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Pluck : a memoir of a Newfoundland childhood and the raucous, terrible, amazing journey to becoming a novelist / by Morrissey, Donna,1956-author.;
"A deeply personal account of love's restorative ability as it leads renowned novelist Donna Morrissey through mental illness, family death, and despair to becoming a writer--told with charm and inimitable humour. When Donna Morrissey left the only home she had ever known, an isolated Newfoundland settlement, at age 16, she was ready for adventure. She had grown up without television or telephones but had absorbed the tragic stories and comic yarns of her close-knit family and community. The death of her infant brother marked the family, and years later, Morrissey suffers devastating guilt about the accidental death of her teenage brother, whom she'd enticed to join her in the oilfields. Her misery was compounded by her own misdiagnosis of a terminal illness, all of which contributed to crippling anxiety and an actual diagnosis of PTSD. Many of those events and themes would eventually be transformed and recast as fictional gold in Morrissey's novels. In another writer's hands, Morrissey's account of her personal story could easily be a tragedy. Instead, she combines darkness and light, levity and sadness into her tale, as her indomitable spirit and humour sustain her. Morrissey's path takes her from the drudgery of being a grocery clerk (who occasionally enlivens her shift with recreational drugs) to western oilfields, to marriage and divorce and working in a fish-processing plant to support herself and her two young children. Throughout her struggles, she nourishes a love of learning and language. Morrissey layers her account of her life with stories of those who came before her, a breed rarely seen in the modern world. It centers around iron-willed women: mothers and daughters, wives, sisters, teachers and mentors who find the support, the wind for their wings, outside the bounds given to them by nature. And it is a mysterious older woman she meets in Halifax who eventually unleashes the writer that Morrissey is destined to become. An inspiring and insightful memoir, Pluck illustrates that even when you find yourself unravelling, you can find a way to spin the yarns that will save you--and delight readers everywhere."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Morrissey, Donna, 1956-; Anxiety disorders; Brothers; Novelists, Canadian (English);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Grown woman talk : your guide to getting and staying healthy / by Malone, Sharon,1959-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A practical guide to aging and health for women who have felt ignored or marginalized by the medical profession, from a leading Ob/Gyn and expert on menopausal and post-reproductive health. The medical system today is increasingly complicated and impersonal, and unfortunately, it is not going to be less so in the future. The rules of engagement have changed in medicine, but no one has bothered to inform patients. Much is written about Black women and women of color, be it our increased cancer risk, our alarming obesity statistics, or our disproportionate risk of cardiovascular diseases, but very little is written for us, and a diagnosis from Dr. Internet doesn't cut it. Talk about being sick? Dr. Sharon Malone is sick of that. Grown Woman Talk is for all women who have often not been seen or heard. For more than three decades as a practicing Ob/Gyn in the nation's capital and now as chief medical officer of Alloy Women's Health, Dr. Malone has served women across the city all the way to the upper echelons of power. In this book, she gives us the nudge we all need to become effective and efficient advocates in getting the care we deserve. Part medical memoir of the Malone family experience tracing from the Jim Crow South to the highest corridors of power in Washington, part relatable clinical scenarios of women from all walks of life and experiences, and part practical medical and logistical advice, this book is a reliable and easy-to-understand resource. In addition to information on ailments like fibroids, cancer, heart disease, and perimenopause, it also helps us navigate the medical establishment of today with advice on how to choose a doctor, why our family's health history matters, and how to decide among treatments. Combining emerging practices with the latest research the book addresses many women's greatest gap, the one between what they believe and what is actually true. With a combination of medical expertise, up-to-date science, and lived experience, Grown Woman Talk addresses the most common conditions women over forty deal with. And it helps women, especially Black women, identify the power they have and how to use it to chart a path to improve their health outcomes and thrive"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Malone, Sharon, 1959-; Malone, Sharon, 1959-; African American women; African American women; African American women; Women; Women; Women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Dispatches from Ray's planet : a journey through autism / by Finlayson, Claire,1957-author.;
"As a child, Claire's big brother Ray was always bright and inquisitive, and she looked up to him. But as the two became teenagers, Ray struggled to acquire the social skills that came more easily to Claire and their friends. Claire tried to help, pointing out what he should or shouldn't have said or done. Ray insisted that he wasn't the problem--"On my planet ...", he would explain, there were no social climbers, no cocktail parties, no subtle hints or subliminal messages to miss. On his planet, the telling of little white lies would be a capital offence. At sixteen, sitting with him in the high school cafeteria, Claire vowed to find Ray's "planet." After graduation, Ray took a job as a letter carrier with Canada Post, but after thirty-three years on the job he had developed plantar fasciitis, his feet so painful he couldn't walk. Instead of seeking medical help, he began leaving mail in his truck overnight--a serious dereliction of duty. He was fired, blew his appeal, and spiralled into a suicidal depression. Claire didn't know he was in trouble until he reached out to her by email. Thus began a remarkable email correspondence that pulled back the curtain on an inner life Claire couldn't have imagined. Where in-person interactions plunged him into hot water, by email, Ray's writing revealed a compassionate, funny, sad man who showed extraordinary insight into his often self-destructive way of navigating the world. Ray was fifty when Claire realized he might have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), but by then, having survived without a diagnosis his whole life, Ray was reluctant to have a label pinned on him and resisted Claire's efforts to fix him by trying, in all sincerity, to make him more like her. Dispatches From Ray's Planet draws on Ray and Claire's correspondence to tell the story of two siblings from two very different planets. There are thousands of Rays in our world, hiding in basements or holding up walls at social functions. In this collective memoir, Claire and Ray share their journey with the hope that others can also learn that we all perceive the world in different ways, and that "different" does not necessarily mean dangerous."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Finlayson, Ray.; Finlayson, Claire, 1957-; Finlayson, Ray; Finlayson, Claire, 1957-; Autistic people; Autistic people;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Your life depends on it : what you can do to make better choices about your health / by Miron-Shatz, Talya,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Medicine used to be a paternalistic affair: a doctor's job was to make all the decisions, and a patient's job was to obey them. But technological, economic, and cultural changes over the last century have given us unprecedented control over our own healthcare. We have been turned into healthcare consumers, expected to work with doctors on complicated medical decisions. But just how capable are we of making those decisions? Talya Miron-Shatz is an expert in the psychology of risk and decision-making. She points out that medical decisions, whether about undergoing chemotherapy or treating a sprained ankle, are among the most difficult choices we ever make. They are personal and often require us to act quickly. The doctors we rely on are under pressure to make money for hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. And even if they have your best interests at heart, they often simply don't know enough about us, nor do they have the time to learn. The decisions we make about our health are riddled with psychological traps. As a result, we are likely to misuse medication, fall for pseudoscientific cure-alls, undergo needless procedures, and avoid the doctor when we should be getting help. If you need further proof, look no further than the coronavirus pandemic, in which responses from Americans have ranged from ignorance, to confusion, to outright defiance over the simple choice of wearing a mask. Your Life Depends on It offers an unsparing yet sympathetic diagnosis of the ways of thinking that lead to bad medical choices, shines a light on how the medical system fails and sometimes even capitalizes on patients' ignorance, and maps a new model for creating effective doctor-patient relationships. And ultimately, these insights give us a better way of thinking about a question that extends beyond medicine: What's the best way to make important decisions when it isn't possible to know all the facts? Your Life Depends on It offers a new take on the science of making good decisions, where it will build on the success of books like Thinking, Fast and Slow and Nudge. But while most books in this space are happy to talk about relatively mundane topics like clothing sales or traffic patterns, this book is a vital guide to the choices that matter most, the choices your life depends on"--
Subjects: Health behavior.; Health;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The madwomen of Paris : a novel / by Epstein, Jennifer Cody,author.;
"A young woman with amnesia falls under the influence of a powerful doctor in Paris's notorious women's asylum, where she must fight to reclaim dangerous memories-and even more perilously, her sanity-in this gripping historical novel inspired by true events, from the bestselling author of Wunderland. "I didn't see her the day she came to the asylum. Looking back, this sometimes strikes me as unlikely. Impossible, even, given how utterly her arrival would upend the already chaotic order of things at the Salpêtrière-not to mention change the course of my own life there." When Josephine arrives at the Salpêtrière she is covered in blood and badly bruised. Suffering from near-complete amnesia, she is diagnosed with what the Paris papers are calling "the epidemic of the age": hysteria. It is a disease so baffling and widespread that Doctor Jean-Martine Charcot, the asylum's famous director, devotes many of his popular public lectures to the malady. To Charcot's delight, Josephine also proves extraordinarily susceptible to hypnosis, the tool he uses to unlock hysteria's myriad (and often sensational) symptoms. Soon Charcot is regularly featuring Josephine on his stage, entrancing the young woman into fantastical acts and hallucinatory fits before enraptured audiences and eager newsmen-many of whom feature her on their paper's front pages. For Laure, a lonely asylum attendant assigned to Josephine's care, Charcot's diagnosis seems a godsend. A former hysteric herself, she knows better than most that life in the Salpêtrière's Hysteria Ward is far easier than in its dreaded Lunacy division, from which few inmates ever return. But as Josephine's fame as Charcot's "star hysteric" grows, her memory starts to return-and with it, images of a horrific crime she believes she's committed. Haunted by these visions, and helplessly trapped in Charcot's hypnotic web, she starts spiraling into actual insanity. Desperate to save the girl she has grown to love, Laure plots their escape from the Salpêtrière and its doctors. First, though, she must confirm whether Joséphine is actually a madwoman, soon to be consigned to the Salpêtrière's brutal Lunacy Ward-or a murderer, destined for the guillotine. Both are dark possibilities-but not nearly as dark as what Laure will unearth when she sets out to discover the truth"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Biographical fiction.; Novels.; Charcot, J. M. (Jean Martin), 1825-1893; Salpêtrière (Hospital); Hysteria; Mentally ill women; Psychiatric hospital patients; Psychiatric hospitals;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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My Emptiness and I. by Silvestre, Adrián,film director.; Díaz, Alberto,actor.; Fernández, Carles,actor.; Moreno, Carmen,actor.; Rocatti, Isabel,actor.; Ribera, Marc,actor.; Pérez, Raphaelle,actor.; Pragda (Firm),dst; Kanopy (Firm),dst;
Alberto Díaz, Carles Fernández Guía, Carmen Moreno, Isabel Rocatti, Marc Ribera, Raphaelle PérezOriginally produced by Pragda in 2022.Working at a Barcelona call center, romantic dreamer Raphi grapples with her gender dysphoria diagnosis. As she chases an elusive image of modern love, surprises and shifts await. A queer film classic.Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Subjects: Feature films.; Foreign films.; Motion pictures.; Drama.; Queer cinema.;
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Results 151 to 156 of 156 | « previous