Author: Jim Endersby File Type: pdf At once delicate, exotic, and elegant, orchids are beloved for their singular, instantly recognizable beauty. Found in nearly every climate, the many species of orchid have carried symbolic weight in countless cultures over time.The ancient Greeks associated them with fertility and thought that parents who ingested orchid root tubers could control the sex of their child.During the Victorian era, orchids became deeply associated with romance and seduction. And in twentieth-century hard-boiled detective stories, they transformed into symbols of decadence, secrecy, and cunning. What is it about the orchid that has enthralled the imagination for so many centuries? And why do they still provoke so much wonder? Following the stories of orchids throughout history, Jim Endersby divides our attraction to them into four key themes science, empire, sex, and death. When it comes to empire, for instance, orchids are a prime example of the exotic riches sought by Europeans as they shaped their plans for colonization. He also reveals how Charles Darwins theory of evolution became intimately entangled with the story of the orchid as he investigated their methods of cross-pollination. As he shows, orchidsperhaps because of their extraordinarily diverse colors, shapes, and sizeshave also bloomed repeatedly in films, novels, plays, and poems, from Shakespeare to science fiction, from thrillers to elaborate modernist novels. Featuring many gorgeous illustrations from the collection of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Orchid A Cultural History tells, for the first time, the extraordinary story of orchids and our prolific interest in them. It is an enchanting tale not only for gardeners and plant collectors, but anyone curious about the flowers obsessive hold on the imagination in history, cinema, literature, and more. **

Author: Margaret A. Hagen File Type: pdf A scathing expose of the fraud inherent in the use of expert psychological testimony in the courtroom.From the high-profile murder trials of the Menendez brothers and Jeffrey Dahmer to personal injury, product liability and child custody cases, lawyers across the country have increasingly turned to expert testimony from psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers to influence the decisions of judges and juries.Psychologist Margaret Hagen, a professor and medical industry insider, details the very real danger of this booming business. In every state, a child can be taken away from a parent on the strength of five minutes of neutral testimony from a social worker. A criminal suspects freedom or incarceration can depend on a superficial psychological examination performed by an incompetent, overworked, or, at worst, paid-off psychologist. Parole hearings hinge on the testimony of similarly incomplete or fraudulent evaluations, allowing rehabilitated violent criminals back onto the street to commit more heinous crimes, with no accountability for the reviewing expert. Unmasking some legal psycho-expertise as a total fraud, Dr. Hagen instructs readers to protect themselves and their families from being victimized by psychological testimony in the courtroom. In todays frenzied legal climate, her insight and wisdom make for provocative, compelling and invaluable reading.**From Library JournalA whistle-blowing insider, Hagen (psychology, Boston Univ.) rails against forensic psychology and psychiatric practitioners. In her view, the booming business of expert testimony in child custody, criminal rehabilitation, child abuse, and psychological injurydisability cases wastes societys financial resources and yields decisions probably inferior to those that could have been made by the general public. As an infant science, she argues, psychology cant provide the answers to the questions posed in such situations. Unfortunately, provocative ideas rest under mounds of verbiage and inflammatory rhetoric here. Legitimate outcome studies that bolster Hagens conclusions are interspersed with sensational newspaper snippets of particular incidents oversimplifications and gross generalizations weaken her message. Essentially a political diatribe, this work may be equally useful for consciousness-raising or as fodder for cost-cutting insurance companies, but it is not a necessary purchase for general collections.?Antoinette Brinkman, Southwest Indiana Mental Health Ctr. Lib., Evansville 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist A take-no-prisoners condemnation of psychiatric experts being waved into the witness box, this account trashes psychiatry in general as a quack profession. Hagen (a psychology professor) assails most of the diagnostic tools of the field in her text, which roams among court cases whose outcome hinged on the testimony of mental-health experts. Her fundamental contention is that psychiatry is a junk science whose theories when extended to matters of legal culpability go against common sense. Indeed, Hagen assumes the posture of that legendary legalism, the reasonable person, and her prose is peppered with exclamations and rhetorical questions like Who could believe that? which might annoy as many readers as it might convince about whatever points are in question. Among them are such topically current items as battered-wife syndrome, recovered memory claims, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and urban psychosis claims. The average person could easily encounter in divorce and child custody litigation the situations Hagen vigorously complains of, so her energetic attack could gain considerable attention. Gilbert Taylor

Author: Elena Ferrante File Type: epub From the author of My Brilliant Friend Elena Ferrante will blow you away.-Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones From the author of The Days of Abandonment, The Lost Daughter is Elena Ferrantes most compelling and perceptive meditation on womanhood and motherhood yet. Leda, a middle-aged divorce, is alone for the first time in years when her daughters leave home to live with their father. Her initial, unexpected sense of liberty turns to ferocious introspection following a seemingly trivial occurrence. Ferrantes language is as finely tuned and intense as ever, and she treats her theme with a fierce, candid tenacity. **From Publishers Weekly The arresting third novel from pseudonymous Italian novelist Ferrante (Troubling Love) pursues a divorced, 47-year-old academics deeply conflicted feelings about motherhood to their frightening core. While on vacation by herself on the Ionian coast, Leda feels contentedly disburdened of her two 20-something daughters, who have moved to their fathers city of Toronto. Shes soon engrossed in watching the daily drama of Nina, a young mother, with her young daughter, Elena (along with Elenas doll, Nani), at the seashore. Surrounded by proprietary Neapolitan relatives and absorbed in her daughters care, Nina at first strikes Leda as the perfect mother, reminding herself of when she was a new and hopeful parent. Ledas eventual acquaintance with Nina yields a disturbing confession and sets in motion a series of events that threatens to wreck, or save, the integrity of Ninas family. Ferrantes prose is stunningly candid, direct and unforgettable. From simple elements, she builds a powerful tale of hope and regret. (May) Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. From The New Yorker In this brutally frank novel of maternal ambivalence, the narrator, a forty-seven-year-old divorcee summering alone on the Ionian coast, becomes obsessed with a beautiful young mother who seems ill at ease with her husbands rowdy, slightly menacing Neapolitan clan. When this womans daughter loses her doll, the older woman commits a small crime that she cant explain even to herself. Although much of the drama takes place in her head, Ferrantes gift for psychological horror renders it immediate and visceral, as when the narrator recalls the animal opacity with which she first longed for a child, before she was devoured by pregnancy. 2008Click here to subscribe to The New Yorker

Author: Jeremy Stone File Type: epub Mainstream media would have us to believe that The Deep State is only as old as the Obama Administration. However, it has presented itself in many forms throughout our nations history. Both Democrat and Republican Presidents alike have been involved in this 242-year-old conspiracy against America. Jeremy Stone has elucidated a clear definition of the origin, evolution, objectives, and the hostile foreign intentions of The Deep State. It is an Anti-American agenda, and in fact, it is a Globalist and Communist one. Nefarious foreign interference of our Government State has not come out of the Trump administration, as the left has fostered with its narrative. Instead, it has been mounting for centuries as a far leftist agenda since 1776, with the ultimate goal of toppling our country from within via The Deep State.br Without a complete understanding of The Deep State and its history, we are doomed to fail in attempting to eliminate it. While it is possible to stifle The...