Methland

Author: Nick Reding
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1608191567
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Book Description
A New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize Winner of the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism Named a best book of the year by: the Los Angeles Times the San Francisco Chronicle the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch the Chicago Tribune the Seattle Times "A stunning look at a problem that has dire consequences for our country.”-New York Post The dramatic story of Methamphetamine as it comes to the American Heartland-a timely, moving, account of one community's attempt to confront the epidemic and see their way to a brighter future. Crystal methamphetamine is widely considered to be the most dangerous drug in the world, and nowhere is that more true than in the small towns of the American heartland. Methland is the story of the drug as it infiltrates the community of Oelwein, Iowa (pop. 6,159), a once-thriving farming and railroad community. Tracing the connections between the lives touched by meth and the global forces that have set the stage for the epidemic, Methland offers a vital and unique perspective on a pressing contemporary tragedy. Oelwein, Iowa is like thousand of other small towns across the county. It has been left in the dust by the consolidation of the agricultural industry, a depressed local economy and an out-migration of people. If this wasn't enough to deal with, an incredibly cheap, long-lasting, and highly addictive drug has come to town, touching virtually everyone's lives. Journalist Nick Reding reported this story over a period of four years, and he brings us into the heart of the town through an ensemble cast of intimately drawn characters, including: Clay Hallburg, the town doctor, who fights meth even as he struggles with his own alcoholism; Nathan Lein, the town prosecutor, whose case load is filled almost exclusively with meth-related crime, and Jeff Rohrick, who is still trying to kick a meth habit after four years. Methland is a portrait of a community under siege, of the lives the drug has devastated, and of the heroes who continue to fight the war. It will appeal to readers of David Sheff's bestselling Beautiful Boy, and serve as inspiration for those who believe in the power of everyday people to change their world for the better.

Methland

Author: Nick Reding
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1608192075
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Book Description
Traces the efforts of a small Iowa community to counter the pervasiveness of crystal methamphetamine, in an account that offers insight into the drug's appeal while chronicling the author's numerous visits with the town's doctor, the local prosecutor and a long-time addict. Reprint. A best-selling book.

Little Heathens

Author: Mildred Armstrong Kalish
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0553384244
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
I tell of a time, a place, and a way of life long gone. For many years I have had the urge to describe that treasure trove, lest it vanish forever. So, partly in response to the basic human instinct to share feelings and experiences, and partly for the sheer joy and excitement of it all, I report on my early life. It was quite a romp. So begins Mildred Kalish’s story of growing up on her grandparents’ Iowa farm during the depths of the Great Depression. With her father banished from the household for mysterious transgressions, five-year-old Mildred and her family could easily have been overwhelmed by the challenge of simply trying to survive. This, however, is not a tale of suffering. Kalish counts herself among the lucky of that era. She had caring grandparents who possessed—and valiantly tried to impose—all the pioneer virtues of their forebears, teachers who inspired and befriended her, and a barnyard full of animals ready to be tamed and loved. She and her siblings and their cousins from the farm across the way played as hard as they worked, running barefoot through the fields, as free and wild as they dared. Filled with recipes and how-tos for everything from catching and skinning a rabbit to preparing homemade skin and hair beautifiers, apple cream pie, and the world’s best head cheese (start by scrubbing the head of the pig until it is pink and clean), Little Heathens portrays a world of hardship and hard work tempered by simple rewards. There was the unsurpassed flavor of tender new dandelion greens harvested as soon as the snow melted; the taste of crystal clear marble-sized balls of honey robbed from a bumblebee nest; the sweet smell from the body of a lamb sleeping on sun-warmed grass; and the magical quality of oat shocking under the light of a full harvest moon. Little Heathens offers a loving but realistic portrait of a “hearty-handshake Methodist” family that gave its members a remarkable legacy of kinship, kindness, and remembered pleasures. Recounted in a luminous narrative filled with tenderness and humor, Kalish’s memoir of her childhood shows how the right stuff can make even the bleakest of times seem like “quite a romp.”

Meth Wars

Author: Travis Linnemann
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479800023
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Book Description
Introduction: the methamphetamine imaginary -- Walter White's death wish -- This is your race on meth -- Governing through meth -- The war out there -- Imagining methland -- Drug war, terror war, street corner, battlefield -- Epilogue: endless (drug) war

The Evening Hour

Author: Carter Sickels
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 160819597X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
West Virginia native Cole Freeman, who has avoided a coal-mining job by working as a nursing home aide and reselling unused prescription drugs, finds his life changing when a disastrous threat forces him to confront his fears.

Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century

Author: Jessica Bruder
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393249328
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
The inspiration for Chloé Zhao's 2020 Golden Lion award-winning film starring Frances McDormand. "People who thought the 2008 financial collapse was over a long time ago need to meet the people Jessica Bruder got to know in this scorching, beautifully written, vivid, disturbing (and occasionally wryly funny) book." —Rebecca Solnit From the beet fields of North Dakota to the campgrounds of California to Amazon’s CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older adults. These invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in RVs and modified vans, forming a growing community of nomads. Nomadland tells a revelatory tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy—one which foreshadows the precarious future that may await many more of us. At the same time, it celebrates the exceptional resilience and creativity of these Americans who have given up ordinary rootedness to survive, but have not given up hope.

We All Fall Down

Author: Nic Sheff
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 0316175897
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Book Description
In his follow-up to his bestselling memoir Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines, Nic Sheff reveals a brutally honest account of a young person's struggles with relapse and rehab. In his bestselling memoir Tweak, Nic Sheff took readers on an emotionally gripping roller-coaster ride through his days as an addict. In this powerful follow-up about his continued efforts to stay clean, Nic writes candidly about eye-opening stays at rehab centers, devastating relapses, and hard-won realizations about what it means to be a young person living with addiction. By candidly revealing his own failures and small personal triumphs, Nic inspires readers to maintain hope and to remember that they are not alone in their battles. A group reading guide is included. Nic Sheff's Tweak, We All Fall Down, and his father's memoir about him (Beautiful Boy) are the basis of the film Beautiful Boy starring Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet.

Meth

Author: Dirk Johnson
Publisher: Hazelden Publishing & Educational Services
ISBN: 9781592853052
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 157

Book Description
A harrowing look at the personal, social, and environmental impact of America's newest drug abuse trend. Methamphetamine has been around for decades, but the recent surge in clandestine “cooking” labs in homes, hotel rooms, and even cars has made this toxic stimulant exceptionally affordable, accessible, and dangerous. With staggering facts and up-to-the-minute information, award-winning journalist Dirk Johnson has written the definitive book about America's methamphetamine pandemic. Johnson examines the unprecedented physical, mental, social, and environmental destruction caused by meth use and meth production. He explains why this drug is so harmful, how it differs from other drugs, and how it has devastated individuals, families, and communities. While the facts are decidedly discouraging, Johnson describes successful national, state, and local efforts to fight meth production and prevent addiction, and shares hopeful stories from recovering meth addicts.

The Alchemy of Meth

Author: Jason Pine
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452961271
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 222

Book Description
Meth cooks practice late industrial alchemy—transforming base materials, like lithium batteries and camping fuel, into gold Meth alchemists all over the United States tap the occulted potencies of industrial chemical and big pharma products to try to cure the ills of precarious living: underemployment, insecurity, and the feeling of idleness. Meth fires up your attention and makes repetitive tasks pleasurable, whether it’s factory work or tinkering at home. Users are awake for days and feel exuberant and invincible. In one person’s words, they “get more life.” The Alchemy of Meth is a nonfiction storybook about St. Jude County, Missouri, a place in decomposition, where the toxic inheritance of deindustrialization meets the violent hope of this drug-making cottage industry. Jason Pine bases the book on fieldwork among meth cooks, recovery professionals, pastors, public defenders, narcotics agents, and pharmaceutical executives. Here, St. Jude is not reduced to its meth problem but Pine looks at meth through materials, landscapes, and institutions: the sprawling context that makes methlabs possible. The Alchemy of Meth connects DIY methlabs to big pharma’s superlabs, illicit speed to the legalized speed sold as ADHD medication, uniquely implicating the author’s own story in the narrative. By the end of the book, the backdrop of St. Jude becomes the foreground. It could be a story about life and work anywhere in the United States, where it seems no one is truly clean and all are complicit in the exploitation of their precious resources in exchange for a livable present—or even the hope of a future.

Dreamland (YA edition)

Author: Sam Quinones
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1547601418
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
As an adult book, Sam Quinones's Dreamland took the world by storm, winning the NBCC Award for General Nonfiction and hitting at least a dozen Best Book of the Year lists. Now, adapted for the first time for a young adult audience, this compelling reporting explains the roots of the current opiate crisis. In 1929, in the blue-collar city of Portsmouth, Ohio, a company built a swimming pool the size of a football field; named Dreamland, it became the vital center of the community. Now, addiction has devastated Portsmouth, as it has hundreds of small rural towns and suburbs across America. How that happened is the riveting story of Dreamland. Quinones explains how the rise of the prescription drug OxyContin, a miraculous and extremely addictive painkiller pushed by pharmaceutical companies, paralleled the massive influx of black tar heroin--cheap, potent, and originating from one small county on Mexico's west coast, independent of any drug cartel. Introducing a memorable cast of characters--pharmaceutical pioneers, young Mexican entrepreneurs, narcotics investigators, survivors, teens, and parents--Dreamland is a revelatory account of the massive threat facing America and its heartland.