September new releases

As polyamory continues to make its way into the mainstream, more and more people are exploring consensual non-monogamy in the hope of experiencing more love, connection, sex, freedom, and support.

While for many, the move expands personal horizons, for others, the transition can be challenging, leaving them blindsided and overwhelmed. Beyond the initial transition to non-monogamy, many struggle with the root issues beneath the symptoms of broken agreements, communication challenges, increased fighting, and persistent jealousy.

Polyamorous psychotherapist Jessica Fern and restorative justice facilitator David Cooley share the insights they have gained through thousands of hours working with clients in consensually non-monogamous relationships. Using a grounded theory approach, they explore the underlying challenges that non-monogamous individuals and partners can experience after their first steps, offering practical strategies for transforming them into opportunities for new levels of clarity and intimacy.

We were all taught the fundamentals of writing well in school. But how do we write effectively in today’s hyper-interactive world?

When The Elements of Style and On Writing Well were published in 1959 and 1976, the internet hadn’t been invented. Since then, there has been a radical transformation in how we communicate. The average adult receives over 100 emails and tens of text messages each day. With all this correspondence, gaining a busy reader’s attention is now a competition.

Todd Rogers and Jessica Lasky-Fink, both behavioural scientists, offer practical writing advice you can use today. They begin by outlining cognitive facts about how busy people read, then detail six research-backed principles for effective writing:

• Use fewer words
• Lower the reading level
• Use formatting judiciously
• Make the purpose clear for skimmers
• Emphasise value for readers
• Make responding as easy as possible.

Including many examples, a checklist, and other tools for the most effective writing, this handbook will make you a more effective communicator. Rogers and Lasky-Fink bring conventional ideas about text-based communication into the 21st century’s radically transformed attention marketplace.

‘We don’t exist in this world. Here we’re neither Germans nor refugees; we aren’t newsreaders or experts. We’re some kind of joker in the pack, and they don’t know if they can use us for anything.’

Kasih, Hani, and Saya have shared a deep friendship since school and the years they lived in the same public housing estate. Kasih and Hani still live in the same city, but now Saya is returning and they have a lot to catch up on. Yet amid the laughter and determination of their sisterhood, it’s clear to the three young women that they haven’t escaped the racism that has accompanied their daily lives since childhood: the glances, the chatter, and the outright right-wing terror.

Sisters in Arms is a lyrical, explosive novel about the importance of friendship — the kind of extraordinary friendship that brings stability to an unstable world. Until one dramatic night that will change everything for the three women, propelling Kasih to tell the tale of themselves.

Two women's lives and identities are intertwined — through World War II and the Korean War — revealing the harsh realities of class division in the early part of the 20th century.

Can't I Go Instead follows the lives of the daughter of a Korean nobleman and her maidservant in the early 20th century. When the daughter’s suitor is arrested as a Korean Independence activist, and she is implicated during the investigation, she is quickly forced into marriage to one of her father’s Japanese employees and shipped off to the United States. At the same time, her maidservant is sent in her mistress's place to be a comfort woman to the Japanese Imperial army.

Years of hardship, survival, and even happiness follow. In the aftermath of WWII, the women make their way home, where they must reckon with the tangled lives they've led, in an attempt to reclaim their identities, and find their places in an independent Korea.

An authoritative resource for understanding the nature of mental illnesses and for pointing the way to treatment, written by two eminent mental health professionals with almost a century of academic achievement and clinical experience between them.

Many of us take our mental health for granted. But we can feel overwhelmed when confronted by mental illness in ourselves, a family member, or a friend. Troubled Minds is an invaluable guide for anyone whose life has been touched by mental ill-health and who wants to understand and deal effectively with it.

It serves as an ideal introduction to common mental illnesses, developmental disorders, and neurological variations that can lead to distress such as autism, anorexia nervosa, anxiety, depression, alcoholism, post-traumatic stress disorder, and dementia. Innovative chapters cover mental health problems of children and adolescents, and how we have the potential to promote our own mental health and wellbeing.

Bloch and Haslam tell illuminating stories of people they have treated, discuss public figures who have wrestled with mental ill-health, and share their personal experiences. Their book is informed by the latest research, warmed by lived experience and empathy, and seasoned by the insights of philosophers, writers, and artists.

Troubled Minds is essential reading for anyone who seeks deeper psychological insights to help deal with the challenges of contemporary life. It is a balanced and accessible account of a subject that is of profound significance in everyone’s life.