Specific Topics

‘Sweet and funny and weird…as well as genuinely insightful about cooking’ – Hadley Freeman, The Sunday Times

‘As touching as it is delicious’ – The Evening Standard

From Spaced and Hot Fuzz to Paul and Truth Seekers, Nick Frost has lit up our screens for decades with his perfectly observed, just-the-right-side-of-absurd sketches and films. He’s also a keen, self-taught cook: so keen, in fact, that in lockdown, he personally delivered pies to his Instagram followers.

This book is his love letter to food, to kitchens and the people in them.

Nick’s favourite thing to eat aged 10 was his mother’s stroganoff and as her alcoholism worsened, he began to learn to cook it himself, gradually taking over and using it as a magic trick to conjure up the very best bits of her – the stable, sober bits, which became harder to find as the years went on. This was the beginning of a lifelong love of process and technique, of escaping into a world of hisses, blips and thunks of a knife on a board.

A Slice of Fried Gold is a delicious mixture of hearty recipes, stories and digressions from one of Britain’s most loved actors and writers.

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‘A remarkable read’ – Woman’s Own
‘In My Stride is just as bubbly and positive as the woman herself’ – HELLO!
‘An honest record and reflection of a remarkable life’ – Cumbria Life

Helen Skelton is no stranger to doing hard things, from kayaking the entire length of the Amazon to competing in a boxing match for Sports Relief. Her ability to dig deep and find the inner strength and to carry on no matter the challenge – physical, mental, or emotional – is nothing short of remarkable. Helen grew up on a farm in Cumbria and credits her deep connection with nature and family for grounding her throughout the experiences in her life.

In My Stride explores the lessons Helen has learned through life and adventure, sharing how getting out in nature can help us heal, grow, and find the resilience to move through challenging times in our lives. It tells stories of finding confidence, authenticity, courage, resilience, acceptance, community, and freedom against the backdrop of life’s peaks and troughs and through the power of the natural world.

Helen shows us how putting one foot in front of the other – whether that’s on the Strictly dance floor or in the great outdoors – can help us to journey back to ourselves.

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Scattered Minds explodes the myth of attention deficit disorder as genetically based – and offers real hope and advice for children and adults who live with the condition.

Gabor Maté is a revered physician who specializes in neurology, psychiatry and psychology – and himself has ADD. With wisdom gained through years of medical practice and research, Scattered Minds is a must-read for parents – and for anyone interested how experiences in infancy shape the biology and psychology of the human brain.

Scattered Minds:
– Demonstrates that ADD is not an inherited illness, but a reversible impairment and developmental delay
– Explains that in ADD, circuits in the brain whose job is emotional self-regulation and attention control fail to develop in infancy – and why
– Shows how ‘distractibility’ is the psychological product of life experience
– Allows parents to understand what makes their ADD children tick, and adults with ADD to gain insights into their emotions and behaviours
– Expresses optimism about neurological development even in adulthood
– Presents a programme of how to promote this development in both children and adults

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‘At a time when disconnection from wildlife threatens our mental health this book offers the perfect adaptor to plug our brains back into natures’ therapeutic socket. Page by page it reconnects us to the real, wild world we live in. A must-read for any modern-day Homo sapiens.’ Chris Packham

In The Wild Remedy, Emma Mitchell’s deeply personal account of her interactions with nature and its healing properties, she recorded, month by month, a year of her nature finds and wildlife discoveries and the science behind how nature affects our neurochemistry. Now, in this stunning journal, she invites her many followers to accompany her on that road, to experience nature for themselves, record their own interactions and find healing in the natural world.

Full of Emma’s exquisite artworks and photographs, this journal contains many of her own observations and reflections, along with prompts and ideas that will help to unlock the readers’ experience of nature. It shows how reconnecting with the natural world around us can be a powerful tool – as medicinal as any talking therapy or pharmaceutical.

This unique journal includes activities, drawing prompts, contemplative quotes and lots of space for you to write about your own thoughts, feelings and experiences.

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Publishers Weekly starred review

“This is a stunning book, so rare and so beautiful. I cannot recommend it highly enough.” –Matthew A. LaPine

Suffering has been made holy by Christ’s proximity to it.

This is the story of Christ’s nearness to my own suffering–my mental breakdown, my journey to the psych ward, my long, slow, painful recovery–and how Christ will use even our agony and despair to turn us into servants and guests of the mercy offered in his gospel.

We cannot answer suffering. And yet suffering demands an answer. If Jesus is the answer to suffering, what kind of answer is Jesus? Everything that could be taken from a person was taken from him. The worst things a person could be made to see and feel were seen and felt by Christ. All of this came to a point in the nails driven into his hands and became a word that cannot be unspoken–his body broken and his blood poured out for us. Suffering has been made holy by Christ’s proximity to it.

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‘Ashley’s psychological and emotional resilience is unparalleled, truly in the 0.1 percent’, Ant Middleton

STRENGTH, RESILIENCE, POWER

Strong is the moving and heartbreaking memoir from celebrity campaigner, endurance athlete, and father of an angel, Ashley Cain. Charting his daughter’s birth and the fight for her life when she was diagnosed with leukaemia at 7 weeks old, Ashley reflects on his life and his own struggles since Azaylia’s passing in 2021.

Ashley embodies strength and resilience – recently setting up The Azaylia Foundation and taking part in extreme physical challenges to raise crucial funds and awareness for children fighting cancer – so though Strong is a moving tribute to his daughter, it will also encompass the practical and positive mindset that Ashley now embodies, tying his emotional and physical grief into his extreme challenges, in order to provide inspiration and comfort to others struggling with loss and other mental health challenges.

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to The Azaylia Foundation.

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When was the last time you cried? Was it because you were sad? Or happy? Overwhelmed, or frustrated? Maybe from relief or from pride? Was it in public or in private? Did you feel better afterwards, or worse? The reasons that we cry—and the circumstances in which we shed a tear—are often surprising and beautiful. Sad Happens is a collective, multi-faceted archive of tears that captures the complexity and variety of these circumstances.

We hear from Mike Birbiglia on the role that grief and pain have in comedy; Jia Tolentino on how motherhood made her cry in both hormonal joy and fervent rage; and Hanif Abdurraqib on the intimacy of crying on planes. We hear from Phoebe Bridgers on poignant moments of departure and JP Brammer on the strange disappointments of success; Matt Berninger on becoming a crybaby in his adulthood and Hua Hsu on crying during a moment of public uncertainty. We also hear from everyday people in a range of professions: an actor on the tips she learned from drag queens about preserving a full face of makeup while crying; a zookeeper on mourning the animals who have died during her tenure; a bartender on crying in the walk-in; and a TV critic on the shows that have moved her.

Brimming with humanity, this anthology is confirmation that sad happens—but so does joy, love, a sense of community, and a host of other emotions. By turns moving and affirming, Sad Happens is an emotional balm and visual delight.

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#1 New York Times bestselling, award-winning New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast’s new graphic narrative, exploring the surreal nighttime world inside her mind-and untangling one of our most enduring human mysteries: dreams.

Ancient Greeks, modern seers, Freud, Jung, neurologists, poets, artists, shamans-humanity has never ceased trying to decipher one of the strangest unexplained phenomena we all experience: dreaming. Now, in her new book, Roz Chast illustrates her own dream world, a place that is sometimes creepy but always hilarious, accompanied by an illustrated tour through “Dream-Theory Land” guided by insights from poets, philosophers, and psychoanalysts alike. Illuminating, surprising, funny, and often profound, I Must Be Dreaming explores Roz Chast’s newest subject of fascination-and promises to make it yours, too.

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People have been gambling, in one form or another, for as long as history itself. Why? Money, entertainment, escape and a desire to win are all traditional explanations.

Arguably, however, these are secondary considerations to a higher order purpose: a craving for control. Gambling offers a means of gaining authority over the unknown, granting us a sense of control over uncertainty. Almost always that sense is illusory – gambling, including betting and investing, is essentially random – yet for many it is nonetheless profoundly rewarding. This book attempts to explore the reasons why.

Along the way, it examines:

• The science of probability and uncertainty
• Why gambling is often condemned
• The difference between expectation and utility
• The irrationality of human beings
• Evolutionary perspectives on gambling
• Luck and skill
• Market efficiency and the wisdom of crowds
• Why winners take all
• Cheating
• Why the process matters more than the outcome

‘Joseph delivers on his promise to familiarise anybody with an interest in betting or investing with the workings of the betting mind through an abundance of practical examples’ – Pinnacle

‘Squares & Sharps, Suckers & Sharks is a thoughtful book and a refreshing read’ – Betfair Pro Trader

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