Archives de catégorie : Nonfiction

SORRY, NOT SORRY de Judy Eaton

A bold and original examination of a universal human phenomenon in the vein of Adam Grant’s Think Again and Rutger Bregman’s Humankind, SORRY, NOT SORRY uses cutting edge psychology, cultural history, and first-hand research to answer the question of why we apologize, and how we can say sorry better.

SORRY, NOT SORRY:
The Power of Apologies in a Divided World
by Dr. Judy Eaton
Bloomsbury US, Summer 2026
(via Randle Editorial & Literary)

We all know the power of giving and receiving a humble apology – just as we all know when an “apology” is meaningless. However, as much as we think we might know about apologies, we tend talk about them in broad, shallow terms: What makes a “good” apology? When is an apology necessary, and when is it not? Why do members of some cultures seem to apologize more than others?

SORRY, NOT SORRY takes an original look at the history and science of the humble apology, showcasing the power of apologies throughout time and how the apology has never been more important in today’s world. Exploring the universal nature of apologies, tracing their evolution and history, first as an adaptive mechanism for survival and then continuing as a nonviolent form of conflict resolution, it shows how apologies are universal and that their essential function – to help us connect better with each other – crosses borders, time, and even species.

SORRY, NOT SORRY will expand the way we think about apologies by showing how they serve a deeply important universal function – to interrupt our natural instinct to seek revenge on those who hurt us. It will also demonstrate that the ability to apologize well has been essential to our survival as a species.

Dr. Judy Eaton is Professor of Psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada. She has spent more than two decades studying apologies and forgiveness – in friendships and romantic partners, the workplace, and the criminal justice system. Her work has been profiled in prominent media outlets such as Esquire, Time, NBC News, CBC News, Popular Science, Smithsonian Magazine, and the Houston Chronicle. She has been invited to give public talks on topics including whether Canadians apologize too much, death row apologies, and the benefits of forgiveness, among much more. She lives in Ontario with her family, where she apologizes multiple times each day for things that do not require apologies. As a British-born Canadian, this comes naturally to her.

BIG GIRLS DON’T CRY de Susan Swan

Where do we belong if we don’t fit in? A memoir about what it means to defy expectations as a woman, a mother and an artist, for readers of Joan Didion and Gloria Steinem and listeners of the podcast Wiser than Me.

BIG GIRLS DON’T CRY:
A Memoir About Taking Up Space
by Susan Swan
foreword by Margaret Atwood
HarperCollins Canada, April 2025

Susan Swan has never fit inside the boxes that other people have made for her—the daughter box, the wife box, the mother box, the femininity box. Instead, throughout her richly lived, independent decades, she has carved her own path and lived with the consequences.

In this revealing and revelatory memoir, Swan shares the key moments of her life. As a child in a small Ontario town, she was defined by her size—attracting ridicule because she was six-foot-two by the age of twelve. She left her marriage to be a single mother and a fiction writer in the edgy, underground art scene of 1970s Toronto. In her forties, she embraced the new freedom of the Aphrodite years. Despite the costs to her relationships, Swan kept searching for the place she fit, living in the literary circles of New York while seeking pleasure and spiritual wisdom in Greece, and culminating in the hard-won experience of true self-acceptance in her seventies.

Swan examines the expectations of women of her generation and beyond using the lens of her then-unusual height as a metaphor for the way women are expected not to take up space in the world. Inspiring and thought-provoking, BIG GIRLS DON’T CRY invites us to re-examine what we’ve been taught to believe about ourselves and ask how it could be different.

“[Swan’s writing offers] not only an enjoyable read, but also the chance to think and reflect on the vast complex living entity that is the world. » —Nobel Prize-winner Olga Tokarczuk

Susan Swan is a novelist and non-fiction writer and a professor emerita at York University. Her books include The Wives of Bath, The Biggest Modern Woman in the World, What Casanova Told Me, The Western Light and Stupid Boys Are Good to Relax With. She is also co-founder of the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, the largest literary prize for women and non-binary writers in Canada and the United States.

WELL, THIS IS ME d’Asher Perlman

The perfect gift for every single person on the planet.

WELL, THIS IS ME
by Asher Perlman
Andrews McMeel, June 2024

WELL, THIS IS ME is the debut cartoon collection from Asher Perlman (The Late Show with Stephen Colbert), who NPR’s Scott Simon calls “one of today’s great New Yorker cartoonists.” A blend of Asher’s classics and never-before-seen material, this collection gives the people what they want: universal health care. Okay, not that, but something almost as important: a delightful book, chock-full of over 150 cartoons about everything from a dog’s encounter with a genie to the Tin Man’s trip to Jiffy Lube.

Conveniently broken up into thematic chapters, WELL, THIS IS ME: A Cartoon Collection from The New Yorker’s Asher Perlman explores traditional comedy playgrounds, like travel and work, as well as more lighthearted subjects, like death and dying. Point is: this book has a little something for everyone. Even you, Kristen.

Asher Perlman is an Emmy award-nominated, WGA award-winning, Peabody award-winning cartoonist, comedian, writer, and actor. He is a regular contributor to the New Yorker and a writer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He lives in Brooklyn, but his heart will always be in the Midwest with his family.

THE GASLIGHT VARIATIONS de Ben Kafka

With an accessible, witty, and honest voice, a Stanford-trained historian, psychoanalyst and psychotherapist explores the maddening situations and relationships we all find ourselves in, and explains that while there are no quick or easy answers, recognizing and understanding these scenarios as they happen can help us muddle through in a better way.

THE GASLIGHT VARIATIONS:
How People, Work and The World Drive Us Crazy
by Ben Kafka
John Murray Press, publication date TBD
(via The Gernert Company)

Despite what much pop psychology will tell you, sometimes it’s not a matter of doing more work on yourself. And while psychopharmacology has made some incredible and life-saving advances, our responses to crazy-making situations are often not purely biochemical. Sometimes the call isn’t coming from inside the house. Sometimes crazy really is other people.

In THE GASLIGHT VARIATIONS, Kafka draws from decades of fascinating psychotherapeutic research as well as his own work with patients to help us understand the mechanics of things that make us rant and rave—passive-aggressive partners, borderline workplaces (a term Kafka coined), bureaucracy that feels like crucifixion—to help us better understand our own responses to these maddening stimuli, and in time, not be so reactive to them.

Ben Kafka is a psychoanalyst and psychotherapist in private practice in Greenwich Village. Originally trained as a historian, he was on the faculty of NYU for many years; he is now affiliated with the DeWitt Wallace Institute of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. He has been a Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities since 2007, and a member of its board since 2012. He also serves on the board of the Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis. He is the author of The Demon of Writing: Powers and Failures of Paperwork (Zone Books, 2012).

A KITCHEN IN ITALY de Mimi Thorisson

With recipes for antipasti, primi, secondi, and dulci, A KITCHEN IN ITALY brings Mimi’s Italian secrets to your dinner table.

A KITCHEN IN ITALY:
A Year of Family Meals and Celebrations from Our Home
by Mimi Thorisson
Clarkson Potter, October 2025

Mimi Thorisson first captivated readers with her family’s idyllic lifestyle in the French countryside before turning to the rich culinary treasures of Italian regional cuisine in Old World Italian. Now that she has found a true home in Italy, Mimi is back with a new Italian cookbook sharing how she cooks and eats in her Italian home.

Allow Mimi’s cooking to transport you to Italy, with 100 simple yet elegant dishes that celebrate the seasons. The recipes collected here are Mimi’s favorites, the staple dishes that she enjoys at home with her family and friends. In the spring, she loves Risi e Bisi, a brothy, risotto-like Venetian dish served in every home and restaurant when peas are in season. At the end of a long week, she turns to Involtini de Pollo, a comforting stuffed chicken served with a parmesan cream sauce. And there’s no better way to use up abundant summer zucchini than in Spaghetti alla Nerano, a dish that encapsulates the beautiful simplicity of Italian cooking.

Mimi Thorisson is a French cook and writer living with her family between Médoc, France and Turin, Italy. She is the author of A Kitchen in France, French Country Cooking, and Old World Italian, and she runs the award-winning food blog Manger, which documents her cooking adventures in Médoc and around Italy.