Operators and Things: The Inner Life of a Schizophrenic (Abacus Books)

Health, Fitness & Dieting

O'Brien, Barbara

Psychology & Counseling

SPHERE

Operators and Things: The Inner Life of a Schizophrenic

Reissue of the 1958 classic true story of a woman's descent into schizophrenia and her journey back to sanity.  "O'Brien has produced a work of brilliance and power, evoking a combination of Kafka and Joyce, with a touch of Orwell." Robert R. Kirsch,  Los Angeles Times  "An absorbing account of life in the dream world of a schizophrenic." Publishers Weekly  "For six months she travels around the country on Greyhound buses, captive of the Operators, who push and pull, torment, confuse, and exhaust her. And at the end of her time of madness, she understands precisely what has been happening. Her insight is penetrating and irresistible. Her writing is delectable. She displays gut-wrenching humor and pungent metaphor with an eloquent, eminently readable style. This book is enthusiastically recommended." Coevolution Quarterly  "Astonishing recollections." Punch  "Striking autobiography." Phenomenological Sociology  "Brilliantly reveals what the unconscious is like." Publishers Trade List Annual  "...the author is contributing irreplaceably to our knowledge." Archives of General Psychiatry  "A beautifully lucid autobiographical description of a psychotic episode that lasted six months whose healing motion is clear." R.D. Laing, The Politics of Experience  "With penetration and satisfying imagery, Miss O'Brien (a pseudonym) describes her psychosis, from which unaccountably and spontaneously she recovers." William F. Buckley, National Review

Operators and things: The inner life of a schizophrenic

A.S. Barnes

Adorable four-color candid doggie mug shots Photographer and animal trainer Barbara O’Brien has spent years photographing aspiring canine actors, from prancing puppies to stately hounds and tenacious terriers. At first, she discarded the photos if her subject was barking, sniffing, or otherwise looking less than perfect—until she realized that those outtakes best revealed the true personality of the pup. O’Brien is a skilled and seasoned photographer, and this winsome collection shows the care she took to reveal each dog’s essential character. The goofiness of the boisterous Border Collie, the decorum of the genteel Great Dane, and the curiosity of the regal Corgi—all of them are captured here in gorgeous four-color photography.

DogFace

Arts & Photography

Photography & Video

Avery

Reissue of the 1958 classic true story of a woman's descent into schizophrenia and her journey back to sanity. "O'Brien has produced a work of brilliance and power, evoking a combination of Kafka and Joyce, with a touch of Orwell." Robert R. Kirsch, Los Angeles Times "An absorbing account of life in the dream world of a schizophrenic." Publishers Weekly "For six months she travels around the country on Greyhound buses, captive of the Operators, who push and pull, torment, confuse, and exhaust her. And at the end of her time of madness, she understands precisely what has been happening. Her insight is penetrating and irresistible. Her writing is delectable. She displays gut-wrenching humor and pungent metaphor with an eloquent, eminently readable style. This book is enthusiastically recommended." Coevolution Quarterly "Astonishing recollections." Punch "Striking autobiography." Phenomenological Sociology "Brilliantly reveals what the unconscious is like." Publishers Trade List Annual "...the author is contributing irreplaceably to our knowledge." Archives of General Psychiatry "A beautifully lucid autobiographical description of a psychotic episode that lasted six months whose healing motion is clear." R.D. Laing, The Politics of Experience "With penetration and satisfying imagery, Miss O'Brien (a pseudonym) describes her psychosis, from which unaccountably and spontaneously she recovers." William F. Buckley, National Review

Delegan, Colleen

Biographies & Memoirs

Silver Birch Press

Does religion have something positive to offer the 21st century (and beyond)? Or is it a vestige of the Iron Age that ought to be contained in museums, preferably under bell jars? More critically, is it even possible to be religious and also be a rational and entirely modern participant in 21st-century civilization? Is it possible to live a devotional, religious life today without denying science or otherwise being assimilated by some religious-authoritarian Borg? Rethinking Religion argues that today’s clown-shoes religiosity is an infantile caricature of religion that the great theologians, scholars, saints and sages of the past wouldn’t recognize as religion at all. Religion may be salvageable, and may even be beneficial, but only if we can rediscover what it is and how to make use of it. Rethinking Religion is a proposal for how we might do that. This book is not written from any one sectarian position. The author was raised Christian in the Bible Belt, but she has been a formal student of Soto Zen Buddhism for many years and is currently the expert on Buddhism for the reference website About.com. The perspectives in Rethinking Religion apply to all the world’s religious great religious traditions — Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and the rest of them. The author also is supportive of atheism and does not think everyone has to be religious. Along the way, the author explains why Christian megachurches turn Christ into McJesus; why being “spiritual but not religious” may not be a good idea; why Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Burma (Myanmar) are turning violent; and why people join cults and believe ridiculous things. This book also challenges assumptions — why “faith” is not the same as “belief”; why some atheists aren’t nearly skeptical enough; why “reality” may not be what you think it is; why morality doesn’t have to be tied to religion; and why there may be a God, but if so, God isn’t God — or at least, any God you can imagine. Today, most of the ongoing violent conflicts around the globe have a connection to religion. Recent studies reveal that religion-based violence is on the rise, in fact. In many ways religion has become a millstone around humanity’s neck, holding us back from our potential to live in peace and harmony and enjoy the blessings of science. Rethinking Religion will show you that it doesn’t have to be this way, and argues that enlightened religion is the most effective weapon against oppressive and stupid religion.

Rethinking Religion: Finding a Place for Religion in a Modern, Tolerant, Progressive, Peaceful and Science-affirming World

Religion & Spirituality

Ten Directions

A comprehensive, accessible guide to the fascinating history of Zen Buddhism--including important figures, schools, foundational texts, practices, and politics. Zen Buddhism has a storied history--Bodhidharma sitting in meditation in a cave for nine years; a would-be disciple cutting off his own arm to get the master's attention; the proliferating schools and intense Dharma combat of the Tang and Song Dynasties; Zen nuns and laypeople holding their own against patriarchal lineages; the appearance of new masters in the Zen schools of Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and later the Western world. In The Circle of the Way, Zen practitioner and popular religion writer Barbara O'Brien brings clarity to this huge swath of history by charting a middle way between Zen's traditional lore and the findings of modern historical scholarship. In a clear and often funny style, O'Brien parses fact from fiction while always attending to the greatest interest of contemporary practitioners--the development of Zen doctrine and practice as a living tradition across cultures and centuries.

The Circle of the Way: A Concise History of Zen from the Buddha to the Modern World

History

World

Shambhala

Overwhelmed by the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, Texas-based painter David Bates has chronicled the people and places along America's bucolic Gulf Coast, making portraits of the people dispossessed by the disaster.

David Bates: The Katrina Paintings

Little, Carl

Roger, Arthur

Individual Artists

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

Over the past 50 years, American painter Lois Dodd (born 1927) has been recording the quieter moments of everyday life on New York’s Lower East Side and in mid-coast Maine, infusing the modernist tradition of plein air painting with Shaker-like qualities of modesty, airiness and quiet elegance. Views from city windows, gentle scenes of washing lines in back gardens, the artist’s shadow on a summer lawn with her painting tools at the far edge of the image: these objects of the painter’s attention declare themselves while leaving room to breathe for both viewer and artist. Published on the occasion of the artist’s first museum retrospective at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City (which travels to Portland Museum of Art in Maine), Catching the Light offers the first comprehensive overview of Dodd’s art in full-color reproductions, photographic documentation and essays.

Lois Dodd: Catching the Light

YAU, John

Ferris, Alison

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Books by O'Brien, Barbara