"The author offers a look at depression in which he draws on his own battle with the illness and interviews with fellow sufferers, researchers, doctors, and others to assess the complexities of the disease, its causes and symptoms, and available therapies. This book examines depression in personal, cultural, and scientific terms. He confronts the challenge of defining the illness and describes the vast range of available medications, the efficacy...

Essays chronicle the author's activist stint on the Moscow barricades in 1991, his 2002 account of cultural rebirth in post-Taliban Afghanistan, and other stories of profound change. Psychologist, lecturer and activist Andrew Solomon's essays about places undergoing seismic political and cultural shifts, around the globe and across a generation. A testament to the importance of travel and bearing witness, they encompass South Africa and Brazil, China...

"The mother of one of the two shooters at Columbine High School draws on personal recollections, journal entries and video recordings to piece together what led to her son's unpredicted breakdown and share insights into how other families might recognize warning signs,"--NoveList. On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. In a matter of minutes, they killed twelve students and a teacher...

"The old adage says that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, meaning that children usually resemble their parents. But what happens when the apples fall somewhere else -- sometimes a couple of orchards away, sometimes on the other side of the world? In this young adult edition, Andrew Solomon profiles how families accommodate children who have a variety of differences: families of people who are deaf, who are dwarfs, who have Down syndrome,...

"One in 10 American children suffers from a serious emotional disturbance and over 17 million have experienced a psychiatric disorder. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Liz Garbus, A Dangerous Son focuses primarily on three families in crisis, each struggling with a child's severe mental illness and desperately seeking treatment in the face of limited resources and support. Interspersed with interviews with mental-health experts and advocates --...