Confessions of a Movie Addict-Schizophrenic


Book Description

This is a story of a Malay Muslim girl named Juni who gets a prestigious Japanese government scholarship to study in the Land of the Rising Sun. Along with three other Malaysian girls named Caren, Ai Lin and Janet, they meet up with two other Monbukagakusho scholars from Singapore, Kevin and Desmond, at the arrival hall of Kansai International Airport, Osaka. The novel recounts Juni’s ‘adventures’ with these new friends of hers, but mostly it is a story about how a Malay Muslim girl decides to abandon her faith and enjoy her life in Japan. However, a huge event that occurs prior to Juni’s departure for Japan causes her mind to slowly spiral out of control and eventually she falls into a descent of darkness that is the onset of her psychotic episode.




Confessions of a Movie Addict


Book Description

This book chronicles the author's love affair with film from the 1930s through the beginning of the new millennium. In addition to revealing personal movie-related experiences, film critic Betty Jo Tucker describes encounters with veteran actors.




Born to Lose


Book Description

A gripping, true story of one man’s forty-year struggle with compulsive gambling and his hard-won recovery. "My history of gambling really began before I was born." So opens Born to Lose, Bill Lee's self-told story of gambling addiction, set in San Francisco's Chinatown and steeped in a culture where it is not unheard of for gamblers (Lee's grandfather included) to lose their children to a bet. From wagering away his beloved baseball card collection as a youngster to forfeiting everything he owned at black jack tables in Las Vegas, Lee describes what gambling addiction feels like from the inside and how recovery is possible through the Twelve Step program.




Girl Against the Universe


Book Description

From the author of The Art of Lainey and Liars, Inc. comes a fresh, contemporary story about one girl’s tragic past and a boy who convinces her that maybe her luck is about to change. Perfect for fans of Sarah Dessen or Jenny Han. Maguire knows she’s bad luck. No matter how many charms she buys off the internet or good luck rituals she performs each morning, horrible things happen when Maguire is around. Like that time her brother, father, and uncle were all killed in a car crash—and Maguire walked away with barely a scratch. But then on her way out of her therapist’s office, she meets Jordy, an aspiring tennis star, who wants to help Maguire break her unlucky streak. Maguire knows that the best thing she can do for Jordy is to stay away, but staying away may be harder than she thought.




Movies and Mental Illness


Book Description

The clinical chapters of this book each use a case history along with synopses and scenes from one or two specific, often well known films to explain and teach students about the most important disorders encountered in clinical practice.




Her Last Death


Book Description

Her Last Death begins as the phone rings early one morning in the Montana house where Susanna Sonnenberg lives with her husband and two young sons. Her aunt is calling to tell Susanna her mother is in a coma after a car accident. She might not live. Any daughter would rush the thousands of miles to her mother's bedside. But Susanna cannot bring herself to go. Her courageous memoir explains why. Glamorous, charismatic and a compulsive liar, Susanna's mother seduced everyone who entered her orbit. With outrageous behavior and judgment tinged by drug use, she taught her child the art of sex and the benefits of lying. Susanna struggled to break out of this compelling world, determined, as many daughters are, not to become her mother. Sonnenberg mines tender and startling memories as she writes of her fierce resolve to forge her independence, to become a woman capable of trust and to be a good mother to her own children. Her Last Death is riveting, disarming and searingly beautiful.




Daddy's Prisoner


Book Description

In April 2008, the world watched in horror as the news of Josef Fritzl made worldwide headlines. But for one British woman the story was not the stuff of unimaginable nightmares. Alice Lawrence knew all too well the torture suffered at the hands of a father whose depravity knew no bounds. She too was kept prisoner and repeatedly made pregnant - and it was only after the death of one of her babies that she finally found the courage to escape. Born in 1970, Alice grew up in the impoverished backstreets of an industrial Northern town with her parents and seven brothers and sisters. She was first raped by her father when she was 11. From the age of 15, she was made pregnant six times by him in an effort to secure additional state benefits. All bar one of her pregnancies failed, but her daughter never made it through her first year. The death of her baby was the spur to Alice bringing her father and abuser to justice. Finally, Alice can tell her deeply moving story of recovery from abuse.




Facing the Music


Book Description

Jennifer Knapp’s meteoric rise in the Christian music industry ended abruptly when she walked away and came out publicly as a lesbian. This is her story—of coming to Christ, of building a career, of admitting who she is, and of how her faith remained strong through it all. At the top of her career in the Christian music industry, Jennifer Knapp quit. A few years later, she publicly revealed she is gay. A media frenzy ensued, and many of her former fans were angry with what they saw as turning her back on God. But through it all, she held on to the truth that had guided her from the beginning. In this memoir, she finally tells her story: of her troubled childhood, the love of music that pulled her through, her dramatic conversion to Christianity, her rise to stardom, her abrupt departure from Christian Contemporary Music, her years of trying to come to terms with her sexual orientation, and her return to music and Nashville in 2010, when she came out publicly for the first time. She also talks about the importance of her faith, and despite the many who claim she can no longer call herself a believer, she maintains that she is both gay and a Christian. Now an advocate for LGBT issues in the church, Jennifer has witnessed heartbreaking struggles as churches wrestle with issues of homosexuality and faith. This engrossing, inspiring memoir will help people understand her story and to believe in their own stories, whatever they may be.




The Graybar Hotel


Book Description

"In Curtis Dawkins's first short story collection, he offers a window into prison life through the eyes of his narrators and their cellmates. Dawkins reveals the idiosyncrasies, tedium, and desperation of long-term incarceration--he describes men who struggle to keep their souls alive despite the challenges they face. In 'A Human Number, ' a man spends his days collect-calling strangers just to hear the sounds of the outside world. In '573543,' an inmate recalls his descent into addiction as his prison softball team gears up for an annual tournament against another unit. In 'Leche Quemada, ' an inmate is released and finds freedom more complex and baffling then he expected. Dawkins's stories are funny and sad, filled with unforgettable detail--the barter system based on calligraphy-ink tattoos, handmade cards, and cigarettes; a single dandelion smuggled in from the rec yard; candy made from powdered milk, water, sugar, and hot sauce. His characters are nuanced and sympathetic, despite their obvious flaws. The Graybar Hotel tells moving, human stories about men enduring impossible circumstances."--




The Clothes On Their Backs


Book Description

Orange Prize winner and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2008, Linda Grant has created an enchanting portrait of a woman who, having endured unbearable loss, finds solace in the family secrets her estranged uncle reveals. In vivid and supple prose, Grant subtly constructs a powerful story of family, love, and the hold the past has on the present. Vivien Kovacs, a sensitive, bookish girl grows up sealed off from the world by her timid Hungarian refugee parents, who conceal the details of their history and shy away from any encounter with the outside world. She learns how to navigate British society from an eccentric cast of neighbors -- including a fading ballerina, a cartoonist, and a sad woman who wanders the city and teaches Vivien to be beautiful. She loses herself in books and reinvents herself according to her favorite characters, but it is through clothes that she ultimately defines herself. Against her father's wishes, she forges a relationship with her uncle, a notorious criminal and slum landlord, who, in his old age, wants to share his life story. As he exposes the truth about her family's past Vivien learns how to be comfortable in her own skin and how to be alive in the world. Grant is a spectacularly humanizing writer whose morally complex characters explore the line between selfishness and self-preservation.