This classic book, written 17 years ago but still selling more than 13,000 copies every year, has been completely updated and expanded by the author. "I used to drink," writes John Bradshaw,"to solve the problems caused by drinking. The more I drank to relieve my shame-based loneliness and hurt, the more I felt ashamed." Shame is the motivator behind our toxic behaviors: the compulsion, co-dependency, addiction and drive to superachieve that breaks down the family and destroys personal lives. This book has helped millions identify their personal shame, understand the underlying reasons for it, address these root causes and release themselves from the shame that binds them to their past failures.

A “startlingly original” novel of “recursive loops through the mind of a woman who is breaking down from not making the art she absolutely must make” (Alexander Chee, Paris Review). Alma and her family live close to the land, raising chickens and sheep. While her husband works at a nearby college, she stays home with their young children, cleans, searches for secondhand goods online, and reads books by the women writers she adores. Then, one night, she abruptly leaves it all behind—speeding through the darkness, away from their Vermont homestead, bound for New York. In a series of flashbacks, Alma reveals the circumstances and choices that led to this moment: the joys and claustrophobia of their remote life; her fears and uncertainties about motherhood; the painfully awkward faculty dinners; her feelings of loneliness and failure; and her growing fascination with Celeste, a mysterious ceramicist and self-loving doppelgänger who becomes an obsession for Alma. A fable both blistering and surreal, The Shame is a propulsive, funny, and thought-provoking debut about a woman in isolation, whose mind—fueled by capitalism, motherhood, and the search for meaningful art—attempts to betray her. A Harvard Review Favorite Book of 2020, Selected by Miciah Bay Gault

A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR Shame is being weaponized by governments and corporations to attack the most vulnerable. It's time to fight back Shame is a powerful and sometimes useful tool. When we publicly shame corrupt politicians, abusive celebrities, or predatory corporations, we reinforce values of fairness and justice. But as best-selling author Cathy O'Neil argues in this revelatory book, shaming has taken a new and dangerous turn. It is increasingly being weaponized -- used as a way to shift responsibility for social problems from institutions to individuals. Shaming children for not being able to afford school lunches or adults for not being able to find work lets us off the hook as a society. After all, why pay higher taxes to fund programmes for people who are fundamentally unworthy? O'Neil explores the machinery behind all this shame, showing how governments, corporations and the healthcare system capitalize on it. There are damning stories of rehab clinics, reentry programs, drug and diet companies, and social media platforms -- all of which profit from 'punching down' on the vulnerable. Woven throughout The Shame Machine is the story of O'Neil's own struggle with body image and her recent weight-loss surgery, which awakened her to the systematic shaming of fat people seeking medical care. With clarity and nuance, O'Neil dissects the relationship between shame and power. Whom does the system serve? How do current incentive structures perpetuate the shaming cycle? And, most important, how can we all fight back?

WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE "My father tried to kill my mother one Sunday in June, in the early afternoon," begins Shame, the probing story of the twelve-year-old girl who will become the author herself, and the single traumatic memory that will echo and resonate throughout her life. With the emotionally rich voice of great fiction and the diamond-sharp analytical eye of a scientist, Annie Ernaux provides a powerful reflection on experience and the power of violent memory to endure through time, to determine the course of a life.

Can a better understanding of shame lead us to see its positive contribution to human life? For many people, shame really is a destructive and health-disrupting force. Too often it cripples and silences victims of other people's shameful behavior, and research has demonstrated clearly the damaging effects of shame on our emotional wellbeing. To combat this, a mini-industry of resources and popular therapies has emerged to help people free themselves from shame. And yet, shame can contribute to a healthy emotional and moral experience. Some behavior is shameful, and sometimes we ought to be ashamed by wrongs we've committed. Eastern and Western cultures alike have long seen a social benefit to shame, and it can rightly cultivate virtues both public and personal. So what are we to make of shame? Philosopher and author Gregg Ten Elshof examines this potent emotion carefully, defining it with more clarity, distinguishing it from embarrassment and guilt, and carefully tracing the positive role shame has played historically in contributing to a well-ordered society. While casting off unhealthy shame is always a positive, For Shame demonstrates the surprising, sometimes unacknowledged ways in which healthy shame is as needed as ever. On the other side of good shame, lie virtues such as decency, self-respect, and dignity—virtues we desire but may not realize shame can grant.

An intimate look at the full spectrum of shame—often masked by addiction, promiscuity, perfectionism, self-loathing, or narcissism—that offers a new, positive route forward Encounters with embarrassment, guilt, self-consciousness, remorse, etc. are an unavoidable part of everyday life, and they sometimes have lessons to teach us—about our goals and values, about the person we expect ourselves to be. In contrast to the prevailing cultural view of shame as a uniformly toxic influence, Shame is a book that approaches the subject of shame as an entire family of emotions which share a “painful awareness of self.” Challenging widely-accepted views within the self-esteem movement, author Joseph Burgo argues that self-esteem does NOT thrive in the soil of non-stop praise and encouragement, but rather depends upon setting and meeting goals, living up to the expectations we hold for ourselves, and finally sharing our joy in achievement with the people who matter most to us. Along the way, listening to and learning from our encounters with shame will go further than affirmations and positive self-talk in helping us to build authentic self-esteem. Richly illustrated with clinical stories from Burgo's 35 years in private practice, Shame also describes the myriad ways that unacknowledged shame often hides behind a broad spectrum of mental disorders including social anxiety, narcissism, addiction, and masochism.

Shame doesn't make us less, just human. This is a book about shame. Yep, that messy thing we all carry but we all like to hide. But shame is such an important topic to talk about, especially with kids. Because guess what? They feel it all the time. And they just don't know how to talk about it. Because even grownups don't know how to talk about it. Shame doesn't make us anything less than enough. It just makes us human.

What does it mean to be poor in Britain and America? For decades the primary narrative about poverty in both countries is that it has been caused by personal flaws or ‘bad life decisions’ rather than policy choices or economic inequality. This misleading account has become deeply embedded in the public consciousness with serious ramifications for how financially vulnerable people are seen, spoken about and treated. Drawing on a two-year multi-platform initiative, this book by award-winning journalist and author Mary O’Hara, asks how we can overturn this portrayal once and for all. Crucially, she turns to the real experts to try to find answers – the people who live it.

FROM POPULAR ROMANCE AUTHOR HANNAH MURRAY Book one in the Perfect Taboo series A good marriage is built on love, trust and kink... James and Amanda have been together for fourteen happy, playful kinky years. That's the way they both like it, and neither feels there's anything missing, until one day, a typical scene morphs into something atypical—humiliation play. They've never played with this kink before, but it was shockingly hot, and satisfying in a way their more playful scenes aren't. They're both excited to try something new after so many years together, but James is leading his beloved wife and submissive into uncharted territory where their comfort zone will be stretched and their bond tested... It will take all the love and trust they've built over fourteen years to survive The Shame Game.