psychology and psychotherapy; of the evolution of attitudes about mental illness, of approaches to treatment, and of the economic pressures that are making McLean-and other institutions like it-relics of a bygone age. This is a compelling and often oddly poignant reading for fans of books like Plath's The Bell Jar and Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted (both inspired by their author's stays at McLean) and for anyone interested in the history of medicine or psychotherapy, or the social history of New England.

Grace Caton can't wait to leave behind her tiny village in Trinidad for New York City. With the right amount of wit, pluck, and determination--all of... which Grace has in spades--she knows she'll conquer her new world. But from the moment she touches down, nothing goes as planned.For starters, the aunt who promised to watch over her never shows up at the airport, leaving Grace completely on her own. Fortunately, she stumbles into a vibrant immigrant community in Crown Heights and meets eccentric new friends, like her Orthodox Jewish landlord and fellow West Indian native Kathy, who feels any outfit can be improved with a Bedazzler. Next up is getting a job: working as a nanny for the Bruckners, an upper-middle-class family in Manhattan, proves to be her best--really, her only--option. Grace adores her four-year-old charge, Ben, but the Bruckner household is a minefield loaded with outrageous hours and jaw-dropping tasks. On top of that, she has to navigate the nanny hierarchy at Union Square Park, where secrets and gossip are traded faster than wet wipes.When Grace discovers that the Bruckners have some surprising secrets, her life becomes increasingly complicated and confusing. But friends and opportunities appear in the most unexpected places, and Grace realizes that she's living in a city--and a world--where anything is possible."Revealing New York's melting pot at its most complicated, this interesting first novel is told from the perspective of someone who has been there and done that. Brown drew from her personal experience as a young immigrant nanny, and her story is fascinating, tender, and heartbreaking." --Library Journal"Brown is a new voice with much to offer." --Kirkus"[A] touching novel." --Publishers Weekly

In this dazzling debut by a singular new talent, the sprawling, swampy, cacophonous city of Lagos, Nigeria, provides the backdrop to the story of Elvis,... a teenage Elvis impersonator hoping to make his way out of the ghetto. Broke, beset by floods, and beatings by his alcoholic father, and with no job opportunities in sight, Elvis is tempted by a life of crime. Thus begins his odyssey into the dangerous underworld of Lagos, guided by his friend Redemption and accompanied by a restless hybrid of voices including The King of Beggars, Sunday, Innocent and Comfort. Ultimately, young Elvis, drenched in reggae and jazz, and besotted with American film heroes and images, must find his way to a GraceLand of his own. Nuanced, lyrical, and pitch perfect, Abani has created a remarkable story of a son and his father, and an examination of postcolonial Nigeria where the trappings of American culture reign supreme.

"A richly detailed, poignant, and utterly fascinating look into another culture and how it is cross-pollinated by our own. It brings to mind the work of... Ha Jin in its power and revelation of the new."--T. Coraghessan BoyleThe sprawling, swampy, cacophonous city of Lagos, Nigeria, provides the backdrop to the story of Elvis, a teenage Elvis impersonator hoping to make his way out of the ghetto. Nuanced, lyrical, and pitch perfect, this is a remarkable story of a son and his father, and an examination of postcolonial Nigeria, where the trappings of American culture reign supreme.

Kristin Cashore’s best-selling, award-winning fantasy Graceling tells the story of the vulnerable yet strong Katsa, a smart, beautiful teenager who... lives in a world where selected people are given a Grace, a special talent that can be anything from dancing to swimming. Katsa’s is killing. As the king’s niece, she is forced to use her extreme skills as his thug. Along the way, Katsa must learn to decipher the true nature of her Grace . . . and how to put it to good use. A thrilling, action-packed fantasy adventure (and steamy romance!) that will resonate deeply with adolescents trying to find their way in the world.   Awards: Winner of the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature, winner of the SIBA Book Award/YA, Indies Choice Book Award Honor Book, ALA Best Book for Young Adults, 2008 Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, 2008 School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, Amazon.com’s Best Books of 2008, 2008 Booklist Editors’ Choice, Booklist’s 2008 Top Ten First Novels for Youth, 2009 Amelia Bloomer List, BCCB 2009 Blue Ribbon List   Don’t miss the sequel Fire, also a New York Times bestseller and ALA Best Book for Young Adults, winner of the 2010 Cybil for YA Fantasy/Sci Fi and the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award.

Winner of the 1987 New Zealand Fiction Award This compelling novel will resonate for people everywhere who find their livelihood threatened by... "Dollarmen" -- property speculators advocating golf courses, high rises, shopping malls, and tourist attractions. In Potiki, one community's response to attacks on their ancestral values and symbols provides moving affirmation of the relationship between land and the people who live on it.

Poetry. GRACE SILVER is a multivocal meditation on violence, trauma, loss and renewal, which wrestles with the seeming incommunicability of extreme... experiences and the possibility that, as Heidegger suggests, What is spoken is never, and in no language, what is said. The manuscript is divided into six sections, each of which employs different poetic strategies to engage with a wide range of personal and historical issues and the silences that surround them. GRACE SILVER explores, through many stances, the place of the mother. This can be in terms of many elements: absence, inadequacy, frustration and a sense of being overwhelmed—as well as in terms of what Stonehouse calls "mother-like capacity" and "milk work"—in other words, as a compassionate witness. She uses the vantage point of motherhood in a variety of forms to examine a series of themes: loss, violence and renewal.

The longing for spiritual fulfillment, inevitably paired with spiritual frustration, is common among Christians. Do we read and study the Bible enough?... Do we worship often and in the right way? Do we pray enough, in the correct way, and for the right things? How do we become truly spiritual? And the answers from numerous self-help spirituality books only lead to confusion and the fear of missing key steps on the road to becoming spiritual. In response, John W. Kleinig clarifies that there is no process for becoming spiritual. Instead, God graciously gives to us every spiritual gift that we need, beginning with the very gift of faith in Christ, our Savior. Because God has joined us to Christ, He continually comes to give us life.

Ever since Adam and Eve were escorted out of the garden, mankind has sought a way to regain God's acceptance-often through outward religion. But... religion alone will never satisfy the human need for God's acceptance. Only by drinking deeply of grace can we find life that is simple, meaningful, and satisfying-a life in which we can find rest and cease our constant striving to be accepted, affirmed, and appreciated. Dudley Hall, author and president of Successful Christian Living Ministries, points the way to meaningful existence in this new release of his powerful Grace Works.

What does our culture think of when the word Christian is mentioned? Unfortunately, stereotypes and misconceptions abound, and those who follow Christ... are sometimes considered mean-spirited, narrow-minded, and uncharitable. Douglas Jacobsen and Rodney Sawatsky provide a blueprint for recovering a vibrant faith as they demonstrate how believers can manifest the fruit of the Spirit to a watching world. This book not only serves as an introduction to or review of the basics of the Christian faith but also shows how true, Spirit-led Christianity is a force for peace, justice, and goodness in today's volatile and violent world.

As a director, you are in the center of a creative team of actors, writers, designers, producers, cameramen, special effects coordinators, editors and... composers. How do you draw all these talented artists together to share a single vision? How do you express the writer's intentions? And how do you keep the actors' performances fresh? Mark W. Travis takes the mystery out of directing. His refreshing approach will enhance and broaden your directing skills and help you deliver powerful performances and well-conceived cohesive films.

The GradeAid, written by Jane Sheldon of the University of Michigan Dearborn, was designed to help students develop active reading skills, to help... students get deeper into the material, and to prepare for exams.

Written to help students get better grades in this course, this Study Guide offers - * Chapter Summaries * Learning Objectives * Study Questions... organized according to major headings in the text * Crossword Puzzles for mastering important terms * Practice Tests - two complete multiple-choice tests per chapter

Written by one of the preeminent researchers in the field, this book provides a comprehensive exposition of modern analysis of causation. It shows how... causality has grown from a nebulous concept into a mathematical theory with significant applications in the fields of statistics, artificial intelligence, economics, philosophy, cognitive science, and the health and social sciences. Judea Pearl presents and unifies the probabilistic, manipulative, counterfactual, and structural approaches to causation and devises simple mathematical tools for studying the relationships between causal connections and statistical associations. The book will open the way for including causal analysis in the standard curricula of statistics, artificial intelligence, business, epidemiology, social sciences, and economics. Students in these fields will find natural models, simple inferential procedures, and precise mathematical definitions of causal concepts that traditional texts have evaded or made unduly complicated. The first edition of Causality has led to a paradigmatic change in the way that causality is treated in statistics, philosophy, computer science, social science, and economics. Cited in more than 5,000 scientific publications, it continues to liberate scientists from the traditional molds of statistical thinking. In this revised edition, Judea Pearl elucidates thorny issues, answers readers' questions, and offers a panoramic view of recent advances in this field of research. Causality will be of interests to students and professionals in a wide variety of fields. Anyone who wishes to elucidate meaningful relationships from data, predict effects of actions and policies, assess explanations of reported events, or form theories of causal understanding and causal speech will find this book stimulating and invaluable.

“When you eat soup every night, thoughts of bread get you through.” Ghostbread makes real for us the shifting homes and unending hunger that shape... the life of a girl growing up in poverty during the 1970s.One of seven children brought up by a single mother, Sonja Livingston was raised in areas of western New York that remain relatively hidden from the rest of America. From an old farming town to an Indian reservation to a dead-end urban neighborhood, Livingston and her siblings follow their nonconformist mother from one ramshackle house to another on the perpetual search for something better.Along the way, the young Sonja observes the harsh realities her family encounters, as well as small moments of transcendent beauty that somehow keep them going. While struggling to make sense of her world, Livingston perceives the stresses and patterns that keep children—girls in particular—trapped in the cycle of poverty.Larger cultural experiences such as her love for Wonder Woman and Nancy Drew and her experiences with the Girl Scouts and Roman Catholicism inform this lyrical memoir. Livingston firmly eschews sentimentality, offering instead a meditation on what it means to hunger and showing that poverty can strengthen the spirit just as surely as it can grind it down.