The Midnight Disease

Author: Alice W. Flaherty
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547525095
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 398

Book Description
“An original, fascinating, and beautifully written reckoning . . . of that great human passion: to write.”—Kay Redfield Jamison, national bestselling author of An Unquiet Mind Why is it that some writers struggle for months to come up with the perfect sentence or phrase while others, hunched over a keyboard deep into the night, seem unable to stop writing? In The Midnight Disease, neurologist Alice W. Flaherty explores the mysteries of literary creativity: the drive to write, what sparks it, and what extinguishes it. She draws on intriguing examples from medical case studies and from the lives of writers, from Franz Kafka to Anne Lamott, from Sylvia Plath to Stephen King. Flaherty, who herself has grappled with episodes of compulsive writing and block, also offers a compelling personal account of her own experiences with these conditions. “[Flaherty] is the real thing . . . and her writing magically transforms her own tragedies into something strange and whimsical almost, almost funny.”—The Washington Post “This is interesting, heated stuff.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Brilliant . . . [a] precious jewel of a book . . . that sparkles with some fresh insight or intriguing fact on practically every page.”—Seattle Post-Intelligencer “Flaherty mixes memoir, meditation, compendium and scholarly reportage in an odd but absorbing look at the neurological basis of writing and its pathologies . . . Writers will delight in the way information and lore are interspersed.”—Publishers Weekly

The Midnight Disease

Author: Alice Flaherty
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618230655
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Book Description
Publisher Description

The Midnight Disease

Author: Alice W. Flaherty
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618485413
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Book Description
Why is it that some writers struggle for months to come up with the perfect sentence or phrase, while others, hunched over a notepad or keyboard deep into the night, seem unable to stop writing? In The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain (Houghton Mifflin, January), neurologist Alice W. Flaherty explores the hows and whys of writing, revealing the science behind hypergraphia -- the overwhelming urge to write -- and its dreaded opposite, writer's block. The result is an innovative contribution to our understanding of creative drive, one that throws new light on the work of some of our greatest writers. A neurologist whose work puts her at the forefront of brain science, Flaherty herself suffered from hypergraphia after the loss of her prematurely born twins. Her unique perspective as both doctor and patient helps her make important connections between pain and the drive to communicate and between mood disorders and the creative muse. Deftly guiding readers through the inner workings of the human brain, Flaherty sheds new light on popular notions of the origins of creativity, giving us a new understanding of the role of the temporal lobes and the limbic system. She challenges the standard idea that one side of the brain controls creative function, and explains the biology behind a visit from the muse. Flaherty writes compellingly of her bout with manic hypergraphia, when "the sight of a computer keyboard or a blank page gave me the same rush that drug addicts get from seeing their freebasing paraphernalia." Dissecting the role of emotion in writing and the ways in which brain-body and mood disorders can lead to prodigious -- or meager -- creative output, Flaherty uses examples from her own life and the lives of writers from Kafka to Anne Lamott, from Sylvia Plath to Stephen King: * Fyodor Dostoevsky, the author of nineteen novels and novellas and voluminous notebooks, diaries, and letters, suffere

The Massachusetts General Hospital Handbook of Neurology

Author: Alice Flaherty
Publisher: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
ISBN: 9780781751377
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Book Description
Now in its revised, updated Second Edition, this pocket-sized handbook is a practical quick-reference guide to the diagnosis and management of neurologic diseases. It presents specific management recommendations in a succinct outline format and includes protocols, step-by-step tests and procedures, and treatment algorithms. This handbook is unique in its inclusion of material from related disciplines such as general medicine, cardiology, psychiatry, neurosurgery, neuroanatomy, and radiology. The authors offer guidance in using contemporary neuroimaging techniques in diagnosis.

Kiss of Crimson

Author: Lara Adrian
Publisher: Dell
ISBN: 0440336945
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 418

Book Description
He comes to her more dead than alive, a towering black-clad stranger riddled with bullets and rapidly losing blood. As she struggles to save him, veterinarian Tess Culver is unaware that the man calling himself Dante is no man at all, but one of the Breed, vampire warriors engaged in a desperate battle. In a single erotically charged moment Tess is plunged into his world—a shifting, shadowed place where bands of Rogue vampires stalk the night, cutting a swath of terror. Haunted by visions of a dark future, Dante lives and fights like there is no tomorrow. Tess is a complication he does not need—but now, with his brethren under attack, he must shield Tess from a growing threat that includes Dante himself. For with one reckless, irresistible kiss, she has become an inextricable part of his underworld realm…and his touch awakens her to hidden gifts, desires, and hungers she never knew she possessed. Bonded by blood, Dante and Tess must work together to thwart deadly enemies, even as they discover a passion that transcends the boundaries of life itself….

Write.

Author: Karen E Peterson
Publisher: Adams Media
ISBN: 1593375034
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
Psychologist and novelist Karen E. Peterson presents an easy, effective way to beat writer's block in only ten days that is based on new brain research and sound psychological principles. - First book to offer a practical timeline for beating writer's block - Written by psychologist and novelist Karen E. Peterson, Ph.D. - Features techniques based on new brain research Sound familiar? This is what Dr. Karen E. Peterson--who has overcome writer's block herself--calls "the write-or-flight response." In this revolutionary book, psychologist and novelist Karen E. Peterson presents an easy, effective way to beat writer's block in only ten days. Based on new brain research and sound psychological principles, this innovative program shows writers how to conquer writer's block using: - Exercises to conquer the "write-or-flight" response - Techniques to create that elusive "writing mood" - Parallel monologue and interior dialogue to jumpstart the writing process - Checklists to see which side of the brain is blocking you With case examples and a healthy dollop of humor, Write. helps both seasoned and neophyte writers to enjoy the process of sending their creativity--and productivity--soaring to new heights.

Midnight's Children

Author: Salman Rushdie
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307367754
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 560

Book Description
Winner of the Booker prize and twice winner of the Booker of Bookers, Midnight's Children is "one of the most important books to come out of the English-speaking world in this generation" (New York Review of Books). Reissued for the 40th anniversary of the original publication--with a new introduction from the author--Salman Rushdie's widely acclaimed novel is a masterpiece in literature. Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with India’s 1,000 other “midnight’s children,” all born in that initial hour and endowed with magical gifts. This novel is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people–a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy. Midnight’s Children stands apart as both an epochal work of fiction and a brilliant performance by one of the great literary voices of our time.

Luck of the Loch Ness Monster

Author: Alice Weaver Flaherty
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547528892
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 43

Book Description
Once upon a time, on a long, slow trip to Scotland, a little girl named Katerina-Elizabeth tossed her oatmeal overboard—again, and again, and again. She was a picky eater, and oatmeal was her least favorite food. And once upon a time, a small worm, no bigger than a piece of thread, swam alongside an ocean liner bound for Scotland and ate bowl after bowl of tossed oatmeal. He had never tasted anything as wonderful as oatmeal in his whole life. A. W. Flaherty and Scott Magoon unravel the Loch Ness legend in this whimsical picture book for the picky (and not-so-picky) eater in all of us.

The Midnight Library: A GMA Book Club Pick

Author: Matt Haig
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525559493
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
The #1 New York Times bestselling WORLDWIDE phenomenon Winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction | A Good Morning America Book Club Pick | Independent (London) Ten Best Books of the Year "A feel-good book guaranteed to lift your spirits."—The Washington Post The dazzling reader-favorite about the choices that go into a life well lived, from the acclaimed author of How To Stop Time and The Comfort Book. Don’t miss Matt Haig’s latest instant New York Times besteller, The Life Impossible, available now Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better? In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig's enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.

The Midnight Club

Author: Christopher Pike
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1665938994
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
Now an original Netflix series! From the author of The Wicked Heart and The Immortal comes a beautiful and haunting novel about a group of five terminally ill teenagers whose midnight stories become their reality. Rotterham Home was a hospice for young people—a place where teenagers with terminal illnesses went to die. Nobody who checked in ever checked out. It was a place of pain and sorrow, but also, remarkably, a place of humor and adventure. Every night at twelve, a group of young guys and girls at the hospice came together to tell stories. They called themselves the Midnight Club, and their stories could be true or false, inspiring or depressing, or somewhere in-between. One night, in the middle of a particularly scary story, the teenagers make a secret pact with each other, which says, “The first one who dies will do whatever he or she can do to contact us from beyond the grave, to give us proof that there is life after death.” Then one of them does die...