Kirjahaku

From New York Times bestselling author Benoit Denizet-Lewis comes a timely, provocative, and deeply moving exploration of personal transformation in a period of roiling uncertainty. You've Changed investigates how we remake ourselves--and how identity, belief, and belonging shift in a world that won't stop doing the same. We live in an age obsessed with reinvention. On Instagram, in recovery meetings, through name-change petitions, lifestyle pivots, deconversion blogs, and political conversion manifestos, we're surrounded by stories of radical personal change. But what does it really mean to shed an old skin--and why do some transformations inspire us while others raise our hackles? Longtime New York Times Magazine writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis, known for his deeply reported and psychologically rich journalism, takes us on a freewheeling, wild-hearted journey into the mystery of human transformation. He introduces us to an unforgettable array of people in flux--including psychedelic reality benders, sexual and gender transitioners, ideological shapeshifters, seemingly reformed murderers, and an octogenarian grandmother trying to change her temperament ("Better late than never " she says)--as well as those working to engineer change: psychologists, neuroscientists, name-change specialists, even his own father, a breath and meditation teacher who once wrote a newsletter about "the art and science of transformation." Intertwined with those portraits of change is the author's own reckoning--by turns painful, poignant, and hilarious--with his misfires and epiphanies. You've Changed is a book for anyone who's ever tried to become someone new, fix what felt broken, drag someone else into changing, or wondered whether real transformation is anything more than a myth we sell ourselves. Denizet-Lewis shows us that profound, positive change is possible--and offers an unexpected, sometimes counterintuitive set of approaches to help us get there. But this is no compass for the dogmatic or the quick-fix brigade. Change, he shows us, is slippery, scary, beautiful, often politically fraught--and best tackled with humility riding shotgun, holding the map upside down.

A compelling examination of the contemporary art of self-transformation, from the New York Times bestselling author As obsessed as we are with change, we’re also often wildly suspicious of those who claim to have pulled it off. In You’ve Changed, Benoit Denizet-Lewis shows how so much of what we think we know about self-transformation is wrong. Profound change is often less self-reinvention than self-discovery, and personal change isn’t always so personal — it’s better understood as a hazardous team sport. Drawing on insights from psychologists, neuroscientists and spiritual teachers, Denizet-Lewis confronts our ambivalent relationship with change by taking us inside the lives of people who’ve transformed themselves — or say they have. From psychedelic reality benders to political converters, from a seemingly transformed murderer to a bully-turned-Buddhist, Denizet-Lewis brings curiosity, empathy and humour to this compelling investigation of the many ways we try to reimagine ourselves — and what’s at stake when we do. You’ve Changed challenges us to think more deeply about how real transformation happens and is essential reading for anyone who’s ever wanted to change something meaningful about themselves, or someone they love.

AMERICA ANONYMOUS is the unforgettable story of eight men and women struggling with addictions. For nearly three years acclaimed journalist Benoit Denizet-Lewis immersed himself in their lives as they battled drug and alcohol abuse, overeating, and compulsive gambling and sexuality. Alternating with their stories is Denizet-Lewis's candid account of his own recovery from sexual addiction and his compelling examination of our culture of addiction, where we obsessively search for new and innovative ways to escape the reality of the present moment and make ourselves "feel better." Addiction is arguably this country's biggest public-health crisis, triggering and exacerbating many of our most pressing social problems, from crime to child abuse and neglect. But while cancer and AIDS survivors have taken to the streets and to the halls of Congress demanding to be heard, millions of addicts talk only to one another in the confines of anonymous Twelve Step meetings. Through the riveting stories in this book, Denizet-Lewis shines a spotlight on addiction and breaks through the shame and denial that still shape our understanding of it--and hamper our ability to treat it. As these eight addicts stumble, fall, and try again to make a different and better life, Denizet-Lewis records their struggles, and his own, with honesty and empathy.

BENOIT DENIZET-LEWIS, one of the most perceptive and interesting journalists writing today, takes us into some unusual precincts of American society in American Voyeur. Denizet-Lewis made news with his New York Times Magazine cover story "Double Lives on the Down Low," included here, which ignited a firestorm by revealing a subculture of African-American men who have sex with other men but who don’t consider themselves gay. In American Voyeur, he also takes us inside a summer camp for pro-life teenagers, a New Hampshire town where two young brothers committed suicide, a social group for lipstick lesbians, a middle school where a girl secretly lives as a boy, a college where fraternity boys face the daunting prospect of sobriety, a state where legally married young gay men are turning out to be more like their parents than anyone might have suspected, a high school where dating has been replaced by "hooking up," and other intersections of youth culture and sexuality. Peer behind the curtain of modern American life with this remarkable collection.

A New York Times bestseller and People "Book of the Week" This hilarious, charming road trip through canine-loving America is "essential reading for dog lovers and armchair travelers" (Library Journal, starred review)."I don't think my dog likes me very much," New York Times Magazine writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis confesses at the beginning of his cross-country journey with his nine-year-old Labrador-mix, Casey. Over the next four months, thirty-two states, and 13,000 miles in a rented motor home, Denizet-Lewis and his lovable, moody canine companion try--with humorous and touching results--to pay tribute to the most powerful interspecies bond there is, in the country with the highest rate of dog ownership in the world. On the way, Denizet-Lewis--"a master at effortlessly weaving bits of research into his narrative" (Los Angeles Times)--meets an irresistible cast of dogs and their dog-obsessed humans. Denizet-Lewis and Casey hang out with wolf-dogs in Appalachia, enter a dock-jumping competition in Florida, meet homeless teens and their dogs in Washington, sleep in a Beagle-shaped bed and breakfast in Idaho, and visit "Dog Whisperer" Cesar Millan in California. And then there are the really out there characters: pet psychics, dog-wielding hitchhikers, and two women who took their neighbor to court for allegedly failing to pick up her dog's poop. Denizet-Lewis's memoir "is a lot like Casey...fun, sweet, and a little neurotic" (Chicago Tribune)--a delightfully idiosyncratic blend of memoir and travelogue coupled with a sociological exploration of a dog-obsessed America. Travels With Casey is "a thoroughly engaging and often hilarious investigation of the therapeutic nature of our relationships with dogs" (Booklist).