Picador

Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving Extremism

A Journey from Hate to Humanity

"Unfollow" is the captivating memoir of Megan Phelps-Roper, a woman who spent her childhood immersed in the Westboro Baptist Church, a group notorious for its hate-filled protests and unwavering condemnation of everything outside their narrow ideology. This isn't simply a story of escaping a cult; it's a powerful exploration of the human capacity for change, the allure of extremism, and the transformative power of love and connection.

Growing Up in the Most Hated Family in America

From the age of five, Megan was indoctrinated into the church's hateful dogma, participating in protests against homosexuality, military funerals, and any event perceived as a celebration of sin. The church, founded by her grandfather and dominated by her extended family, became her world, a place where the logic of predestination and the rigid interpretations of the King James Bible governed every aspect of life.

Megan thrived in this environment, becoming a skilled debater and the church's Twitter spokeswoman, wielding the language of hate with practiced ease. However, as she engaged in online dialogues, a seed of doubt began to sprout within her. If humans were inherently flawed and destined to sin, how could the church claim absolute certainty about its beliefs? This questioning, fueled by her interactions with critics who occasionally raised valid points, gradually eroded the foundation of her faith.

The Power of Dialogue and the Courage to Unfollow

Megan's online interactions with critics led her to a crucial turning point. She began exchanging messages with a man who, despite their ideological differences, challenged her assumptions and provided a different perspective on the world. This connection, blossoming in the digital realm, became a lifeline, slowly pulling her away from the suffocating grip of the Westboro Baptist Church.

A Search for Meaning and Belonging

"Unfollow" is not just a story of leaving an extremist group; it's a journey of self-discovery, a search for meaning and belonging outside the rigid confines of her upbringing. Megan's departure from the church was a leap of faith, a brave embrace of uncertainty in pursuit of a life built on empathy, compassion, and genuine connection.

A Timely Message for Our Divided Times

This deeply personal story offers a powerful message for a world increasingly polarized by extremism and intolerance. Megan's journey exposes the dangers of black-and-white thinking, the need for intellectual humility, and the transformative power of dialogue and connection. "Unfollow" is a testament to the human capacity for change, a compelling reminder that even in the darkest corners of extremism, hope can emerge and love can guide the way.

<p>Seven Types Of Atheism</p>

<p>From the provocative author of&nbsp;Straw Dogs&nbsp;comes an incisive, surprising intervention in the political and scientific debate over religion and atheism</p>

<p>When you explore older atheisms, you will find that some of your firmest convictions―secular or religious―are highly questionable. If this prospect disturbs you, what you are looking for may be freedom from thought.</p>

<p>For a generation now, public debate has been corroded by a shrill, narrow derision of religion in the name of an often vaguely understood “science.” John Gray’s stimulating and enjoyable new book,&nbsp;Seven Types of Atheism, describes the complex, dynamic world of older atheisms, a tradition that is, he writes, in many ways intertwined with and as rich as religion itself.</p>

<p>Along a spectrum that ranges from the convictions of “God-haters” like the Marquis de Sade to the mysticism of Arthur Schopenhauer, from Bertrand Russell’s search for truth in mathematics to secular political religions like Jacobinism and Nazism, Gray explores the various ways great minds have attempted to understand the questions of salvation, purpose, progress, and evil. The result is a book that sheds an extraordinary light on what it is to be human.</p>

<p>Let Them Eat Chaos: Mercury Prize Shortlisted</p>

<p>SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 MERCURY MUSIC PRIZE</p>

<p>Let Them Eat Chaos, Kate Tempest's new long poem written for live performance and heard on the album release of the same name, is both a powerful sermon and a moving play for voices. Seven neighbours inhabit the same London street, but are all unknown to each other. The clock freezes in the small hours, and, one by one, we see directly into their lives: lives that are damaged, disenfranchised, lonely, broken, addicted, and all, apparently, without hope. Then a great storm breaks over London, and brings them out into the night to face each other - and their last chance to connect. Tempest argues that our alienation from one another has bred a terrible indifference to our own fate, but she counters this with a plea to challenge the forces of greed which have conspired to divide us, and mend the broken home of our own planet while we still have time.&nbsp;Let Them Eat Chaos&nbsp;is a&nbsp;cri de coeur&nbsp;and a call to action, and, both on the page and in Tempest's electric performance, one of the most powerful poetic statements of the year.</p>

<p>And How Are You, Dr. Sacks?: A Biographical Memoir Of Oliver Sacks</p>

<p>The untold story of Dr. Oliver Sacks, his own most singular patient</p>

<p>"[An] engrossing biographical memoir. This is Sacks at full blast: on endless ward rounds, observing his post-encephalitic patients . . . exulting over horseshoe crabs and chunks of Iceland spar." ―Barbara Kiser, Nature</p>

<p>The author Lawrence Weschler began spending time with Oliver Sacks in the early 1980s, when he set out to profile the neurologist for his own new employer, The New Yorker. Almost a decade earlier, Dr. Sacks had published his masterpiece Awakenings―the account of his long-dormant patients’ miraculous but troubling return to life in a Bronx hospital ward. But the book had hardly been an immediate success, and the rumpled clinician was still largely unknown. Over the ensuing four years, the two men worked closely together until, for wracking personal reasons, Sacks asked Weschler to abandon the profile, a request to which Weschler acceded. The two remained close friends, however, across the next thirty years and then, just as Sacks was dying, he urged Weschler to take up the project once again. This book is the result of that entreaty.</p>

<p>Weschler sets Sacks’s brilliant table talk and extravagant personality in vivid relief, casting himself as a beanpole Sancho to Sacks’s capacious Quixote. We see Sacks rowing and ranting and caring deeply; composing the essays that would form The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat; recalling his turbulent drug-fueled younger days; helping his patients and exhausting his friends; and waging intellectual war against a medical and scientific establishment that failed to address his greatest concern: the spontaneous specificity of the individual human soul. And all the while he is pouring out a stream of glorious, ribald, hilarious, and often profound conversation that establishes him as one of the great talkers of the age. Here is the definitive portrait of Sacks as our preeminent romantic scientist, a self-described “clinical ontologist” whose entire practice revolved around the single fundamental question he effectively asked each of his patients: How are you? Which is to say, How do you be?</p>

<p>A question which Weschler, with this book, turns back on the good doctor himself.</p>

<p>The Sparsholt Affair</p>

<p>In October 1940, the handsome young David Sparsholt arrives in Oxford. A keen athlete and oarsman, he at first seems unaware of the effect he has on others – particularly on the lonely and romantic Evert Dax, son of a celebrated novelist and destined to become a writer himself. While the Blitz rages in London, Oxford exists at a strange remove: an ephemeral, uncertain place, in which nightly blackouts conceal secret liaisons. Over the course of one momentous term, David and Evert forge an unlikely friendship that will colour their lives for decades to come . . .</p>

<p>Alan Hollinghurst’s masterly new novel evokes the intimate relationships of a group of friends bound together by art, literature and love across three generations. It explores the social and sexual revolutions of the most pivotal years of the past century, whose life-changing consequences are still being played out to this day. Richly observed, disarmingly witty and emotionally charged,&nbsp;The Sparsholt Affair&nbsp;is an unmissable achievement from one of our finest writers.</p>

<p>How I Won A Nobel Prize</p>

<p>‘A stunning new talent, announcing itself fully formed’ – Jonathan Lethem</p>

<p>Helen, a graduate student on a quest to save the planet, is one of the best minds of her generation. But when her irreplaceable advisor’s student sex scandal is exposed, she must choose whether to give up on her work or accompany him to RIP, a research institute which grants safe harbour to the disgraced and the deplorable.</p>

<p>As Helen settles into life at the institute alongside her partner Hew, she develops a crush on an older novelist, while he is drawn to an increasingly violent protest movement. As the rift between them deepens, they both face major – and potentially world-altering – choices.</p>

<p>Both hilarious and thought-provoking, How I Won A Nobel Prize approaches our moral confusion in a genuine and fresh way, examining the price we’re willing to pay for progress and what it means, in the end, to be a good person.</p>

<p>American Psycho: Bret Easton Ellis</p>

<p>Bret Easton Ellis’s&nbsp;American Psycho&nbsp;is one of the most controversial and talked-about novels of all time. A multi-million-copy bestseller hailed as a modern classic, it is a violent and outrageous black comedy about the darkest side of human nature.</p>

<p>With an introduction by Irvine Welsh, author of&nbsp;Trainspotting.</p>

<p>I like to dissect girls. Did you know I’m utterly insane?</p>

<p>Patrick Bateman has it all: good looks, youth, charm, a job on Wall Street, and reservations at every new restaurant in town. He is also a psychopath. A man addicted to his superficial, perfect life, he pulls us into a dark underworld where the American Dream becomes a nightmare . . .</p>

<p>Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.</p>