A guide to managing depression

 

Rare book. Good condition. PB. 256pp. $18 including postage anywhere in Australia

... the book is also stacked with advice for the friends and family of the sufferers, and there’s information about every type of depression imaginable, from manic depression and anxiety disorders to postnatal depression and the reactive depression that’s common amongst people undergoing a traumatic event, like the death of a spouse or a parent.

So despite its age, I’d still recommend this book if you want to learn more about depression, whether it’s for yourself or for a loved one. In fact, it’s the best overall guide to the condition that I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a few of them.

Royal Marsden Cancer Cookbook

 

Ex-library. Mint condition. HB. 256pp. Illustrated. $35 including postage anywhere in Australia.

The Royal Marsden Cancer Cookbook is an attractive and accomplished project that combines artistic flair and scientific material, and aims to provide helpful advice and recipes for those undergoing cancer treatment.' Jules Morgan, The Lancet Oncology

The book is divided into three: a detailed section by Dr Clare Shaw on diet and cancer and the problems you may face during treatment (such as loss of appetite, nausea, sore mouth, change of taste); recipes to cook during treatment, which are nutritionally beneficial and wholesome enough to keep you strong even if you can't eat too much; and a section of recipes for after treatment aimed at keeping you healthy. 

These recipes are designed to serve smaller portions and two people as well as families, and there are lots of tips about budgeting, leftovers and freezing. 

Dr Shaw wants to emphasise that you don't have to cook 'special', separate meals for one, the rest of the family can eat in the same way, saving on time and stress as well as encouraging a healthier diet for all.

Stories of Australian midwives

 

Excellent condition. PB. 245pp. $18 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Funny one minute and heartbreaking the next, Aussie Midwives explores the joys, emotion and drama of childbirth and the lasting effect it has on the people who work in this extraordinary profession.

'Being present as the midwife at a baby's birth is one of life's glorious adventures.'

Nineteen Australian midwives share their incredible stories with passionate midwife and bestselling author Fiona McArthur.

Midwives play a vital role in supporting women through some of the most challenging and rewarding moments of their lives.

These remarkable professionals watch over births across Australia from the remote outback to busy urban hospitals.

Meet Annie, working on the tiny island of Saibai where mothers arrive by dinghy; Kate, a clinical midwifery consultant, who sees women with high-risk pregnancies; Priscilla and Jillian who fly thousands of miles to get mothers and babies to hospital safely with the Royal Flying Doctor Service; and Louise, who gives impromptu consultations in the aisles of the local supermarket.

Funny one minute and heartbreaking the next, Aussie Midwives explores the joys, emotion and drama of childbirth and the lasting effect it has on the people who work in this extraordinary profession.

SOLD Historical developments in neuroscience

SOLD 

Ex-library. Mint condition. PB. 323pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Oliver Sacks writes about treating a mysterious epidemic

 

Excellent condition. PB. 408pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Oliver Sacks, M.D. was a physician, a best-selling author, and a professor of neurology at the NYU School of Medicine. The New York Times has referred to him as “the poet laureate of medicine.”

He is best known for his collections of neurological case histories, including The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain and An Anthropologist on Mars. Awakenings, his book about a group of patients who had survived the great encephalitis lethargica epidemic of the early twentieth century, inspired the 1990 Academy Award-nominated feature film starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams.

Dr. Sacks was a frequent contributor to the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books. He died in 2015.

SOLD The Care Factor by Ailsa Wild

 

SOLD

Mint condition. PB. 230pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

The Care Factor tells the story of one incredible nurse – one among many – who chose to meet an unprecedented global health crisis on the frontline.

Simone Sheridan has one of the most sought-after skills today. As a nurse, her skill is to care.

When Covid-19 began to spread across the world in 2020, Sim volunteered to retrain to work in Melbourne’s intensive care units.

And as she prepared to go back to ICU and case numbers began climbing, Sim started talking to her friend Ailsa.

Through the exhaustion, the confusion, the many tears and the surprising moments of hilarity, Sim kept talking.

And Ailsa started writing.

In The Care Factor, Ailsa walks behind Sim as she faces the realities of the coronavirus. The result is a deeply human account of what the pandemic has really meant, not just for Sim and her fellow health professionals, but also for their patients, their families and friends, and the many who faced life in lockdown.

This is a celebration of nursing, of friendship, and of the layers of connection and care that allow us to keep going when it feels impossible.

The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge

 

Mint condition. PB. 427pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable.

Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, M.D., traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they've transformed people whose mental limitations or brain damage were seen as unalterable.

We see a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, blind people who learn to see, learning disorders cured, IQs raised, aging brains rejuvenated, stroke patients learning to speak, children with cerebral palsy learning to move with more grace, depression and anxiety disorders successfully treated, and lifelong character traits changed.

Doidge takes us onto terrain that might seem fantastic. We learn that our thoughts can switch our genes on and off, altering our brain anatomy. We learn how people of average intelligence can, with brain exercises, improve their cognition and perception, develop muscle strength, or learn to play a musical instrument — simply by imagining doing so.

Using these marvelous stories to probe mysteries of the body, emotion, love, sex, culture, and education, Dr. Doidge has written an immensely moving, inspiring book that will permanently alter the way we look at our brains, human nature, and human potential.

About the Author

Norman Doidge, M.D., is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, researcher, author, essayist and poet.

He is on the Research Faculty at Columbia University’s Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, in New York, and the University of Toronto’s Department of Psychiatry.

He is a native of Toronto.