The cultural ideal of motherhood in Victorian Britain seems to be undermined by Victorian novels, which almost always represent mothers as incapacitated, abandoning or dead. Carolyn Dever argues that the phenomenon of the dead or missing mother in Victorian narrative is central to the construction of the good mother as a cultural ideal. Maternal loss is the prerequisite for Victorian representations of domestic life, a fact which has especially complex implications for women. When Freud constructs psychoanalytical models of family, gender and desire, he too assumes that domesticity begins with the death of the mother. Analysing texts by Dickens, Collins, Eliot, Darwin and Woolf, as well as Freud, Klein and Winnicott, Dever argues that fictional and theoretical narratives alike use maternal absence to articulate concerns about gender and representation. Psychoanalysis has long been used to analyse Victorian fiction; Dever contends that Victorian fiction has much to teach us about psycho
The tobacco controversy is usually portrayed as a battle between selfless defenders of public health and greedy merchants of death. In For Your Own Good, award-winning journalist Jacob Sullum argues t
The concept of a "good death" has been hotly debated in medical circles for decades. This volume delves into the possibility and desirability of a "good death" by presenting the psychosocial measures
A guide for making sense of life--from action (good except when it's not) to thinking (depressing) to youth (a treasure).This book offers a guide to human nature and human experience--a reference book for making sense of life. In thirty-eight short, interconnected essays, Shimon Edelman considers the parameters of the human condition, addressing them in alphabetical order, from action (good except when it's not) to love (only makes sense to the lovers) to thinking (should not be so depressing) to youth (a treasure). In a style that is by turns personal and philosophical, at once informative and entertaining, Edelman offers a series of illuminating takes on the most important aspects of living in the world.
From Vietnam to Iraq, Martin Bell has seen how war has changed over the last fifty years. It is neither fought nor reported the way it used to be. Truth is degraded in the name of balance and good tas
“I tremble to say there’s good in death, because I’ve looked in the eyes of the grieving mother and I’ve seen the heartbreak of the stricken widow, but I’ve also seen som
What did the first Christians say about Jesus?The good news about Jesus spread like wildfire through the Roman Empire in the decades between his death and the writing of the first gospels—but ho
One of the few things in life that’s certain is death—and here’s a realistic, practical, and even humorous book about preparing for it. From cremation ("Making an Ash of Yourself")
A remarkable, uplifting story about one of the greatest medical breakthroughs of the 20th centuryIn 1951 in Sydney, Australia, a 14-year-old boy named James Harrison was near death when he received a
Discover afresh the good news of the gospel. The long-awaited Messiah had finally arrived—only to be betrayed and sentenced to death. Why would Jesus, who knew beforehand all that would happe
A Philadelphia journalist describes his return to his small Louisiana hometown after the death of his younger sister, a schoolteacher around whom the community rallied and who inspired the author to m
A Philadelphia journalist describes his return to his small Louisiana hometown after the death of his younger sister, a schoolteacher around whom the community rallied and who inspired the author to m
A Philadelphia journalist describes his return to his small Louisiana hometown after the death of his younger sister, a schoolteacher around whom the community rallied and who inspired the author to m
A Philadelphia journalist describes his return to his small Louisiana hometown after the death of his younger sister, a schoolteacher around whom the community rallied and who inspired the author to m
In the wake of her husband's sudden and unexpected death, Jene Barranco writes a stunning book of brutal honesty about overwhelming grief, grappling with being a single mother to three grieving teenag
A remarkable tool for parents to use for everything from the death of a goldfish to a national tragedy.A friend who doesn’t keep a promise. A scary storm. A soldier who goes off to war. Saying goodbye
The definitive collection of speeches and writings of one of America's most important social reformersThought to be the most famous woman in America at the time of her death, Frances E. Willard was be
Their love story is not one of fairy tales. It is one of faithfulness from the beginning through to its tragic ending. Richard and Margaret Baxter had been married only nineteen years before she d
