ApsûVoyage of a Thousand Books
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Who is this book for?
- Readers who care about public health, drug policy and medical ethics
- Doctors, pharmacists, nurses and other healthcare workers
- People who want to understand the origins and development of the American opioid crisis
- Readers interested in investigative reporting and nonfiction writing
Who is the author?
- Sam Quinones, American journalist who worked in Mexico as a freelance writer for ten years and then as a reporter at the Los Angeles Times for ten years
- The book was published in 2015 and won a National Book Critics Circle Award in nonfiction, and has been named by several outlets as one of the best nonfiction books of recent decades
- His later work The Least of Us was a finalist for the same award
More by this authorThe Least of Us；True Tales from Another Mexico；Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream
Book notes
A Vanished Swimming Pool
The title comes from a community swimming pool called "Dreamland" in Portsmouth, Ohio. It was once the place where the whole town gathered, symbolizing a close-knit, lively American small town. The pool closed in 1993, and as factories moved away and the economy declined, the town gradually withered, later becoming one of the areas hardest hit by the opioid crisis. Quinones uses this vanished swimming pool to symbolize the collapse of community connection and the disaster that followed.
Two Interwoven Storylines
The Change in Thinking About Pain Relief
The Pain Control Boom
The Launch of OxyContin
From Prescription Drugs to the Black Market
The Xalisco Boys: Door-to-Door Drug Delivery
One Young Man's Story
A Family's Heartbreak
Two Kinds of Capitalism
Startling Numbers
Accountability Too Late
Long-Term Treatment and Community
The Root of the Crisis: Fear and Isolation
Toward Recovery
Reception
Bottles that drifted to this book
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Shang
Shang's reading list
Voyager's Guide
The world
The Sea of Books has 24 real islands, one for each subject. Every building on an island is a book.
What you can do now
- Tap an island on the chart to go ashore
- Tap a building to read the notes on that book
- Meet Shang, the Navigator
Coming soon
- Chapter 2: register as a voyager, sail your ship, collect building badges, send bottles
- Chapter 4: private chats with other voyagers
Symbols
Ship's Registry
Before you set sail, let's get your ship registered.