Brains Memoir

Marc Lewis's relationship with drugs began in a New England boarding school where, as a bullied and homesick fifteen-year-old, he made brief escapes from reality by way of cough medicine, alcohol, and marijuana. In Berkeley, California, in its hippie heyday, he found methamphetamine and LSD and heroin. He sniffed nitrous oxide in Malaysia and frequented Calcutta's opium dens. Ultimately, though, his journey took him where it takes most addicts: into a life of addiction, desperation, deception, and crime.

AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AN INSTANT USA TODAY AND INDIE BESTSELLER From one of the hottest stand-up comedians, Nate Bargatze brings his everyman comedy to the page in this hilarious collection of personal stories, opinions, and confessions. Nate Bargatze used to be a genius. That...

After completely and independently conquering a debilitating eating disorder, Kathryn Hansen wrote Brain over Binge to share her struggle with those still trapped in the compulsive binge-purge cycle. Since the book’s initial release in 2011, it has endured as an essential road map for using the power of the brain to erase harmful habits and create lasting change. The second edition is fully revised and updated with new information, compelling insights, and uplifting success stories that will inspire listeners to break free from their own self-defeating behaviors.

INCLUDES A NEW AUDIO AFTERWORD! NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING CHLOË GRACE MORETZ A “captivating” (The New York Times Book Review), award-winning memoir and instant New York Times bestseller that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, Brain on Fire is a powerful account of one...

Emergency doctors or not, we all face emergencies in our lives--times when we must make critical decisions in high-stakes, uncertain, pressure-filled environments. Even with the best possible training, bringing our knowledge to bear in the stress and pressure of these moments can feel overwhelming if not impossible. In The Emergency Mind: Wiring Your Brain for Performance Under Pressure, Dan Dworkis, MD PhD takes you into the minds of the doctors who run resuscitation rooms and treat the ill and injured to teach you how to perform when the pressure is on.

The Life-Altering Event On October 23, 2000, at the age of thirty-six, Aithal experienced a massive stroke, which doctors attributed to an AVM (arteriovenous malformation) of the Pons area. He was given a fifty percent chance of survival. The stroke occurred at his Southern California home, and his wife quickly called 911, resulting in a timely emergency response that Aithal credits with saving his life. In the initial critical days, doctors focused on stabilizing him and managing a swollen brain with prednisone. The stroke left his right side frozen and caused him to lose his speech, ...

The story of one man’s journey to go beyond self awareness and the science of how to actually change your mind. In his groundbreaking, seminal book, visionary leader and transformational teacher David Bayer offers a revolutionary approach to personal growth and spiritual evolution, taking complex concepts from the fields of behavioral psychology, neurophysiology, quantum field theory, and spiritual tradition and distilling them into a powerful, practical, integrative framework for reclaiming personal and emotional sovereignty and having what Bayer calls “a powerful living experience.”

With poignant insight and humor, Frank Vertosick, Jr., MD, describes some of the greatest challenges of his career, including a six-week-old infant with a tumor in her brain, a young man struck down in his prime by paraplegia, and a minister with a .22-caliber bullet lodged in his skull. Told through intimate portraits of Vertosick's patients and unsparing-yet-fascinatingly detailed descriptions of surgical procedures, When the Air Hits Your Brain illuminates both the mysteries of the mind and the realities of the operating room.

In 1999, Clark Elliott suffered a concussion when his car was rear-ended. Overnight his life changed from that of a rising professor with a research career in artificial intelligence to a humbled man struggling to get through a single day. At times he couldn't walk across a room, or even name his five children. Doctors told him he would never fully recover. After eight years, the cognitive demands of his job, and of being a single parent, finally became more than he could manage.

The #1 New York Times bestselling account of a neurosurgeon's own near-death experience—for readers of 7 Lessons from Heaven. Thousands of people have had near-death experiences, but scientists have argued that they are impossible. Dr. Eben Alexander was one of those scientists. A highly...

The bestselling, blockbuster phenomenon that charts an amazing journey of the mind while revolutionizing our concept of memory “Highly entertaining.” —Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker “Funny, curious, erudite, and full of useful details about ancient techniques of training memory.” —The...

Confessions of a Problem Seeker is a raw and unflinchingly honest memoir of one man's midlife reckoning and search to find his soul. As a childhood shaped by trauma and illness gave way to an illusion of adult success and purpose—marriage, fatherhood, entrepreneurial achievement—the author finds himself grappling with the unshakable feeling that he has lived a life shaped more by fear and survival instincts than by inner truth.

An extraordinary memoir about the cutting-edge brain therapy that dramatically changed the life and mind of John Elder Robison, the New York Times bestselling author of Look Me in the Eye NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST Imagine spending the first forty years of...

In 2023, Cinelle Barnes is writing a travelogue about journeying home to the Philippines after a twenty-year separation when she suffers a traumatic brain injury. Cinelle’s story of her adoption and immigration to America as a child is not an easy one to tell to begin with. Suddenly, it seems impossible. Her memories and her connection to her husband and daughter in the Carolinas, to her own sense of self, and to her past are all erased in the blink of an eye. Cinelle has to not only piece together who she used to be but struggle to learn who she is here and now.

This is the story of a physician who lived life with blinders on, navigating the increasing demands of being “doctor mom”. It reveals that grit and diligent hard work do not protect you against the heartache of burnout, and the best decisions are not made with logic or reason, but right-brain instinct. Right Brain Rescue is a literary “creativity prescription” that will inspire us to think differently about how we use our energy, explore our values, and care for our bodies and minds so we can become the most sparkly version of ourselves.

With compassion and candor, leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reveals the fierce joy of operating, the profoundly moving triumphs, the harrowing disasters, the haunting regrets, and the moments of black humor that characterize a brain surgeon's life. If you believe that brain surgery is a precise and exquisite craft, practiced by calm and detached surgeons, this gripping, brutally honest account will make you think again.

After a shocking diagnosis for a rare pituitary disease, and with her eighteen-year marriage in shambles, Risa's life has fallen far from picture-perfect. Recovering from brain surgery and desperate to get back to her former self, she signs up for the bike tour of a lifetime-six weeks from Canada to Mexico on the Pacific Coast Highway. The old Risa could have done the ride in her sleep, but for the new Risa, trapped in a body that no longer feels like her own and stuck in the company of her brain tumor, Bubba, the ride becomes a challenge unlike anything she's ever faced.

A doctor’s powerful and deeply human memoir about the mysteries of the brain and his 40-year quest to find a treatment for multiple sclerosis.

Bestselling author Leonard Shlain explores the life, art, and mind of Leonardo da Vinci, seeking to explain his singularity by looking at his achievements in art, science, psychology, and military strategy (yes), and then employing state of the art left-right brain scientific research to explain his universal genius. Shlain shows that no other person in human history has excelled in so many different areas as Da Vinci and he peels back the layers to explore the how and the why.

“These pages will be a blessing to families dealing with Alzheimer’s. Sandeep Jauhar’s prose is insightful, honest, and moving about a condition that most of us will inevitably encounter in our lifetimes." —Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone A deeply affecting memoir of a...