The first novel to appear in English by one of the most talked-about and critically acclaimed writers of new Mexican fiction. From a psychoanalyst's couch, the narrator looks back on her bizarre childhood—in which she was born with an abnormality in her eye into a family intent on fixing it. In a world without the time and space for innocence, the narrator intimately recalls her younger self—a fierce and discerning girl open to life’s pleasures and keen to its ruthless cycle of tragedy. With raw language and a brilliant sense of humor, both delicate and unafraid, Nettel strings together hard-won, unwieldy memories—taking us from Mexico City to Aix-en-Provence, France, then back home again—to create a portrait of the artist as a young girl. In these pages, Nettel’s art of storytelling transforms experience into inspiration and a new startling perception of reality. "Nettel's eye…gives rise to a tension, subtle but persistent, that immerses us in an uncomfortable reality, disquieting, even disturbing—a gaze that illuminates her prose like an alien sun shining down on our world." —Valeria Luiselli, author of Sidewalks and Faces in the Crowd "It has been a long time since I've found in the literature of my generation a world as personal and untransferable as that of Guadalupe Nettel." —Juan Gabriel Vásquez, author of The Sound of Things Falling "Nettel reveals the subliminal beauty within beings…and painstakingly examines the intimacies of her soul." —Magazine Littéraire “Guadalupe Nettel’s storytelling power is majestic."—Typographical Era In Praise of Natural Histories "Five flawless stories..." —The New York Times “Nettel’s stories are as atmospheric and emotionally battering as Checkhov’s.”—Asymptote

A baby describes how he was conceived, grew in his mother's womb, and was eventually born.

The revised edition of the definitive book on the mechanics, mysteries, and methods of upright walking The ability to walk upright on two legs is one of the major traits distinguishing us as humans, and yet the reasons for its development remain a mystery among scientists. In Born to Walk, author James Earls explores the mystery of walking's evolution by describing the complex mechanisms enabling us to be efficient in bipedal gait. Viewing the whole body as an interconnected unit, he explains how we can regain a flowing efficiency within our gait--an efficiency which is part of our natural design. Based on Thomas Myers's Anatomy Trains model of human anatomy, as well as the latest science in paleoanthropology, sports medicine, and anatomy, Earls's work demonstrates how the whole body collaborates in walking, and distills the complex actions into a simple sequence of "essential events" that engage the myofascia and utilize its full potential. The second and revised edition of this book provides bodyworkers, physical therapists and movement teachers with new research on assessment, diagnosis, and treatment approaches. Earls offers a convenient model for understanding the complexity of movement while gaining a deeper insight into the physiology and mechanics of the walking process. This book is designed for movement therapy practitioners, physiotherapists, osteopaths, chiropractors, massage therapists, and bodyworkers hoping to understand gait and its mechanics. It will also appeal to anyone with an interest in evolution and movement.

From one of the world's foremost intersex activists, a candid, provocative, and eye-opening memoir of gender identity, self-acceptance, and love. My name is Hida Viloria. I was raised as a girl but discovered at a young age that my body looked different. Having endured an often turbulent home life as a kid, there were many times when I felt scared and alone, especially given my attraction to girls. But unlike most people in the first world who are born intersex--meaning they have genitals, reproductive organs, hormones, and/or chromosomal patterns that do not fit standard definitions of male or female--I grew up in the body I was born with because my parents did not have my sex characteristics surgically altered at birth. It wasn't until I was twenty-six and encountered the term intersex in a San Francisco newspaper that I finally had a name for my difference. That's when I began to explore what it means to live in the space between genders--to be both and neither. I tried living as a feminine woman, an androgynous person, and even for a brief period of time as a man. Good friends would not recognize me, and gay men would hit on me. My gender fluidity was exciting, and in many ways freeing--but it could also be isolating. I had to know if there were other intersex people like me, but when I finally found an intersex community to connect with I was shocked, and then deeply upset, to learn that most of the people I met had been scarred, both physically and psychologically, by infant surgeries and hormone treatments meant to "correct" their bodies. Realizing that the invisibility of intersex people in society facilitated these practices, I made it my mission to bring an end to it--and became one of the first people to voluntarily come out as intersex at a national and then international level. Born Both is the story of my lifelong journey toward finding love and embracing my authentic identity in a world that insists on categorizing people into either/or, and of my decades-long fight for human rights and equality for intersex people everywhere.

This book is a collection of essays about the current theory and practice of transgendering children. Essays are written against the grain of the popularised medical definition of 'the transgender child' as a young person whose 'true' gender lies in the brain, or pre-social 'identity'. Contributors contest this diagnosis from a range of perspectives, including as social theorists, psychotherapists, persons living as transgender, individuals who have de-transitioned, and parents of adolescents identifying as transgender. They argue that medicine, social policy and the law build ideas about 'the transgender child', and contend that it is politics, not science, which accounts for the exponential rise in the number of children diagnosed as transgender by gender identity clinics. They conclude that today's medical and social trend for transgendering children is not liberal and progressive, but politically reactionary, physically and psychologically dangerous and abusive.

Where We See Tragedy, God Sees Possibility . . . Few American epics of tragedy, intrigue, friendship, and faith will entertain and challenge the soul like the narrative inspired by the events in the real life of David Ring--a boy literally born dead who survives with sobering consequences. Living with the harsh realities of cerebral palsy, Ring faces impossible odds yet stumbles into an improbable life of inspiration and influence in the small, unassuming town of Liberty, Missouri, in the 1960s. As a teenage boy, Ring finds himself tragically orphaned and being shuffled about to various homes. Along this journey, he faces secret, unspeakable atrocities that eventually plunge him into the depths of depression and attempted suicide. But amid the harsh troubles of life, he encounters another boy his age named David, the son of a local pastor. Their unlikely friendship begins on the rocks, but eventually develops into something extraordinary and unique that alters the trajectory of both of their lives--and the whole town of Liberty--forever.

Tells the story of development and birth from a child's point of view, answering the biological and emotional questions children ask about pregnancy and childbirth.

A micro-preemie fights for survival in this extraordinary and gorgeously told memoir by her parents, both award-winning journalists. Juniper French was born four months early, at 23 weeks' gestation. She weighed 1 pound, 4 ounces, and her twiggy body was the length of a Barbie doll. Her head was smaller than a tennis ball, her skin was nearly translucent, and through her chest you could see her flickering heart. Babies like Juniper, born at the edge of viability, trigger the question: Which is the greater act of love -- to save her, or to let her go? Kelley and Thomas French chose to fight for Juniper's life, and this is their incredible tale. In one exquisite memoir, the authors explore the border between what is possible and what is right. They marvel at the science that conceived and sustained their daughter and the love that made the difference. They probe the bond between a mother and a baby, between a husband and a wife. They trace the journey of their family from its fragile beginning to the miraculous survival of their now thriving daughter.

Janie was four years old when she nearly drowned due to her mothers neglect. Through an unhappy foster home experience, and years of feeling that she is unwanted, she keeps alive her dream of someday being a famous singer.