Dark, disturbing and oftentimes bizarre, these highly polished, widely disparate short stories tell the meta story of one man's descent into depression, madness, and suicide -- and hint at a golden beyond.

A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life “Achingly exquisite . . . providing real hope for those who long to heal.”—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, NPR, Mashable, She Reads, Publishers Weekly By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD—a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years. Both of Foo’s parents abandoned her when she was a teenager, after years of physical and verbal abuse and neglect. She thought she’d moved on, but her new diagnosis illuminated the way her past continued to threaten her health, relationships, and career. She found limited resources to help her, so Foo set out to heal herself, and to map her experiences onto the scarce literature about C-PTSD. In this deeply personal and thoroughly researched account, Foo interviews scientists and psychologists and tries a variety of innovative therapies. She returns to her hometown of San Jose, California, to investigate the effects of immigrant trauma on the community, and she uncovers family secrets in the country of her birth, Malaysia, to learn how trauma can be inherited through generations. Ultimately, she discovers that you don’t move on from trauma—but you can learn to move with it. Powerful, enlightening, and hopeful, What My Bones Know is a brave narrative that reckons with the hold of the past over the present, the mind over the body—and examines one woman’s ability to reclaim agency from her trauma.

A collection of thirteen traditional tales from various regions of Africa, including "The Man with a Tree on His Head," "There's One Day for the Victim," and "The Two Swindlers."

A respected journalist describes the abuse he suffered at the hands of a close family relative, the effect this had on his formative years and how he overcame the anger and self-doubt it left behind.

A botched crime forces three men – a sculptor, his son, and the son's septuagenarian friend – to flee their small town in this tragic and moving account of survival in the face of one's own failures. A man kills his wife’s lover… Almost. The criminal is Gideon Banks, a sculptor of modest success who has finally realized that he is incapable of repairing his broken marriage. Now frantically on the run from the law, Gid is joined by Merit – his adopted, introverted son – and Judge Riley, an old turnip-grower, the singer of a thousand songs, and Merit’s best friend. For the length of a college football season the unlikely trio drifts along the highways, backroads and deer trails of Alabama, befriended many times by other solitary Southerners, alone in their work, their addictions, and their restlessness. In Birmingham they meet a young woman who is naively charmed by their tale and, bored with her upper-class upbringing, takes them in. Sheltered in a house of grand portraits and heated floors, the three are afforded the time to face their separate struggles: the old Judge a fever, Gideon his guilt, and Merit the girl who would ruin his ideas about isolation forever.

Every adult I have ever worked with has identified a broken, hurt or disillusioned child memory within; "The Children in my Chair." Susie had an intense phobia, Lucy was a compulsive over eater, Valerie believed women are subservient and had no voice, Noreen grew up with a lack mentality and was always broke, Erin never felt good enough, Julie believed she was unlovable, Doug was angry all the time and Katie distrusted her feelings and hide them inside. How did this happen? We are living in a world full of people living with shame, guilt, self blame, unhappiness, unworthiness, fear and obligation that was originally `put upon them' unconsciously by their mentors and role models in early life. How we, as innocent children, learn about and what we come to believe about ourselves and about life are the teachings of this book. We've been conditioned! Conditioning begins with words we hear, think and speak. This book is a simple call to presence for all because everyone was once a child themselves. Take this opportunity to; recognize your own conditioning; break the chains of the past; learn what it is to be present; and learn how to consciously use words that empower, inspire, support and encourage both yourself and the children in your life now.

Robert Jensen, a life-long activist fighting for women's rights, racial equality, and global justice, reveals with this book the emotional journey that brought him back to the church after an entire adulthood of religious indifference. Our world i...