Seeing Beyond the Fog When a Loved One Is Depressed

“How You Can Survive When They’re Depressed: Living and Coping With Depression Fallout”

By Anne Sheffield with foreword by Mike Wallace

Harmony Books

$24

306 pages

Living with someone who is depressed can cause a range of effects, from self-doubt to the desire to escape to guilt and demoralization. The author of this book, the daughter of someone afflicted by serious depression, describes how family members can cope and help their loved ones. Readers will feel as if they are in a support group as they learn about the disease and what they have control over. The book contains the stories of people who have lived with depressed people and features a moving foreword by television journalist Mike Wallace, who suffered through a severe depression. “You know, deep down, the damage you’re doing to the ones you care about,” he says.

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“Reader’s Digest Guide to Love & Sex”

Dr. Amanda Roberts and Dr. Barbara Padgett-Yawn, onsulting editors Reader’s Digest

$29.95

320 pages

This is an artfully produced reference book on a subject that a lot of people struggle to understand. It is best suited for adults, because of the explicit, although clinical, pictures of sexual intercourse. Yet, some families might regard this as a home reference book on sex, just like the family medical guide, the atlas and the cookbooks. The mechanics of sex constitute only one small section of the book, while the rest explores the concepts of love, maturation of the human body, dating and reproduction. There are discussions of sex and the media, and sex and the law, as well as a helpful chapter on how parents and teens can talk about sex.

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“My Mama’s Waltz: A Book for Daughters of Alcoholic Mothers”

By Eleanor Agnew and Sharon Robideaux

Pocket Books

$24

313 pages

The authors claim this is the first book on the relationship between daughters and alcoholic mothers. The authors share their personal accounts as well as the memories of other women who found themselves with an alcoholic mother as their primary role model. The characteristics common to these daughters are discussed. Nevertheless, the book works to help women overcome the past and reconcile their relationship with their mothers.