From the author of Playing House comes a sharp and sophisticated collection of essays that takes us on a hilarious tour of our twenty-first-century obsessions and distractions. Patricia Pearson is a working woman, wife and mother on the verge. Whether it’s being humiliated by the Beauty Bullies at the Lancôme counter or failing to live up to the Serene Mother ideal, Pearson is fed up with negotiating our present-day myths and fads. In Area Woman Blows Gasket, Pearson plumbs every facet of modern life, marriage and motherhood: from choosing the right vegan-bran-hemp diet for your family to confronting your husband’s irrational fear of mayonnaise. Adult education classes, psychotherapy, $100 haircuts, the latest news on what may or may not cause cancer, Christmas shopping — all come into sharp focus with the help of Pearson’s comic eye. Her wry brand of wisdom is a refreshing and long-awaited release from the contradictions thrown at us by society.

Winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Non-Fiction Crime Book From award-winning author and journalist Patricia Pearson, When She Was Bad questions our understanding of violent women. Why do some women murder their children? Why do others team up with men in ghoulish killing sprees? What motivates the female serial killer? When She Was Bad explores the enigmatic heart of female darkness, drawing into focus such fascinating characters as Dorothea Puente, who murdered several elderly tenants in her boarding house in Sacramento; Mary Beth Tinning, who killed eight of her children in upstate New York; Karla Homolka, who joined forces with Paul Bernardo to abduct, rape and murder school girls in southern Ontario; and Karla Faye Tucker, the born-again Christian who was executed in Texas for having killed two people with a pickax. In this provocative book, Patricia Pearson explores women's innate capacity for aggression, an idea we remain deeply uncomfortable with.

The first book by a respected journalist on Nearing Death Awareness—similar to Near-Death Experience—this “fascinating” (Kirkus Reviews) exploration brings “humor, sympathy, and keen critical intelligence to a topic that is all too often off-limits” (Ptolemy Tompkins, collaborator with Eben Alexander on Proof of Heaven). People everywhere carry with them extraordinary, deeply comforting experiences that arrived at the moment when they most needed relief: when they lost a loved one. These experiences can include clear messages from beyond, profound and vividly beautiful visions, mysterious connections and spiritual awareness, foreknowledge of a loved one’s passing—all of which evade explanation by science and logic. Most people keep these transcendent experiences secret for fear they will be discounted by hyperrational scrutiny. Yet these very common occurrences have the power to console, comfort, and even transform our understanding of life and death. Prompted by her family’s surprising, profound experiences around the death of her father and her sister, reporter Patricia Pearson sets out on an open-minded inquiry, a rare journalistic investigation of Nearing Death Awareness, which Anne Rice praises as “substantive, eloquent, and worthwhile.” Opening Heaven’s Door offers deeply affecting stories of messages from the dying and the dead in a fascinating work of investigative journalism, pointing to new scientific explanations that give these luminous moments the importance felt by those who experience them. Pearson also delves into out-of-body and near-death experiences, examining stories and research to make sense of these related but distinct categories. Challenging current assumptions about what we know and what we are still unable to explain, Opening Heaven’s Door will forever alter your perceptions of the nature of life and death.

Patricia Pearson returns to non-fiction with a witty, insightful and highly personal look at recognizing and coping with fears and anxieties in our contemporary world. The millions of North Americans who silently cope with anxiety at last have a witty, articulate champion in Patricia Pearson, who shows that the anxious are hardly “nervous nellies” with “weak characters” who just need medicine and a pat on the head. Instead, Pearson questions what it is about today’s culture that is making people anxious, and offers some surprising answers–as well as some inspiring solutions based on her own fierce battle to drive the beast away. Drawing on personal episodes of incapacitating dread as a vivid, often hilarious guide to her quest to understand this most ancient of human emotions, Pearson delves into the history and geography of anxiety. Why are North Americans so much more likely to suffer than Latin Americans? Why did Darwin treat hypochondria with sprays from a hose? Why have we forgotten the insights of some of our greatest philosophers, theologians and psychologists in favor of prescribing addictive drugs? In this blend of fascinating reportage and poignant memoir, Pearson ends with her struggle to withdraw from antidepressants and to find more self-aware and philosophically-grounded ways to strengthen the soul.

Includes, beginning Sept. 15, 1954 (and on the 15th of each month, Sept.-May) a special section: School library journal, ISSN 0000-0035, (called Junior libraries, 1954-May 1961). Also issued separately.