Health Biographies

Into the Gray Zone takes listeners to the edge of a dazzling, humbling frontier in our understanding of the brain: the so-called "gray zone" between full consciousness and brain death. People in this middle place have sustained traumatic brain injuries or are the victims of stroke or degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Many are oblivious to the outside world, and their doctors believe they are incapable of thought.

When Catherine Cho and her husband set off from London to introduce their newborn son to family scattered across the United States, she could not have imagined what lay in store. Before the trip’s end, she develops psychosis, a complete break from reality, which causes her to lose all sense of time and place, including what is real and not real. In desperation, her husband admits her to a nearby psychiatric hospital, where she begins the hard work of rebuilding her identity. In this unwaveringly honest, insightful, and often shocking memoir, Catherine reconstructs her sense of self.

In Open, Frankie Bridge opens up about her ongoing journey from breakdown to breakthroughs and through self-loathing, hospitalisation and self-acceptance. Part narrative exploration, part guide, this book will help you to understand the importance of talking and helping each other. It will also feature guidance and advice from the psychologist and psychiatrist who pulled her back from the brink along with their notes on her and conversations with her. This book will help people open up about their mental health and encourage us all to speak out.

Paris Fury is Tyson's rock, the wife he thanks for all his success. Both from Traveller families, she married him at 19 and is hands-on mother to their six children, as well as at his side through every fight. Always glamorous, strong, grounded and her own woman. When Tyson's struggles with depression, OCD and alcohol have threatened to overwhelm them, she has held them together and helped to see Tyson through to the greatest boxing victories. With all her warmth, humour and honesty, she tells her story.

Russell Brand explores the idea of mentoring and shares what he's learned from the guidance of his own helpers, heroes and mentors. Could happiness lie in helping others and being open to accepting help yourself? Mentors - the follow-up to the New York Times best seller Recovery - describes the benefits of seeking and offering help.

From New York Times best-selling author and blogger Heather B. Armstrong comes an honest and irreverent memoir - reminiscent of the New York Times best-seller Brain on Fire - about her experience as one of only a few people to participate in an experimental treatment for depression involving 10 rounds of a chemically induced coma approximating brain death.

When he signed up for a psychedelic retreat run by a mysterious Argentine woman deep in Brazil’s rainforest in early 2018, Ernesto Londoño, a veteran New York Times journalist, was so depressed he had come close to jumping off his terrace weeks earlier. His nine-day visit to Spirit Vine Ayahuasca Retreat Center included four nighttime ceremonies during which participants imbibed a vomit-inducing plant-based brew that contained DMT, a powerful mind-altering compound.

One phone call. That's all it took to change Stephanie Wittels Wachs's life forever.... Her younger brother Harris, a star in the comedy world known for his work on shows like Parks and Recreation, had died of a heroin overdose. How do you make sense of such a tragic end to a life of so much hilarious brilliance? In beautiful, unsentimental, and surprisingly funny prose, Stephanie Wittels Wachs alternates between her brother's struggle with addiction, which she learned about three days before her wedding, and the first year after his death, in all its emotional devastation.

Was Andy Warhol a hoarder? Did Einstein have autism? Was Frank Lloyd Wright a narcissist? In this surprising, inventive, and meticulously researched look at the evolution of mental health, acclaimed health and science journalist Claudia Kalb gives listeners a glimpse into the lives of high-profile historic figures through the lens of modern psychology, weaving groundbreaking research into biographical narratives that are deeply embedded in our culture.

Wounded traces the journey made by a casualty from the battlefield to a hospital in Britain. It is a story told through the testimony of those who cared for him - stretcher bearers and medical officers, surgeons and chaplains, orderlies and nurses - from the aid post in the trenches to the casualty clearing station and the ambulance train back to Blighty. We feel the calloused hands of the stretcher-bearers; we see the bloody dressings and bandages; we smell the nauseating gangrene and, at London’s stations, the gas clinging to the uniforms of the men arriving home.

Mataio (Matt) Faafetai Malietoa Brown offers the men in his barbershop a haircut with a difference: a safe space to be seen and heard without judgement. As the creator of My Fathers Barbers, Matt has inspired a new generation of New Zealand men to break free from the cycle of abuse - and those men have in turn inspired Matt and his wife, Sarah, to create the global anti-violence movement She Is Not Your Rehab.

Larry Brilliant's life journey has led him on a purposeful path across continents and countercultural movements, marching arm in arm with the men and women who defined a generation. A man who has always been in the right place at the right time, Brilliant has engaged with some of the most prominent thought leaders, spiritual masters, heroes, and icons in the world, including Neem Karoli Baba (Maharajji), Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, Mikhail Gorbachev, Wavy Gravy, the Grateful Dead, the Dalai Lama, and Barack Obama.

Scripture is filled with examples of men and women whom God used late in life, often with great impact—Noah, Abraham, Moses, Elizabeth, and Anna, to name a few. They were ordinary men and women who discovered that the latter years of life can be some of the most rewarding and fulfilling. “For them, growing older wasn’t something to be denied or dreaded;” says Billy Graham, “it was to be embraced as part of God’s plan for their lives.” Billy Graham’s life and ministry have been dedicated to the here and now but always with a happy-ever-after in view.

The ultimate front-row seat to the rise, fall, and rebirth of a band that was - for a time - the biggest in the world, Hootie & the Blowfish, and Jim Sonefeld’s shattering and redeeming spiritual path from addiction to recovery and a more fruitful life.

Alle wollen alt werden, niemand will alt sein. Der Widerspruch ist absurd, das Leiden daran real. Wie lernen wir, so gut wie möglich damit zurechtzukommen? Geht das, alt werden und ein erfülltes Leben führen? Mit ihren über 80 Jahren hat sich Elke Heidenreich mit dem Altwerden beschäftigt. Herausgekommen ist dabei ein Buch, wie nur sie es schreiben kann. Persönlich, ehrlich, doch nie gnadenlos, mit einem Wort: lebensklug. Sie denkt über ihr eigenes Leben nach, und das heißt vor allem, über ihre Beziehungen zu anderen Menschen. Im Alter trägt man die Konsequenzen für alles, was man getan hat.

Small towns are places where everyone knows each other’s names—and each other’s business, despite it being none of their own. Yet, folks in small towns never seem to want to talk about mental health. Rural living can be isolating with hours spent on the farm caring for the land, animals, the home, and everyone else first before yourself. Women especially know this struggle all too well. Author Lewellyn Melnyk has experienced this her whole life, suffering from depression in her early teens that left her with what felt like only one option.

In his gripping memoir, Cory Reese offers a compelling and vulnerable insight into the pervasive destruction of depression. Drawing on lessons learned over a decade of ultramarathon running, Stronger than the Dark offers a powerful new approach in the battle against depression: the willingness to embrace suffering. In a moment of physical and mental crisis during a 314-mile race across Tennessee, he realizes with clarity life’s ultimate purpose.

The most inspirational story in Indian cricket is that of Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Generations will remember Dhoni for hitting the spectacular winning six for India in the finals of the 50-over World Cup in 2011 against Sri Lanka, but it is the hope he has given to many aspiring cricketers across this nation that is his true legacy. Born in the lap of poverty and having battled against unimaginable adversities, Dhoni's rise from being just another small-town boy to captain of Team India is a case study in B-schools.

If you struggle with a highly sensitive personality, this memoir and collection of stories will help you heal and flourish. Benita A. Esposito is a licensed professional counselor and best-selling author with four decades of professional experience. Even smart high-achievers have themes on their hero’s journey to the authentic self, and these were hers. What unconsciously drew her to an emotionally distant relationship or an emotionally abusive relationship? Why did she feel so hurt when others judged her? Why was she so tired? What compelled her toward self actualization?

Brilliantly funny, frank, and shattering, this is the bittersweet memoir by Peter McGough of his life with artist David McDermott. Set in New York’s Lower East Side of the 1980s and mid-1990s, it is also a devastatingly candid look at the extreme naiveté and dysfunction that would destroy both their lives.