I hunched at my school desk, seventeen and slipping into an abyss whose shadow I had barely glimpsed before. My left hand shook with free-associations in a spatter of words that galloped through my head and outside the margins of lined notebook paper. Dark, its so dark like it was night even though its 8:00 in the morning Warning Everythings going to fall fall apart my heart will break and take away everything my mind is fading fast fast vast emptiness oh help the universe is coming to get me I whirled and then faded, dead inside, into a suffocating fog. Speaking of dead that was all I wanted. Well, it wasnt that I wanted to die, I had to. I needed to escape the tumult that was exhausting my emotional and physical resources. And I had to die because I deserved to, because I was evil. I knew that I had transformed absolutely into a rotten core. I had recently discovered this one horrifying night when it became clear as I raced around my bedroom that I was the reincarnation of Judas Iscariot, betrayer of Jesus. And I would plunge to Hell like he had, so why shouldnt I kill myself now to get it over with? Especially since I only burdened everyone around me. My family and friends would rejoice once I was dead. These thoughts progressed to the point that I could no longer touch anyone, in order that I not contaminate them with my toxic essence. Then I could no longer allow my fingers or limbs to touch each other, because somehow this was evil, too. Soon God no longer permitted me to eat or sleep because I was such a monstrosity. I stopped showering and changing clothes, almost stopped speaking. No longer able to attend high school, I shrunk my days to mere huddling on a chair in our living room, guarded by my parents and siblings in shifts. Every moment I could snatch to myself. I punched holes in my wrist with a safety pin hidden in my sleeve. One afternoon, left alone for a minute, I crept furtively to the top of the second floor flight of stairs, about to hurl myself down them until I was discovered and tugged back downstairs, held tightly by the hand. Finally my mind and body were so clamped down by dark gravity that I was no longer able to hurt myself. One day I simply goggled at the unfamiliar face in our cold bathroom mirror. Who is that? Im not me anymoreIm an alien, I decided. Someone or something has stolen my identity and taken me over. Well, it can have me I surrender because I am worth nothing anyway. So nothing matters. I certainly dont matter. During those gray hours, days, and months my mind cramped into nothing but ruminations of worthlessness, and I didnt matter to myself at all. Luckily, of course to my parents and brothers and sisters I did matter, very much. Even if they puzzled over what was happening to me as much as I did, they intuited my distress and incapacitization and got me help. My family brought me to a psychiatric hospital where I stayed for a month. I was diagnosed with depression with psychotic features, and given antidepressants and an antipsychotic. While in the hospital, I discovered art therapy and painted surreal abstracts and wrote long narrative poems about my depression and recovery. And recover I did, into the blessed contentment of feeling like myself again a brighter, happier self at that. Now, armed with a name for what ailed me, I consumed volumes about depression and bipolar disorder. I devoured books and articles about psychotropic medications and art therapy and theories of psychiatric rehabilitation and mood charting and the consumer movement. I discovered Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., who became a role model, and pored over her memoir, An Unquiet Mind and Manic-Depressive Illness, the authoritative text on bipolar disorder that Jamison wrote with Frederick Goodwin, MD. I involved myself with one of the nations leading mental health advocacy organizations, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (abbreviated as NAMI) and later assumed a lea

The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.

A former international hostage negotiator for the FBI offers a new, field-tested approach to high-stakes negotiations—whether in the boardroom or at home. After a stint policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a hostage negotiator brought him face-to-face with a range of criminals, including bank robbers and terrorists. Reaching the pinnacle of his profession, he became the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator. Never Split the Difference takes you inside the world of high-stakes negotiations and into Voss’s head, revealing the skills that helped him and his colleagues succeed where it mattered most: saving lives. In this practical guide, he shares the nine effective principles—counterintuitive tactics and strategies—you too can use to become more persuasive in both your professional and personal life. Life is a series of negotiations you should be prepared for: buying a car, negotiating a salary, buying a home, renegotiating rent, deliberating with your partner. Taking emotional intelligence and intuition to the next level, Never Split the Difference gives you the competitive edge in any discussion.

#1 New York Times Bestseller “Funny and smart as hell” (Bill Gates), Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half showcases her unique voice, leaping wit, and her ability to capture complex emotions with deceptively simple illustrations. FROM THE PUBLISHER: Every time Allie Brosh posts something new on her hugely popular blog Hyperbole and a Half the internet rejoices. This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features more than fifty percent new content, with ten never-before-seen essays and one wholly revised and expanded piece as well as classics from the website like, “The God of Cake,” “Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving,” and her astonishing, “Adventures in Depression,” and “Depression Part Two,” which have been hailed as some of the most insightful meditations on the disease ever written. Brosh’s debut marks the launch of a major new American humorist who will surely make even the biggest scrooge or snob laugh. We dare you not to. FROM THE AUTHOR: This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative—like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it—but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book: Pictures Words Stories about things that happened to me Stories about things that happened to other people because of me Eight billion dollars* Stories about dogs The secret to eternal happiness* *These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!

A beautiful commemorative edition of Dr. Martin Luther King's essay "Letter from Birmingham Jail," part of Dr. King's archives published exclusively by HarperCollins. With an afterword by Reginald Dwayne Betts On April 16, 1923, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., responded to an open letter written and published by eight white clergyman admonishing the civil rights demonstrations happening in Birmingham, Alabama. Dr. King drafted his seminal response on scraps of paper smuggled into jail. King criticizes his detractors for caring more about order than justice, defends nonviolent protests, and argues for the moral responsibility to obey just laws while disobeying unjust ones. "Letter from Birmingham Jail" proclaims a message - confronting any injustice is an acceptable and righteous reason for civil disobedience. This beautifully designed edition presents Dr. King's speech in its entirety, paying tribute to this extraordinary leader and his immeasurable contribution, and inspiring a new generation of activists dedicated to carrying on the fight for justice and equality.