A book that should start a long-overdue national conversation. Dave Barry With the F.D.A. agreeing to new trials to test MDMA (better known as Ecstasy) as a treatment for PTSD which, if approved, could be available as a drug by 2021 Acid Test is leading the charge in an evolving conversation about psychedelic drugs. Despite their current illegality, many Americans are already familiar with their effects. Yet while LSD and MDMA have proven extraordinarily effective in treating anxiety disorders such as PTSD, they still remain off-limits to the millions who might benefit from them. Through the stories of three very different men, award-winning journalist Tom Shroder covers the drugs roller-coaster history from their initial reception in the 1950s to the negative stereotypes that persist today. At a moment when popular opinion is rethinking the potential benefits of some illegal drugs, and with new research coming out every day, Acid Testis a fascinating and informative must-read. "

A riveting firsthand account of one man's mission to investigate and document some of the most astonishing untold phenomena of our time

All across the globe, small children spontaneously speak of previous lives, beg to be taken "home," pine for mothers and husbands and mistresses from another life, and know things that there seems to be no normal way for them to know. From the moment these children can talk, they speak of people and events from the past -- not vague stories of centuries ago, but details of specific, identifiable individuals who may have died just months, weeks, or even hours before the birth of the child in question.

For thirty-seven years, Dr. Ian Stevenson has traveled the world from Lebanon to suburban Virginia investigating and documenting more than two thousand of these past life memory cases. Now, his essentially unknown work is being brought to the mainstream by Tom Shroder, the first journalist to have the privilege of accompanying Dr. Stevenson in his fieldwork. Shroder follows Stevenson into the lives of children and families touched by this phenomenon, changing from skeptic to believer as he comes face-to-face with concrete evidence he cannot discount in this spellbinding and true story.

"A phenomenal feat of journalism. . . . I tore through it like a novel but with the queasy knowledge that the whole damn thing is true." --Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm and War Blending exclusive first-person interviews and penetrating investigative reporting, oil rig captain John Konrad and veteran Washington Post writer Tom Shroder give the definitive, white-knuckled account of the Deepwater Horizon explosion--as well as a riveting insider's view of the byzantine culture of offshore drilling that made the disaster inevitable. As the world continues to cope with the oil spill's grim aftermath--with environmental and economic consequences all the more dire in a region still rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina--Konrad and Schroder's real-time account of the disaster shows us just where things went wrong, and points the way to a safer future for us all.