Barbara Arrowsmith-Young was born with severe learning disabilities that caused teachers to label her slow, stubborn-or worse. As a child, she read and wrote everything backward, struggled to process concepts in language, continually got lost, and was physically uncoordinated. She could make no sense of an analogue clock. But relying on her formidable memory and iron will, she made her way to graduate school, where she chanced upon research that inspired her to invent cognitive exercises to "fix" her own brain. The Woman Who Changed Her Brain interweaves her personal tale with riveting case histories from her more than thirty years of working with children and adults.
Recent discoveries in neuroscience have conclusively demonstrated that, by engaging in certain mental tasks or activities, we actually change the structure of our brains-from the cells themselves to the connections between cells. The capability of nerve cells to change is known as neuroplasticity, and Arrowsmith-Young has been putting it into practice for decades. With great inventiveness, after combining two lines of research, Barbara developed unusual cognitive calisthenics that radically increased the functioning of her weakened brain areas to normal and, in some areas, even above-normal levels. She drew on her intellectual strengths to determine what types of drills were required to target the specific nature of her learning problems, and she managed to conquer her cognitive deficits. Starting in the late 1970's, she has continued to expand and refine these exercises, which had benefited thousands of individuals.
Recently orphaned, eleven-year-old Cathy Benson feels she has dropped into a cultural and intellectual wasteland when she is forced to move her academically privileged life in California to the small town of Kersey. Here in the Texas Panhandle where the sport of football reigns supreme, she is quickly taken under the unlikely wings of up-and-coming gridiron stars and classmates John Caldwell and Trey Don Hall. Like herself, they are orphans-with whom she forms a friendship and eventual love triangle that will determine the course of the rest of their lives.
Taking three friends through their growing-up years until their high school graduations when several tragic events uproot and break them apart, then expands to follow their careers and futures until they reunite in Kersey at forty years of age.
and more new arrivals......
Creole Bell, by James Lee Burke
Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness
Dream New Dreams, by Jai Pausch
15 Seconds, by Andrew Gross
Heading Out To Wonderful, by Robert Goolrick
Just Send Me Word, by Orlando Figes
Keepsake, by Kristina Riggle
The Little Red Guard, by Wenguang Huang
Mike Wallace, by Peter Rader
Summerland, by Elin Hilderbrand
The Watch, by Jo Roy-Bhattacharya
