The story of an ecstasy addict traces her early years as a straight-A student in small-town Pennsylvania, her pursuit of an acting career in New York, her descent through drug experimentation to addiction, and her struggles to recover.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down explores the clash between a small county hospital in California and a refugee family from Laos over the care of Lia Lee, a Hmong child diagnosed with severe epilepsy. Lia's parents and her doctors both wanted what was best for Lia, but the lack of understanding between them led to tragedy. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest,...

For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area. Three decades later, true crime journalist Michelle McNamara was determined to find the violent psychopath she called "the Golden State Killer." Michelle pored over...

Describes how, after her father's death, the author moved in with her mother to take care of her, relating the joys and trials of their opposite personalities, growing closeness, and evolving relationship.

Journalist Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary and their four children lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination, teaching them how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing...

Rule chronicles fateful encounters with the hidden predators among us in this riveting collection. Uncover cases of unfortunate victims who made one tragic mistake: trusting the wrong person-- even someone they'd know intimately, or thought they knew.

What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates? Diamond weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of historical-cultural narratives. Moving from the prehistoric Polynesian culture of Easter Island to the formerly flourishing Native American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya, the doomed medieval Viking colony on Greenland, and finally to the modern world,...

"From home, to school, to juvenile detention center, and back again. Follow the lives of fifty Latina girls living forty miles outside of Los Angeles, California, as they are inadvertently caught up in the school-to-prison pipeline. Their experiences in the connected programs between 'El Valle' Juvenile Detention Center and 'Legacy' Community School reveal the accelerated fusion of California schools and institutions of confinement. The girls participate...

From the author of the blockbuster bestseller The Game A shockingly personal, surprisingly relatable, brutally honest memoir, in which the celebrated dating expert confronts the greatest challenge he has ever faced: monogamy and fidelity. Neil Strauss became famous to millions around the world as the author of The Game, a funny and slyly instructive account of how he transformed himself from a scrawny, insecure nerd into the ultra-confident, ultra-successful...

Spaces that have been designed to allow users to create, build, and learn new projects and technologies, makerspaces employ a variety of tools. From crochet and painting to AutoCAD design software, developing a community around shared use of space and equipment -- a tenet of the makerspace movement -- fits squarely into a library's mission. Bagley examines nine makerspaces in public, academic, and school libraries, describing their design and technical...