Shirley
It’s been twenty years since her mother was photographed, blood-soaked, outside the family home. A famous TV food personality, she fled the country. Since that time, the girl has grown up. She’s bought an apartment, learned her own cooking style, fallen in love. She lives a quiet life, working as a copywriter for a health insurance company. She’s found happiness, finally.
But strange things are in the air. Her easygoing boyfriend has started sleeping with men. Her mother is selling the infamous family home. And a glamorous, pregnant neighbour has moved into the apartment downstairs, calling into question everything the girl believes about her own desires.
Among conspiracies, dubious loyalties, and mercenary impulses, how do we work out who is worthy of our devotion and who is just a fan? Shirley charts a search for meaning in a world where the fracturing of ambitions – work and purpose, real estate and home, family and love – has left us uncertain how to recognise ourselves.
Friends: Understanding The Power Of Our Most Important Relationships
Popularised by the Dunbar Number, which suggests that our cognitive limit for maintaining stable social relationships is around 150 people, this book is a fascinating if highly cerebral and scientific take on friendship, trust, loneliness and social cohesion. Its academic exploration provides a practical guide and homage to human connection for anyone looking to understand the nuances of friendship groups.
The Mountain Is You
Promoted as a book to counteract self-sabotage, it actually covers many aspects of life including happiness, decluttering, denial, procrastination, finding inner peace, trusting yourself and so on. If you are an avid self help book reader it may feel like many well-worn concepts that have been repackaged into a booklet without chapters that speaks like the Tao Te Ching. While we may well be responsible for our own lives, the emphasis on personal responsibility could feel overwhelming or dismissive of the complex factors that contribute to mental health struggles, including the society we operate in.
How Emotions Are Made
This a dense, well researched and thought-provoking book written in a pacy approachable and inquisitive way. The author makes a solidly built case that the universal components of human experience are not emotions, but changes on a continuum of arousal on the one hand, and pleasantness and unpleasantness on the other. Ultimately we are all creating our world from moment to moment.
She Is Not Your Rehab
A heartfelt, sincere, straightforward, and practical book that has started a global movement to end abuse. Written by a man for men, there is however, something in this book for everyone about healthy relationships with its honest depiction of healing being messy, raw, vulnerable and taking time.
How To Be The Love You Seek
Combining expertise in clinical psychology with holistic health, this book reflects the idea that cultivating self-love and self-compassion can transform your relationships with others. Key concepts are understanding and healing your past, cultivating self-love and developing self-awareness. Huge on Instagram Nicole, aka the Holistic Psychologist provides in depth insight into living a more authentic life.
Vagina: A Re-Education
An absolute essential read! Informative, insightful, accessible and incredibly honest and personal.
Creative First Aid
A visually appealing book, filled with colour and illustrations that approaches trauma and mental health with creativity at its heart, with the empowering message that our innate creativity is a reliable tool, which can support wellness and connectivity. Contains fifty Relief, Recharge and Restoration ‘prescriptions’ to work with.
No Bad Parts
Challenge societal norms and redefines what it means to be truly whole. Does not offer a quick fix but takes you on a profound and considered journey of self-discovery, encouraging people to embrace all aspects of ourselves – flaws and all. Has a realistically optimistic tone and insightful wisdom which makes it highly readable and highly recommended.
