Books by Marina Benjamin
Last Days in Babylon: The History of a Family, the Story of a Nation
Draws on the experiences of the author's own family to chronicle the odyssey and ultimate exile of Jewish Iraqis, documenting how Jewish citizens in Baghdad deteriorated from the region's largest and most prosperous ethnic group to a band of a few dozen survivors under the oppression of a hostile Iraqi government. By the author of Rocket Dreams. 35,000 first printing.
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The Middlepause: On Life After Youth
"In The Middlepause Benjamin deftly and brilliantly examines the losses and unexpected gains she experienced in menopause. Menopause is a mind and body shift as monumental and universal as puberty, yet far less often discussed, especially in public, which is what makes Benjamin's work here so urgently necessary." —Kate Tuttle, The Los Angeles Times
The Middlepause offers a vision of contentment in middle age, without sentiment or delusion. Marina Benjamin weighs the losses and opportunities of our middle years, taking inspiration from literature, science, philosophy, and her own experience. Spurred by her surgical propulsion into a sudden menopause, she finds ways to move forward while maintaining clear–eyed acknowledgment of the challenges of aging. Attending to complicated elderly parents and a teenaged daughter, experiencing bereavement, her own health woes, and a fresh impetus to give, Benjamin emerges into a new definition of herself as daughter, mother, citizen, and woman.
Among The Middlepause's many wise observations about no longer being young: ""I am discovering that I care less about what other people think."" ""My needs are leaner and my storehouse fuller."" ""It is not possible to fully appreciate what it means to age without attending to what the body knows. . . . I have always had a knee–jerk distaste for the idea that age is all in the mind."" ""You need a cohort of peers to go through the aging process with you. A cackle of crones! A cavalry!"" Marina Benjamin's memoir will serve as a comfort, a companion to women going through the too–seldom–spoken of physical and mental changes in middle age and beyond.
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Insomnia
by Stephen King, Robbie Robertson, Marina Benjamin
A #1 national bestseller—“A yarn so packed with suspense, romance, literary reference, fascinating miscellaneous knowledge, and heart that only Stephen King could have written it. Marvelous—that is, full of marvels” (Booklist).
Since his wife died, Ralph Roberts has been having trouble sleeping. Each night he wakes up a bit earlier, until he’s barely sleeping at all. During his late night walks, he observes some strange things going on in Derry, Maine. He sees colored ribbons streaming from people’s heads, two strange little men wandering around town after dark, and more. He begins to suspect that these visions are something more than hallucinations brought on by lack of sleep.
There’s a definite mean streak running through this small New England city; underneath its ordinary surface awesome and terrifying forces are at work. The dying has been going on in Derry for a long, long time. Now Ralph is part of it…and lack of sleep is the least of his worries.
Returning to the same Maine town where It took place, a town that has haunted Stephen King for decades, Insomnia blends King’s trademark bone-chilling realism with supernatural terror to create yet another masterpiece of suspense.
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Insomnia
by Stephen King, Robbie Robertson, Marina Benjamin
“An insomniac’s ideal sleep aid—and that’s a compliment. With her collage of ruminations about sleeplessness, [Benjamin] promises no real cure . . . Her slim book is what the doctor ordered.”—The Atlantic
Insomnia is on the rise. Villainous and unforgiving, it’s the enemy o f energy and focus, the thief of our repose. But can insomnia be an ally, too, a validator of the present moment, of edginess and creativity? Marina Benjamin takes on her personal experience of the condition—her struggles with it, her insomniac highs, and her dawning awareness that states of sleeplessness grant us valuable insights into the workings of our unconscious minds. Although insomnia is rarely entirely welcome, Benjamin treats it less as an affliction than as an encounter that she engages with and plumbs. She adds new dimensions to both our understanding of sleep (and going without it) and of night, and how we perceive darkness.
Along the way, Insomnia trips through illuminating material from literature, art, philosophy, psychology, pop culture, and more. Benjamin pays particular attention to the relationship between women and sleep—Penelope up all night, unraveling her day’s weaving for Odysseus; the Pre–Raphaelite artists’ depictions of deeply sleeping women; and the worries that keep contemporary females awake. Insomnia is an intense, lyrical, witty, and humane exploration of a state we too often consider only superficially. “This is the song of insomnia, and I shall sing it,” Marina Benjamin declares.
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Insomnia
by Stephen King, Robbie Robertson, Marina Benjamin
The rock legend tells the story of his wild ride with Martin Scorsese—as friends, adventure-seekers, and boundary-pushing collaborators—with all the heart of his New York Times bestselling memoir Testimony.
For four decades, Robbie Robertson produced music for Martin Scorsese's films, a relationship that began when Robertson convinced Scorsese to direct The Last Waltz, the iconic film of the Band's farewell performance at the Winterland Ballroom on Thanksgiving 1976.
The closing of the Band's story with that landmark concert thrust Robertson into a new and uncertain world. With his relationship with his bandmates deteriorating and his marriage collapsing, Robertson arrived on Scorsese’s Beverly Hills doorstep only to find his friend in similar straits. Before the night was out, Scorsese had invited him to move in. Both men, already culture-transforming stars before the age of thirty-five, stood at a creative precipice, searching for the beginning of a new phase of life and work. As their friendship deepened into a career-altering collaboration, their shared journey would take them around the world and down the rabbit hole of American culture in the long hangover of the seventies. Buffeted on either side by temptation and paranoia, veering closer to self-destruction than either wanted to admit, together they had devoted themselves to a partnership defined by equal parts admiration and ambition.
With a cast of characters featuring Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Federico Fellini, Sophia Loren, Sam Fuller, Liza Minelli, Tuesday Weld, and many more, Insomnia is an intimate portrait of a remarkable creative friendship between two titans of American arts, one that would explore the outer limits of excess and experience before returning to tell the tale.
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$32.00
Insomnia
by Stephen King, Robbie Robertson, Marina Benjamin
A #1 national bestseller—“A yarn so packed with suspense, romance, literary reference, fascinating miscellaneous knowledge, and heart that only Stephen King could have written it. Marvelous—that is, full of marvels” (Booklist).
“Sleep, that undiscriminating friend, humankind’s best and most reliable nurse since the dawn of time, had abandoned him again.”
Ralph Roberts never expected to live out his remaining golden years mourning the death of his beloved wife. He also never expected to begin suffering from chronic insomnia for the first time in his life. Each night he wakes up a little bit earlier, until he’s barely sleeping at all. During his overnight walks, he’s now observing some strange things going on here in Derry, Maine—and they’re more than sleep-deprived hallucinations. There’s definitely a mean streak that’s always been running through this small New England city; underneath its ordinary surface, awesome and terrifying forces are at work. The dying has been going on in Derry for a long, long time, and Ralph Roberts will soon find that lack of sleep is the least of his worries....
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No copies available.