Anxious travel

 

Mint condition. PB. Rare book. 280 pp. Amazon sells for over $50. Our price $30 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Journalist-about-town Phil Brown has travelled widely but always reluctantly. Whether pursuing a tailor-made suit in the back alleys of Hong Kong, souvenir hunting in Ubud or dodging potholes on the road to Kathmandu, he shoulders a veritable kitbag of travel phobias.

With his more adventurous wife Sandra, Phil worries his way around the world, seeking the comfort of cable TV and 24-hour room service. Against his better judgment, he tackles the rainswept peaks of Scotland, the icy alienation of the Rockies and even the high Himalayas.

A Scotsman writes humorously about his dog

 

Mint condition. HB. 204 pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

It seems now like a different me, the years I spent with Martin, a Doberman dog, and before he came, another me; and it is a new me now, once again, writing this. I would have been dead long ago had I continued to live the way I had before he came.

I think someone would have murdered me, given how I drank and the dives that I drank in and that I was an aggressive, angry man. I had no money and no friends. I didn’t care, I couldn’t have. 

Thomas Healy was a drunk, a fighter, sometimes a writer, often unemployed, no stranger to the police. His life was going nowhere but downhill. Then one day he bought a pup—a Doberman. He called him Martin. 

Gradually man and dog became unshakable allies, the closest of comrades, the best of friends. They took long walks together, they vacationed together, they even went to church together. Martin, in more ways than one, saved Thomas Healy’s life. 

Written with unadulterated candor and profound love, this soulful memoir gets at the heart of the intense bond between people and dogs.

Achieving balance in ,life

 

Mint condition. PB. 224pp. Booktopia is selling this for $47 plus postage. Our special price $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

From Simon & Schuster, Lifebalance is Linda and Richard Eyre's guide on how to simplify and bring harmony to your everyday life.

Espousing an approach to living that emphasizes balance between personal and professional demands, a new guide shows readers how to make and stick to decisions that will help make sense of often contradictory demands on their time.

How we think and why it is important

 

Mint condition. PB. 288pp. Amazon is selling this book for $24 plus postage. Our special price is $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

What do layers of waste tell us about the history of civilisation? Is thinking itself determined by chromosomes? How does light illuminate the world?. 

The psychology of mother management

 

Mint condition. HB. 256pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia. 1 copy sold. One copy left.

Guilt. Affection. Embarrassment. Friendship. Anger. Love -- who can bring out all these feelings, and often in the same day? 

Your mother. 

No matter how mature or successful we are in our adult lives, with one word our mothers can somehow send us scurrying back to childhood. Can mothers and adult children ever learn to set aside their earlier relationship and talk to each other as adults? 

In this warm, funny book, dozens of revealing stories from well known personalities from politics and show business show that it is possible to improve your relationship with your mother- or at the very least begin to understand it. 

Alyce Faye Cleese and Brian Bates include a practical ten-step plan and questionnaire to help you get back on track with your mother. You will learn to address specific issues and develop valuable insights that will help you start thinking about your mother in a profoundly new way.

A guide for bringing up Muslim teems

 Mint condition. PB. 251pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

From the preface: “Teen years we are told by society are the time for school dances, house parties, and road trips, the time for underage drinking, for dating, for casinos and gambling, the time for exploring and discovering, discovering beer, discovering drugs, discovering the opposite sex, the time for finding yourself; teen years, we are told, are the time of your life.

Teen years are the paradoxical highlight of life in the western world. They are the time in which one is bombarded with knowledge and freed from responsibility. Teens have the privileges of an adult and the responsibilities of a child; teens rebel by conforming; the stand out by melting into their group of friends.

Being a teen means wanting independence but not having the wisdom it requires; it means having energy and conviction and needing a cause to which to devote them.

For those of you who, by the will of Allah, wish to instill knowledge and wisdom into their independent teens, to give their teens the Islamic cause into which they can pour their energy and conviction, those who wish to raise teens who can raise the Ummah, this book is for you."

Divorce & kids

 

Mint condition. PB. 254pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia

Expert advice for discussing divorce with your children

Written by Dr. Samantha Rodman, founder of DrPsychMom.com, How to Talk to Your Kids about Your Divorce teaches you how to raise a happy, thriving family in a changing environment. Each page offers expert advice for discussing your decision in healthy and effective ways, including breaking the initial news, fostering an open dialogue, and ensuring that your children's emotional needs are met throughout your separation. With Dr. Rodman's proven communication techniques, you will:

• Initiate honest conversations where your children can express their thoughts
• Discuss divorce-related topics and answer questions in age-appropriate ways
• Validate your children's feelings, making them feel acknowledged and secure
• Strengthen and deepen your relationship with your kids

Whether you're raising toddlers, school-aged children, or young adults, How to Talk to Your Kids About Your Divorce will help your kids feel heard, valued, and loved during this difficult time.

How blokes deal with grief

 

Very good condition. PB. 224pp. $18 postage anywhere in Australia.

Explores men's reactions to the death of a loved one, and offers suggestions for enhancing the healing process.

"Men and Grief" is an insightful and thought-provoking look at the problems men face as they experience the emotionally painful times of their lives.

A book about the collective guilt of a nation

 

Excellent condition. PB. 156pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

The six essays that make up this compelling book view the long shadow of past guilt both as a uniquely German experience and as a global one. 

Bernhard Schlink explores the phenomenon of guilt and how it attaches to a whole society, not just to individual perpetrators. 

He considers how to use the lesson of history to motivate individual moral behavior, how to reconcile a guilt-laden past, how the role of law functions in this process, and how the theme of guilt influences his own fiction. 

Based on the Weidenfeld Lectures he delivered at Oxford University, Guilt About the Past is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand how events of the past can affect a nation's future. 

Written in Bernhard Schlink's eloquent but accessible style, it taps in to worldwide interest in the aftermath of war and how to forgive and reconcile the various legacies of the past.

A memoir of surviving the grief of a suicide

 

Mint condition. PB. 211pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

A suicide loss survivor tells her story.

Tara Lal’s childhood was battered by her father’s mental illness and by her mother’s death when she was thirteen.

Caught up in grief and despair, she developed a deep, caring bond with her charismatic and kind older brother Adam, though he struggled silently with growing anxiety and depression.

Four years after their mother’s death, Adam committed suicide.

Grief and insecurity threatened to engulf Tara, but eventually she found, through a dialogue with the words her brother left behind in his diaries, her reason to live.

The book includes an Afterword on the possibilities for recovery and growth following a tragedy, written by Miriam Akhtar, author of Positive Psychology for Overcoming Depression.

About the Author

Tara J Lal was born in London and now lives in Sydney, Australia. A firefighter and Mental Health First Aid Instructor, she is trained in suicide prevention and researches suicide and mental health in firefighters, as well as speaking on behalf of leading charities to raise awareness of suicide and mental illness.

Parents, children and identity

 

Mint condition. PB. 960pp. $30 including postage anywhere in Australia.

**WINNER OF THE WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE 2014**

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Sometimes your child - the most familiar person of all - is radically different from you. The saying goes that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. But what happens when it does?

Drawing on interviews with over three hundred families, covering subjects including deafness, dwarfs, Down's Syndrome, Autism, Schizophrenia, disability, prodigies, children born of rape, children convicted of crime and transgender people, Andrew Solomon documents ordinary people making courageous choices.

Difference is potentially isolating, but Far from the Tree celebrates repeated triumphs of human love and compassion to show that the shared experience of difference is what unites us.

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for General Non-fiction and eleven other national awards. Winner of the Green Carnation Prize.

Growing up for girls

 

Mint condition. PB. 280pp. $15 including postage anywhere in Australia.

This book prepares girls for what to expect from puberty and offers advice on what they can do to cope with the emotional, psychological and physical changes and stay happy and confident as they go through their early teens. 

It covers all the topics that girls want to find out about, including moods and feelings, periods and how to survive them, what happens to boys, diet, eating disorders, exercise, body image, sex and relationships, contraception, sexual health, self-confidence, drink and drugs, exam stress, cyberbullying, and staying safe - both out and about and online. 

It guides young teenagers through this exciting and sometimes daunting stage as they start taking full responsibility for many aspects of their own lives for the first time.

Coming to terms with one's mummy

 

Mint condition. HB. 182pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Understanding the most difficult, complicated and fascinating relationship in your life

Guilt. Affection. Embarrassment. Friendship. Anger. Love -- who can bring out all these feelings, and often in the same day? Your mother.

No matter how mature or successful we are in our adult lives, with one word our mothers can somehow send us scurrying back to childhood.

Can mothers and adult children ever learn to set aside their earlier relationship and talk to each other as adults?

In this warm, funny book, dozens of revealing stories from well known personalities from politics and show business show that it is possible to improve your relationship with your mother- or at the very least begin to understand it.

Alyce Faye Cleese and Brian Bates include a practical ten-step plan and questionnaire to help you get back on track with your mother.

You will learn to address specific issues and develop valuable insights that will help you start thinking about your mother in a profoundly new way.

The New Puberty - Navigating Early Development in Young Women

 

Mint condition. HB. 244pp. $30 including postage anywhere in Australia.

The coming-of-age experience has changed dramatically, with girls maturing sooner than ever.

But what happens when a girl has the body of a 13-year-old and the brain of an 8-year-old?

Contrary to popular wisdom, early puberty is not merely a reflection of physical changes - it's deeply psychological, too, with effects that can put a girl at higher risk for behavioral problems and long-term health challenges, such as obesity, depression, eating disorders, and even cancer.

The New Puberty is a reassuring, empowering guide for millions of parents - as well as teachers, coaches, pediatricians, and family members - by two notable experts in the field.

Compiling original research and clinical experience, Drs. Greenspan and Deardorff offer practical strategies for supporting girls entering this complex stage of their lives.

Readers will learn why girls are developing faster than they did a generation ago (it's not just environmental toxins); the potential physical and emotional consequences; how to tell if a girl has reached puberty early and what to do; and how to initiate and continue difficult conversations.

Apparently men just don't listen!

 

Mint condition. PB. 300pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Have you ever wished your partner came with an instruction booklet?

This international bestseller is the answer to all the things you've ever wondered about the opposite sex.

For their controversial new book on the differences between the way men and women think and communicate, Barbara and Allan Pease spent three years traveling around the world, collecting the dramatic findings of new research on the brain, investigating evolutionary biology, analyzing psychologists, studying social changes, and annoying the locals.

The result is a sometimes shocking, always illuminating, and frequently hilarious look at where the battle line is drawn between the sexes, why it was drawn, and how to cross it. Read this book and understand--at last!--why men never listen, why women can't read maps, and why learning each other's secrets means you'll never have to say sorry again.

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.

Raising Boys by Steve Biddulph

 

Mint condition. PB. 220pp. $15 including postage anywhere in Australia.

A word of mouth bestseller which has become one of the best loved and most successful books in the parenting field. Steve Biddulph's Raising Boys is to be re-released this month with some startling new research on what helps - and what harms - boys.

In this expanded and updated edition, Steve Biddulph shares and gives practical and honest advice to parents so they can recognise the different stages of boyhood and learn how to raise happy, confident and kind young men.

Boys need to be parented in a different way from girls with their own very special psychological and physical make-up. Home, society and education have failed boys badly - and these failures lead to unhappy men who cannot fully become happy, responsible, emotionally-confident adults.

While it is essential that boys spend more time learning about manhood from their fathers, Biddulph updates his classic to include helpful information for mothers and single mothers with baby boys.

This extended edition explores some important topics:

.

* How ADHD may be caused by stress in the first year of life.

* Whether boys should start school later than girls.

* Help for single mothers raising sons.

* How to choose a sport that does more good than harm.

* What we can do about boys and binge drinking.

* What science can tell us about teenage boys and driving - and how we can keep our sons safe.

Raising Boys offers parents real-life situations, thought-provoking insights, humour and help.