What is depression? “'Before I took Prozac, every day was difficult,' says Joan. 'I didn't enjoy anything; everything was futile. There seemed to be no hope. After being on Prozac for about a month, I suddenly felt that half my life had already gone by. I'd better get in gear! I used to compare myself with everyone,' she continues. 'Now I don't care. I'm more confident with other people, and I don't freak out in groups. I wish,' she sighs, 'I had the past 20 years back.'” Covers other selective seratoninreuptake inhibitors (Paxil, Zoloft), cyclic antidepressants, MAO inhibitors, lithium and other modern additives used to alter the brain's chemical soup. GR

Publisher: Contemporary
Hardback: 224 pages

Beware of Barbarians carrying flowers. “This was the East of the ancient navigators, so old, so mysterious, resplendent and somber, living and unchanged, full of danger and promise… I have known its fascination since; I have seen the mysterious shores, the still water, the lands of brown nations.” Deluxe irony—a coffee-table history of the “flower of dreams and nightmares” and the 1830s Opium Wars. “Opium. The foundation of one of the world's most amazing commercial enterprises—the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong.” But the early trade in opium between the British (who manufactured it in India) and the Chinese (who refused to trade tea for the poisoned poppy) was a commercial enterprise “not without savage battles on land and Chinese rivers… Not without heartbreak and sickness and addiction… that secured for the British taipans an everlasting place, for better or worse, in imperial history.” A colorful, zesty tale told by a writer and producer for the BBC. GR

Publisher: Weatherhill
Hardback: 88 pages
Illustrated

“It was Freud's fate, as he observed not without pride, to 'agitate the sleep of mankind.' Half a century after his death, it seems clear that he succeeded far better than he expected… In June 1938, at 82, Freud began writing this terse survey of the fundamentals of psychoanalysis. He marshals here the whole range of psychoanalytic theory and therapy in lucid prose and continues his open-mindedness to new departures, such as the potential of drug therapy.” In three parts: “The Mind and Its Workings,” which embraces the development of sexual function and explores dream-interpretation as illustration; “The Practical Task,” focusing on the technique of psychoanalysis; and “The Theoretical Yield,” which explains the psychical apparatus of the internal world and its effect on the external world. GR

Publisher: Norton
Paperback: 113 pages

Essays in the art of odorama. “The essence of perfumery: from the art of making perfumes… to a scientific understanding of the mechanisms of smell.” Explores the intimate and little-understood link between the molecular event of “pleasant smell sensations” and emotional events they trigger, such as “the evocation of memories from early childhood and the experience of sexual arousal.” Part One: Man—the scented ape. Part Two: Perfume as a personal tactic of impression management. Part Three: Electrical activity in the brain during odor perception. Part Four: The role of fragrances in inducing mood and relaxation states. Part Five: Matching scents with personality traits to better target scent consumers. GR

Publisher: Chapman and Hall
Paperback: 268 pages
Illustrated

“The purpose of this book is to convey the impartial facts of the uses and abuses of cocaine. Without bias, many different aspects are covered: History, effects, uses, pleasures, dangers.” Contents include: “Enjoying Cocaine Without Abuse,” which covers avoiding abusive potential; overdose and allergic sensibility; and cocaine, alcohol and downers. “The Pleasures of Cocaine” delves into cocaine and sex and cocaine and physical activity. “Methods of Use” details preparing the nostrils, setting up lines, the mouth freeze, and the coke smoke. “Selection of Quality” focuses on cutting cocaine (with methedrine, procaine, talc and the like) and testing it. The book that does everything but score. GR

Publisher: Ronin
Paperback: 147 pages
Illustrated

Hallucinatory highlights from the quasi-academic journal Psychedelic Monographs and Essays compiled by its intrepid editor. Essays include: “Ludiomil, LSD-25 and the Lucid Dream,” “The Seven Deadly Sins of Media Hype Considered in Light of the MDMA Controversy,” “Disney's Intrapsychic Drama Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: A Grofian Interpretation,” “Amazon Shamanism: The Ayahuasca Experience” and “Further Comments on U4Euh With More Recent Addenda.” GR

Publisher: Barricade
Paperback: 272 pages

Here's a radical idea: The first domesticated animal, says the author, was neither dog nor goat, but human. Humans cut themselves adrift from the real world by becoming entirely dependant on ideas. Now humans have drawn other animals, and even the natural world itself, into the service of their belief systems. At what price? Are we really a herd of rutting pigs eating and breeding our way across this island Earth? A provocative theory that seems to explain everything from God to potatoes. GR

Publisher: Roberts Rinehart
Hardback: 311 pages

Britain's Society for Psychical Research provides archival material for a re-thinking of precognition. If it does exist, asks the author, “can it be understood in terms of modern science? It directly contradicts the theories of classical physics—but the modern view of time and space as set out in Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity may be able to accommodate it.” From waking impressions of the Titanic sinking, to experimental studies with animals, the quantum level phenomenon of “Action at a Temporal Distance” is explored. GR

Publisher: William Heinemann
Paperback: 178 pages

You know, when you know you know it's a dream? “Lucid dreams are those in which a person becomes aware that they are dreaming. They are different from ordinary dreams because they are often strikingly realistic and may be emotionally charged to the point of elation.” You can induce them with training, and you can control them once you're there. They're often erotic, mystical puzzle/paradoxes, and loads of fun. A great hobby for narcoleptics. GR

Publisher: Routledge
Paperback: 192 pages

For those who like their ancient Tantric sex secrets fast-food style, via transcendental balling and brain-blasting. This volume catalogs the effects of popular drugs on the sexual experience: cannabis, heroin, speed, cocaine, LSD—alternating with “drug people I have known” stories. If Western society insists on ingesting shortcuts to orgasmic bliss, reasons the author, they can at least do it like informed pros. Massive amount of fact, anecdote, analysis and experience. First published by Playboy Press in 1973. GR

Publisher: New Falcon
Paperback: 188 pages