Brain on Fire (10th Anniversary Edition): My Month of Madness

Author:   Susannah Cahalan
Publisher:   Simon & Schuster
ISBN:  

9781451621389


Pages:   288
Publication Date:   06 August 2013
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Not yet available   Availability explained
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.

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Brain on Fire (10th Anniversary Edition): My Month of Madness


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Overview

"An anniversary edition of the award-winning memoir and instant New York Times bestseller that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, Brain on Fire is the powerful account of one woman's struggle to recapture her identity--with a new note to readers by the author. When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she'd gotten there. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: at the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened? In a swift and breathtaking narrative, Susannah tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family's inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis that nearly didn't happen. ""A fascinating look at the disease that...could have cost this vibrant, vital young woman her life"" (People), Brain on Fire is an unforgettable exploration of memory and identity, faith and love, and a profoundly compelling tale of survival and perseverance that is destined to become a classic."

Full Product Details

Author:   Susannah Cahalan
Publisher:   Simon & Schuster
Imprint:   Simon & Schuster
Dimensions:   Width: 14.00cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 21.10cm
Weight:   0.249kg
ISBN:  

9781451621389


ISBN 10:   1451621388
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   06 August 2013
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available   Availability explained
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.

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It's a cold March night in New York, and journalist Susannah Cahalan is watching PBS with her boyfriend, trying to relax after a difficult day at work. He falls asleep, and wakes up moments later to find her having a seizure straight out of The Exorcist. My arms suddenly whipped straight out in front of me, like a mummy, as my eyes rolled back and my body stiffened, Cahalan writes. I inhaled repeatedly, with no exhale. Blood and foam began to spurt out of my mouth through clenched teeth. <p> It's hard to imagine a scenario more nightmarish, but for Cahalan the worst was yet to come. In 2009, the New York Post reporter, then 24, was hospitalized after -- there's really no other way to put it -- losing her mind. In addition to the violent seizures, she was wracked by terrifying hallucinations, intense mood swings, insomnia and fierce paranoia. Cahalan spent a month in the hospital, barely recognizable to her friends and family, before doctors diagnosed her with a rare autoimmune disorder. Her brain is on fire, one doctor tells her family. Her brain is under attack by her own body. <p> Cahalan, who has since recovered, remembers almost nothing about her monthlong hospitalization -- it's a merciful kind of amnesia that most people, faced with the same illness, would embrace. But the best reporters never stop asking questions, and Cahalan is no exception. In Brain on Fire, the journalist reconstructs -- through hospital security videotapes and interviews with her friends, family and the doctors who finally managed to save her life -- her hellish experience as a victim of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. The result is a kind of anti-memoir, an out-of-body personal account of a young woman's fight to survive one of the cruelest diseases imaginable. And on every level, it's remarkable. <p> The best journalists prize distance and objectivity, so it's not surprising that the most difficult subject for a news writer is probably herself. And although she's you


It's a cold March night in New York, and journalist Susannah Cahalan is watching PBS with her boyfriend, trying to relax after a difficult day at work. He falls asleep, and wakes up moments later to find her having a seizure straight out of The Exorcist. My arms suddenly whipped straight out in front of me, like a mummy, as my eyes rolled back and my body stiffened, Cahalan writes. I inhaled repeatedly, with no exhale. Blood and foam began to spurt out of my mouth through clenched teeth. It's hard to imagine a scenario more nightmarish, but for Cahalan the worst was yet to come. In 2009, the New York Post reporter, then 24, was hospitalized after -- there's really no other way to put it -- losing her mind. In addition to the violent seizures, she was wracked by terrifying hallucinations, intense mood swings, insomnia and fierce paranoia. Cahalan spent a month in the hospital, barely recognizable to her friends and family, before doctors diagnosed her with a rare autoimmune disorder. Her brain is on fire, one doctor tells her family. Her brain is under attack by her own body. Cahalan, who has since recovered, remembers almost nothing about her monthlong hospitalization -- it's a merciful kind of amnesia that most people, faced with the same illness, would embrace. But the best reporters never stop asking questions, and Cahalan is no exception. In Brain on Fire, the journalist reconstructs -- through hospital security videotapes and interviews with her friends, family and the doctors who finally managed to save her life -- her hellish experience as a victim of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. The result is a kind of anti-memoir, an out-of-body personal account of a young woman's fight to survive one of the cruelest diseases imaginable. And on every level, it's remarkable. The best journalists prize distance and objectivity, so it's not surprising that the most difficult subject for a news writer is probably herself. And although she's you


Author Information

Susannah Cahalan is an award-winning #1 New York Times bestselling author, journalist, and public speaker. Her 2012 memoir, Brain on Fire has sold over a million copies and was made into a Netflix original movie. Her second book, The Great Pretender was shortlisted for the 2020 Royal Society's Science Book Prize. She has written for The New York Times, New York Post, Elle, The New Scientist, and BBC's Focus, as well as academic journals The Lancet and Biological Psychiatry. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and twin toddlers.

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