Archives de catégorie : Nonfiction

THE HEALTHY GARDEN de Kathleen Norris Brenzel & Mary-Kate Mackey

Part-gardening bible, part-call to action, award-winning authors Kathleen Norris Brenzel and Mary-Kate Mackey present advice, tips, and how-tos for gardeners seeking better health, increased happiness, and stronger communities.

THE HEALTHY GARDEN:
Simple Steps for a Greener World
by Kathleen Norris Brenzel & Mary-Kate Mackey
Abams, November 2022

A gardening book for the times we live in, THE HEALTHY GARDEN combines practical advice for starting a garden with a rare view into how home gardening builds resilience, personal happiness, and community strength. Filled with savvy tips from dozens of experts, each chapter celebrates the many ways gardening works to build health. These professionals and passionate plant people offer lively insights into landscape design, soil science, nutrition, and plant choices. With its can-do, Victory Garden approach, THE HEALTHY GARDEN is essential for anyone seeking to live closer to nature in their own backyards.

Award-winning authors Kathleen Norris Brenzel and Mary-Kate Mackey have contributed to the Sunset garden book series, including the Sunset Western Garden Book, along with many other publications. Brenzel lives in Menlo Park, California, and Mackey lives in Eugene, Oregon.

REAL LIFE de Sharon Salzberg

The new book by the New York Times bestselling author of LOVINGKINDNESS and REAL HAPPINESS.

REAL LIFE:
The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom
by Sharon Salzberg
Flatiron/St. Martin’s Press, April 2023

When confronted with pain and obstacles, we often shrink back out of fear and disappointment. But in REAL LIFE, Sharon Salzberg lets us know it doesn’t have to be that way. When we feel alone, cut off, or trapped, we can let those difficulties steer us onto a path toward an authentic, flourishing life—living in a way that allows us to find the wholeness that lies within. Even when we’re alone, a sense of community can accompany us through the stormy times. Our words, hearts, and actions can line up with a larger vision, rather than the smaller views our anxious, fearful thoughts arouse in us. To live in a less constricted way, Salzberg says, we need to get real about what’s most important, to ask ourselves, “What do I most deeply yearn for?” “What would I benefit from letting go of?” “What do I believe is possible for me?” By developing tools like mindful awareness, friendship and a greater sense of purpose, we can accomplish the journey to expansive freedom and live the life that speaks to our innermost longing to live free.

Sharon Salzberg is a central figure in the field of meditation, a world-renowned teacher and New York Times bestselling author. She has played a crucial role in bringing meditation and mindfulness practices to the West and into mainstream culture since 1974, when she first began teaching. She is the cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA and the author of several books including the New York Times bestseller, Real Happiness, her seminal work, Lovingkindness, and Real Happiness At Work. Renowned for her down-to-earth teaching style, Sharon offers a secular, modern approach to Buddhist teachings, making them instantly accessible. She is a regular columnist for On Being, a contributor to Huffington Post, and the host of her own podcast: The Metta Hour.

DEATH ROW AT TRURO de Geoff Plunkett

Seven women murdered … two depraved men … seven short weeks. The shocking and tragic story of Australia’s 1976-77 Truro murders, the worst serial sexual homicide crime in the country, told for the first time with the full cooperation of the relentless lead detective.

DEATH ROW AT TRURO:
The Shocking True Story of Australia’s Deadliest Sex Killers
by Geoff Plunkett
Big Sky (Australia), August 2022
(via Emily Randle Literary)

Australia’s most prolific serial sexual killers met in prison. They were a complete contrast: Christopher Worrell, the charismatic youngster; and James Miller, the older and socially awkward loner. For Miller, it was love at first sight. They developed an ominous bond – proving that opposites can attract – and then kill. The tag team were inseparable, working, socialising and killing together – slaying as many people as the notorious serial killer Ivan Milat. James Miller said it was all his mate’s doing. He and Worrell often picked up girls off the street. Miller drove them to a discreet location, where Worrell and the women had consensual sex. Miller pleased his lover and the women had sex with an attractive and charismatic man. It was fun all round. But then it all went wrong. On 23 December 1976, they picked up Veronica Knight. Worrell went satanic, killing her without warning. And then it happened again and again, six more times. There was nothing Miller could do. He claimed he was victim number eight. Miller lied. Using the latest research into serial sexual homicide, the truth of the murder spree and the offenders’ motives are finally revealed.

Geoff Plunkett is a researcher and historian at the Department of Defence, Australia. He has been researching Australia’s chemical-warfare history for over twenty years and is the author of Chemical Warfare in Australia and Chemical Warfare Agent Sea Dumping off Australia, both published by the Department of Defence. His research has led to the unearthing of hundreds of lethal phosgene bombs at the old chemical-warfare headquarters at Marrangaroo. Other books include Death by Mustard Gas and Let the Bums Burn.

THE BETTER SEX THROUGH MINDFULNESS WORKBOOK de Lori Brotto

An actionable, approachable workbook for Better Sex through Mindfulness that allows readers to apply the book’s groundbreaking research to cultivate desire in everyday life.

THE BETTER SEX THROUGH MINDFULNESS WORKBOOK:
A Guide to Cultivating Desire
by Lori Brotto
Greystone, October 2022

In her trailblazing book Better Sex Through Mindfulness, clinical psychologist Dr. Lori Brotto revealed how mindfulness can be used to treat sexual difficulties such as lack of desire, pain, and trauma. An instant favorite among sex therapists and clinicians as well as readers, the book featured a foreword by Emily Nagoski and was recommended by Dan Savage and by Dr. Jen Gunter in The New York Times. In this functional workbook, readers can apply Dr. Brotto’s award-winning research in a simple, structured setting for optimal results.
Designed primarily for women, with instructions and inquiries for developing a mindfulness practice with or without a sexual partner, this guidebook also includes information for men and gender diverse people. Dr. Brotto infuses her workbook with compassion and hope, inspiring gentleness and curiosity on this path towards more fulfilling and pleasurable sex for all.

Lori A. Brotto, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and sex researcher. She is a member of various sexuality organizations and an associate editor for Archives of Sexual Behavior. Brotto has been featured in the New York Times, The Walrus, Chatelaine, Dan Savage’s Savage Lovecast, and many other outlets. She lives in Vancouver, BC.

THE STORY OF CO2 IS THE STORY OF EVERYTHING de Peter Brannen

How carbon dioxide, the world’s most important substance, shaped the planet’s past and present—and holds the key to our future.

THE STORY OF CO2 IS THE STORY OF EVERYTHING
by Peter Brannen
Ecco, August 2025
(via DeFiore and Company)

Every year, we are dangerously warping the climate by putting gigantic amounts of carbon dioxide into the air. But CO2 isn’t merely the byproduct of burning fossil fuels—it is also fundamental to how our planet works. All life is ultimately made from CO2, and it has kept Earth bizarrely habitable for hundreds of millions of years. In short, it is the most important substance on Earth. But how is it that CO2 is as essential to life on Earth as it is capable of destroying it?

In THE STORY OF CO2 IS THE STORY OF EVERYTHING, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen reveals how carbon dioxide’s movement through rocks, air, water, and life has kept our planet’s climate livable, its air breathable, and its oceans hospitable to complex life. Starting at the dawn of life almost 4 billion years ago, and working all the way up through today’s global climate crisis and beyond, he illuminates how CO2 has been responsible for the planet’s many deaths and rebirths, for shaping the evolution of life, and for the development of modern human society. And he argues that it’s only by reckoning with this deep planetary history that we can understand the cosmic stakes of our current moment on Earth—and how dangerous our experiment with the climate really is.

With groundbreaking research and a clear-eyed perspective, Brannen shows how a deep exploration of the carbon cycle across our planet’s history can shed light on the way forward for humanity, as we try to avert environmental catastrophe in the future. And it all begins with a richer understanding of the critical role of CO2 in our world.

Peter Brannen is a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of The Ends of the World, about the biggest mass extinctions in Earth’s history. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other publications.