"A compelling act of connection, leavened with humour, clear-eyed yet packed with hope." —Ann-Marie MacDonald A rare work of narrative non-fiction that illuminates a world most of us try not to see: the daily lives of the severely mentally ill, who are medicated, marginalized, locked away and shunned. Susan Doherty's groundbreaking book brings us a population of lost souls, ill-served by society, feared, shunted from locked wards to rooming houses to the streets to jail and back again. For the past 10 years, many who have cycled in and out of the locked wards of the Douglas Institute in Montreal found a friend in Susan, who volunteers on the wards and then accompanies her friends out into the world. With their full cooperation, she brings us intimate stories that challenge our views of people with mental illness. Through "Caroline Evans," a woman in her early sixties whom Susan has known since she was a bright, sunny school girl, we experience living with schizophrenia, such as when Caroline was convinced she could save her roommate from the devil by pouring boiling water into her ear... She has been through it all, including having to navigate an indifferent justice system that is incapable of serving the severely ill. Susan interleaves Caroline's story with vignettes about her other friends—stories that reveal their hopes, circumstances, personalities, humanity. Susan found that if she can hang in through the first 10-15 minutes of every coffee date with someone in the grip of psychosis, true communication results. Their "madness" is not otherworldly: instead it tells us something about how they're surviving their lives and what they've been through. The Ghost Garden carries a cargo of compassion and empathy that motivates us to re-examine our understanding of justice, society and humanity.

The forgotten garden which inspired Charles Darwin becomes the modern-day setting for an exploration of memory, family, and the legacy of genius. Darwin never stopped thinking about the garden at his childhood home, The Mount. It was here, under the tutelage of his green-fingered mother and sisters, that he first examined the reproductive life of flowers, collected birds’ eggs, and began the experiments that would lead to his theory of evolution. A century and a half later, with one small child in tow and another on the way, Jude Piesse finds herself living next door to this secret garden. Two acres of the original site remain, now resplendent with overgrown ashes, sycamores, and hollies. The carefully tended beds and circular flower garden are buried under suburban housing; the hothouses where the Darwins and their skilful gardeners grew pineapples are long gone. Walking the pathways with her new baby, Piesse starts to discover what impact the garden and the people who tended it had on Darwin’s work. Blending biography, nature writing, and memoir, The Ghost in the Garden traces the origins of the theory of evolution and uncovers the lost histories that inspired it, ultimately evoking the interconnectedness of all things.

Justice Jones, super-smart super-sleuth, is back for her third spine-tingling adventure! For fans of Robin Stevens, Katherine Woodfine and Enid Blyton. Justice and her friends are third years now and there's an intriguing new girl in Barnowls. Letitia has never been to school before and doesn't care for the rules - and the teachers don't seem to mind! She decides that Justice is her particular friend, much to Stella and Dorothy's distress. But Letitia just isn't the kind of girl you say no to. Then, after a midnight feast in the barn, and a terrifying ghost-sighting in the garden, a girl disappears. Soon ransom notes appear, and they're torn from the pages of a crime novel. Where is the schoolgirl and who has taken her? It will take all of Justice's sleuthing to unravel this mystery!

When Ashley discovers a turn-of-the-century doll it is just the first of several puzzling events that lead her through the hedge and into a twilight past where she meets Louise, an ailing child whose beloved doll has mysteriously disappeared.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A modern classic of true crime, set in a most beguiling Southern city—now in a 30th anniversary edition with a new afterword by the author “Elegant and wicked . . . might be the first true-crime book that makes the reader want to book a bed and breakfast for an extended weekend at the scene of the crime.”—The New York Times Book Review Shots rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. In this sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative, John Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case. It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman’s Card Club; the turbulent young gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the “soul of pampered self-absorption”; the uproariously funny drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young people dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a sublime and seductive reading experience.

Boo! Watch out for this rollicking, cumulative counting book for a Hallowe'en treat that's more playful than scary. Features an audio read-along! When a little ghost goes slip-sliding down the hallway, he suddenly hears ... a groan! Turns out it's only a friendly mummy, who shuffles along with the ghost, until they encounter ... a monster! As the cautious explorers continue, they find a surprise at every turn - and add another adorably ghoulish friend to their tally. But you'll never guess who is the scariest creature in the house!

Eve gave up her belief in stories and magic after her mother's death, but a mysterious birthday present takes her and a boy who claims to be a ghost on a strange journey, to where their supposedly cursed town flourishes.

Florence looks forward to a new life with her great uncle and aunt at an old manor house. But Florence doesn't expect the ghost of her cousin Sophia, who concocts a plan to use Florence to help her achieve her murderous goals.

"Tom is not prepared for what is about to happen when he hears the grandfather clock strike thirteen. Outside the back door is a garden, which everyone tells him does not exist."--Page 4 de la couverture.

In this charming fiction debut, a young woman moves to Manhattan in search of romance and excitement—only to find that her apartment is haunted by the ghost of a cantankerous Beat Generation writer in need of a rather huge favor. For Eve Weldon, moving to Greenwich Village is a dream come true. She’s following in the bohemian footsteps of her mother, who lived there during the early sixties among a lively community of Beat artists and writers. But when Eve arrives, the only scribe she meets is a grumpy ghost named Donald, and the only writing she manages to do is for chirpy segments on a morning news program, Smell the Coffee. The hypercompetitive network environment is a far cry from the genial camaraderie of her mother’s literary scene, and Eve begins to wonder if the world she sought has faded from existence. But as she struggles to balance her new job, demands from Donald to help him complete his life’s work, a budding friendship with a legendary fashion designer, and a search for clues to her mother’s past, Eve begins to realize that community comes in many forms—and that the true magic of the Village is very much alive, though it may reveal itself in surprising ways.