Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?: The No 1 Sunday Times Bestseller 2022
£7.60£16.10 (-53%)
Give your mind the one thing it needs this Christmas with the book everyone IS STILL talking about, from clinical psychologist and TikTok sensation Dr Julie Smith
THE NO. 1 SUNDAY TIMESBESTSELLER
‘Sound wisdom, easy to gulp down. I’m sure this book is already helping lots of people. Great work, Dr Julie’ MATT HAIG, bestselling author of REASONS TO STAY ALIVE
‘A toolkit of deceptively simple strategies for life’s troubles. Everyone could benefit from the wisdom of Dr Smith’ i ‘BEST NON-FICTION BOOKS OF 2022’
‘Brilliant. Bite-size. Easy to understand. Easy to flick through. It’s like a reference to how you feel’ Phillip Schofield on ITV’s THIS MORNING
‘Julie Smith is the psychology teacher you wish you’d had at school’ EVENING STANDARD
‘This book is a goldmine. I truly treat it like a handbook now’ STYLIST
‘It’s real, it’s authentic . . . Very practical and very, very helpful’ LORRAINE KELLY
AS FEATURED IN THE OBSERVER, STYLIST, EVENING STANDARD, WOMEN’S HEALTH, MARIE CLAIRE AND GRAZIA
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Drawing on years of experience as a clinical psychologist, online sensation Dr Julie Smith shares all the skills you need to get through life’s ups and downs.
Filled with secrets from a therapist’s toolkit, this is a must-have handbook for optimising your mental health. Dr Julie’s simple but expert advice and powerful coping techniques will help you stay resilient no matter what life throws your way.
Written in short, bite-sized entries, you can turn straight to the section you need depending on the challenge you’re facing – and immediately find the appropriate tools to help with . . .
– Managing anxiety
– Dealing with criticism
– Battling low mood
– Building self-confidence
– Finding motivation
– Learning to forgive yourself
This book tackles the everyday issues that affect us all and offers easy, practical solutions that might just change your life.
________
‘Sound, therapeutic wisdom that is easy to gulp down. Full of principles and advice that work and comfort whether you are in a very bad situation or an everyday worrying one. I’m sure this book is already helping lots of people. Great work, Dr Julie’ MATT HAIG, bestselling author of REASONS TO STAY ALIVE
‘I’m blown away by her ability to communicate difficult ideas with ease, simplicity and practicality. Amazing. Go and buy it now!’ Jay Shetty
‘Relatable, real and easy to digest . . . As if your wise best friend is chatting to you. An essential mental-health bible for adults and teenagers’ YOU Magazine
‘If you want to feel like you have a therapist sitting across from you, empowering you with how to be your best self, this book is for you!’ Nicole LePera, New York Times bestselling author of How to Do the Work
‘Full of sound, helpful advice with life skills, from building confidence to managing stress’ Sunday Times
‘Smart, insightful, and warm. Dr Julie is both the expert and wise friend we all need’ Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone and co-host of the ‘Dear Therapists’ podcast
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Additional information
| Publisher | Michael Joseph, 1st edition (6 Jan. 2022) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Hardcover | 432 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 0241529719 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0241529713 |
| Dimensions | 14.4 x 3.4 x 22.2 cm |
by Robert ‘Bob’ Macespera
The first thing we read about the author in this book (in the dust jacket literally after the book’s title), is that Dr Julie Smith is “a social media superstar … “. First things first; these are the signs of these times. Truth to be told, then the entry carries on introducing Dr Smith as a “trained psychologist” – there’s still hope.
A large online presence has brought Dr Smith remarkable fame. In her social media “bites” (as she likes to call them), short pieces of advice to cope better with everyday life uploaded to online platforms, Julie always looks relaxed, happy, often enthusiastic. She likes retorting to basic examples, using often pieces of fruit and biscuits to explain her theories; cups of grains of rice become large populations. Sometimes she jumps up and down on a chair to explain why is OK to be happy, or turns the screen into black and white to denote pessimism. These snippets have given Dr Smith followers by the millions. Too much? No, because she’s good at what she does, which is explaining an intricate science (psychology) to the layperson. Even better, her advice is always practical, not abstract so the viewer will know how to put the advice to work. She reaches a large audience because she’s thorough in what she does, but also simple – in the best sense of the word, she knows what’s good for the spectator and how to reach him, she’s indeed, and thankfully, no “celebrity” blabbing platitudes. She’s an actual scientist, and it shows.
At the beginning of her book (her first, surely not her last) Dr Smith explains that said book contains the further “details” of her mini-clips. She thought that there was something missing in those short clips, due to the format constraints, so here it is. Quite a fair point; this book is the elaboration beyond the “bites”: what she’s left behind for clarity and brevity. And, yet again, she’s nailed it, because the book is a worthy piece of counsel and which can be enjoyed with or without the mini videoclips.
Dr Smith gathers the right skills necessary to succeed in “popular science”: she’s knowledgeable, passionate and writes well; and also, she expresses herself very clearly – there’s no jargon or unnecessary long words for show or to impress her audience. Furthermore, she’s very warm, so much that the pages read like long letters writen by our favorite cousin. And so, with these foundations, the book starts and goes well, and then never drags, never fails; it never loses the reader’s attention.
Dr Smith goes for width rather than depth and this helps: the book feels well balanced. And at the same time, the author’s honesty and cautiousness are ever-present: she explains (repeatedly) that the text is no magic formula for happiness, only a set of tools that, consistently applied, will help the reader. There’re some examples along the pages, but Dr Smith never falls for the mistake (tediously common in popular science books) of retorting constantly to examples to fill whole chapters. She does not need that: she knows quite well her trade and is merely willing to share her knowledge and experiences with the reader. And yet again, in the clearest of ways, perhaps at some points treading dangerously (but never falling) for a too simplistic ground. Yet Dr Smith never crosses this line and she never addresses her readers from above, lecturing, much less patronizing her audience. There are many icons and arrows in the book, but the reader never feels treated lightly. On the contrary, the surface is plain, but the core of the book (the “tools”) is quite worthy.
And what’s wrong with the book? Not much, nothing important. Perhaps the reader could do with less graphics, drawings and charts. These take a good percentage of the total space, a bit too much. For instance, a simple box with three blank columns “Values – goals – day-to-day”, a template for the reader to make his / her own charts, takes a whole page. Is that necessary?
And related to the previous, this is one against the publisher. The book falls for a common failure: it has 352 pages in the first hardback edition and should have been 152. Not that the text should be shorter, but the spaces, the whole pages containing a title, the chapter divisions and the pages with one or two paragraphs in massive font are all unnecessary and mere distractions (and a sad waste of paper), and all just to make a longer book, perhaps thinking that this will make it more interesting or worthier. As if a volume would be better for merely being thicker. A big mistake, unfortunately quite common these days.
But yet again, the book is very good and it could (and should) be only the first of a long and illustrious career. Dr Julie Smith has a lot to tell and she’s happy to share it; that’s very good news.
by Bethan Thompson
Fantastic useful book
by Victor Store
I have spent the last 3 years in a rather intensive therapeutic community and I found this book a great way to help keep up with my coping strategies and help I internalise the work I had already done.
I would NOT recommend this as a replacement for therapy but to supplement work you are already doing or have already done.
by cam
Good book I’ve bought for a few people
by Amazon Customer
A great book and relatable to real life. Highly recommended
by Volvic
Good read
by Chris
I cried, I marvelled, I shouted in frustration, I wondered. Every time I took a break from reading and glanced at the title as I shut the book I wished that somebody HAD told me before. I read it. I’ll read it again. I’ve bought it for a friend.
by JAA
Can’t wait too start reading this book.
Good reviews.