The year is 1965. The U.S. is in turmoil as the Vietnam War escalates and civil unrest is seething. Kate Bamber, a 19-year-old telephone operator from Memphis, is longing to find a good husband and some meaning to her young life. Seeking to escape a sad and troubled existence with her abusive parents, Kate eagerly accepts a job transfer and moves out of her parent's house to the beautiful, sunny beaches of Miami, Florida. Filled with hope and excitement, Kate immediately realizes her Mid-Southern upbringing and small-town na vet are no match for the harsh realities of life during these rapidly changing times. Romantic notions and hunger for adventure drive Kate to a guilt-ridden yet passionate love affair that unexpectedly leads to a seemingly picture-perfect marriage. But her desire for love and companionship continues to burn and the idea of a quiet married life is not what Kate's free-spirited nature is made for.

The year is 1965. The U.S. is in turmoil as the Vietnam War escalates and civil unrest is seething. Kate Bamber, a 19-year-old telephone operator from Memphis, is longing to find a good husband and some meaning to her young life. Seeking to escape a sad and troubled existence with her abusive parents, Kate eagerly accepts a job transfer and moves out of her parent's house to the beautiful, sunny beaches of Miami, Florida. Filled with hope and excitement, Kate immediately realizes her Mid-Southern upbringing and small-town naïveté are no match for the harsh realities of life during these rapidly.

Introduces the dogs of Bedlam Farm that inspire the author's books.

A psychiatrist and award-winning documentarian sheds light on the mental-health-care crisis in the United States. When Dr. Kenneth Rosenberg trained as a psychiatrist in the late 1980s, the state mental hospitals, which had reached peak occupancy in the 1950s, were being closed at an alarming rate, with many patients having nowhere to go. There has never been a more important time for this conversation, as one in five adults--40 million Americans--experiences mental illness each year. Today, the largest mental institution in the United States is the Los Angeles County Jail, and the last refuge for many of the 20,000 mentally ill people living on the streets of Los Angeles is L.A. County Hospital. There, Dr. Rosenberg begins his chronicle of what it means to be mentally ill in America today, integrating his own moving story of how the system failed his sister, Merle, who had schizophrenia. As he says, "I have come to see that my family's tragedy, my family's shame, is America's great secret." Dr. Rosenberg gives readers an inside look at the historical, political, and economic forces that have resulted in the greatest social crisis of the twenty-first century. The culmination of a seven-year inquiry, Bedlam is not only a rallying cry for change, but also a guidebook for how we move forward with care and compassion, with resources that have never before been compiled, including legal advice, practical solutions for parents and loved ones, help finding community support, and information on therapeutic options.

An Eric Banyon fantasy.

Not long ago, John Shirting--quiet young Chicagoan, wizard of self-medication--held down a beloved job as a barista at Capo Coffee Family, a coffee chain and global business powerhouse. When he is deemed "too passionate" about his job, he is let go. Shirting makes it his mission to return to the frothy Capo's fold by singlehandedly breaking into a new market and making freshly post-communist Prague safe for free-market capitalism. Unfortunately, his college nemesis, Theodore Mizen, a certified socialist, has also moved there, and is determined to reverse the Velvet Revolution, one folk song at a time. After Shirting experiences the loss of his sole "new-hire" -- a sad, arcade game-obsessed prostitute -- it is not long before his grasp on his mission and, indeed, his sanity, comes undone, leaving him at the mercy of two-bit Mafiosi, a pair of Golem trackers, and his own disgruntled phantom. A dazzling combination of Everything is Illuminated and Don Quixote, with a jigger of Confederacy of Dunces, and Lord of the Barnyard, Keeping Bedlam at Bay in the Prague Café is the first novel to so exquisitely capture the ambiance of expat Prague. Poised to be an underground classic, it asks: what does it mean to be sane in a fast-changing world? From the Trade Paperback edition.

Bethlem Hospital is the oldest mental institution in the world, to many famously known as ' Bedlam': a chaotic madhouse that brutalised its patients. Paul Chambers explores the 800-year history of Bethlem and reveals fascinating details of its ambivalent relationship with London and its inhabitants, the life and times of the hospital's more famous patients, and the rise of a powerful reform movement to tackle the institution's notorious policies. Here the whole story of Bethlem Hospital is laid bare to a new audience, charting its well-intended beginnings to its final disgrace and reform.