UNFAIR PLAY de Sharron Davies & Craig Lord

A legendary Olympian exposes the toxic sexism that threatens women’s sport.

UNFAIR PLAY:
The Battle for Women’s Sport
by Sharron Davies & Craig Lord
Swift Press, April 2023
(via Randle Editorial and Literary)

Despite being more popular than ever, women’s sport is in danger. Modern gender ideology, which denies fundamental differences in human biology, is undermining the integrity of women’s sport.
Sharron Davies has been here before. She missed out on Olympic Gold because of blatant doping among East German athletes in the 1980s. Female athletes are now once again facing an unfair playing field: biological males are being allowed to compete directly against women under the guise of trans ‘self-ID’. This time, the cheating is officially condoned. This callous indifference towards women in sport, argue Sharron and journalist Craig Lord, is merely the latest stage in a long history of official sexism.
Unlike in the past, however, this time female resistance is too strong to ignore. Davies and Lord show how the tide may be turning, and outline how women can win the fight for their rights.

Sharron Davies MBE is a legendary British Olympian, the UK’s top female swimmer throughout the 80s. In 1980, she won Olympic Silver (losing out only to a drugs cheat). She has since become a leading BBC sports pundit.
Craig Lord is an award-winning swimming and Olympic correspondent, who’s been writing for The Times for three decades.

WHAT WE VALUE d’Emily Falk

An award-winning University of Pennsylvania neuroscientist reveals the hidden calculations that shape our daily decisions—and how to make more fulfilling, impactful choices in our work, relationships, and lives.

WHAT WE VALUE:
The Neuroscience of Choice and Change
by Dr. Emily Falk
Norton, April 2025
(via Park & Fine Literary and Media)

Why is it so hard to stick with the choices we want to make? We decide to be healthier, but we snack all afternoon. We resolve to prioritize family time, but we end up working late into the evening. Change is hard – even when we really want, or need, to make it. Amid the many competing priorities of our busy lives, it can feel difficult to make the right decisions―ones that feel aligned with the things we care about. In this book, award-winning researcher Emily Falk reveals how we can transform our relationship with the daily choices that define our lives by thinking like a neuroscientist about what we value.

Introducing us to three brain systems responsible for computing our everyday decisions in a process known as the value calculation, Falk shows how we can work more strategically with our brains to make more fulfilling choices. Whether deciding on lunch or a career, changing our routines or other people’s minds, we learn how changing what we think about can change what we think, connecting with our core values can make us less defensive, and broadening our curiosity about different perspectives can seed innovation. Based on cutting-edge research, WHAT WE VALUE is a groundbreaking guide to finding new possibilities in our choices―and the lives we ultimately make with them.

Emily Falk is a professor of communication, psychology, and marketing at the University of Pennsylvania, where she also directs the Communication Neuroscience Lab and serves as associate dean for research at the Annenberg School for Communication. Her work on the science of attitude and behavior change has been widely covered in the popular press and recognized with numerous awards, including early career awards from the Social & Affective Neuroscience Society and the Association for Psychological Science, the National Institute of Health Director’s New Innovator Award, and more. She lives in Philadelphia.

HOW TO CARE FOR A HUMAN GIRL de Ashley Wurzbacher

From “a writer at the top of her game” (The New York Times) comes a bighearted and sharply funny debut novel about two estranged sisters and the crossroads they face after becoming unexpectedly pregnant at the same time.

HOW TO CARE FOR A HUMAN GIRL
by Ashley Wurzbacher
Atria, August 2023
(via Frances Goldin Literary Agency)

Two years after the death of their mother, Jada and Maddy Battle both face unplanned pregnancies. Jada, a thirty-one-year-old psychology PhD student living in Pittsburgh, quietly obtains an abortion without telling her husband, but the secret causes turmoil in her already shaky marriage. Back home in rural Pennsylvania, nineteen-year-old Maddy, who spends her time caring for birds at a wildlife rehabilitation center, is paid off by the man who got her pregnant to get an abortion. But an unsettling visit to a crisis pregnancy center adds to her doubts about whether to go through with it.
Although Maddy still hasn’t forgiven Jada for a terrible betrayal, she goes to her for support, only to discover the cracks in the façade of her sister’s seemingly perfect life. As their past resentments boil over, the sisters must navigate the consequences of their choices and determine how best to care for themselves and each other.
With luminous prose and laser-sharp psychological insight, HOW TO CARE FOR A HUMAN GIRL is a compassionate and unforgettable examination of the complexities of choice, the special intimacy of sisterhood, and the bizarre ways our heated political moment manifests in daily life.

Ashley Wurzbacher is the author of the story collection Happy Like This, which won the 2019 Iowa Short Fiction Award and was named a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree and a NYT Editors’ Choice. Born and raised in Western Pennsylvania, she currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama and teaches at the University of Montevallo.

HALF DEAF, COMPLETELY MAD de Tony Cohen & John Olson

This exuberant, tragic memoir of master music producer-engineer Tony Cohen is an extraordinary cultural message in a bottle.

HALF DEAF, COMPLETELY MAD
by Tony Cohen & John Olson
Black Inc., November 2022

This is a book about making art and the transgressions that might occur in doing so. Tony helped define the sounds of innumerable Australian bands from the 1970s through to the 2000s, and his always entertaining stories are hilarious, incisive and self-deprecating. Tony’s work with Nick Cave and his three bands – The Boys Next Door, The Birthday Party, The Bad Seeds – comprises a large part of this memoir. There are also indelible stories of: Chrissy Amphlett/Divinyls, Beasts of Bourbon, Blondie, Cold Chisel, The Cruel Sea, Dirty Three, The Go-Betweens, Hoodoo Gurus, Michael Hutchence, Paul Kelly, Men at Work, Mixed Relations, The Saints, Split Enz … This is vastly entertaining fly-on-the-wall account of a life lived LOUD.

Like many geniuses, [Tony] was a nightmare to work with. But you came back again and again because he was just so good, everything he did was so unique and bold and startling. He was a master at both what not to do in the studio and what to do in the studio. For example – don’t set fire to the studio, don’t sleep in the air-conditioning vents, don’t not show up to the sessions for days at a time, but conversely – do record music like your very life depended on it, do create sounds that no-one has ever heard before …” —Nick Cave

Tony Cohen was perhaps Australia’s most original and influential record producer. He helped define the sounds of innumerable Australian bands (many of whom went on to find new lives in the UK and Europe) from the 1970s through to the 2000s, until his untimely death in August 2017.
John Olson is a producer and engineer, who interviewed Tony Cohen and assembled this account of his life and times.

DIE WEISHEIT DER FÜCHSE

The secret life of foxes: Clever, playful and caring – what these shrewd survival artists can teach us. Surprising and inspiring.

DIE WEISHEIT DER FÜCHSE
[The Wisdom of Foxes]
by Dag Frommhold & Daniel Peller
‎ Ludwig/Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe, September 2022

Red fur, amber eyes, a bushy tail: foxes are incredibly beautiful animals. We also think of them as intelligent, shrewd and playful. Yet foxes are not just smart: they have an extraordinary gift for empathy and are excellent communicators. They have a capacity for altruism and self-sacrifice, foster close emotional relationships, and are affectionate partners and loving parents. Foxes prove that you can achieve more through constructive debate than aggression, that smarts and flexibility can get us what we want, and that selflessness benefits everyone in the end.
In DIE WEISHEIT DER FÜCHSE, fox experts Dag Frommhold and Daniel Peller tell astonishing stories showing just how fascinating foxes are – not only are they much more like us than we think, but we can learn a lot from these unsung heroes.

Dag Frommhold has loved foxes ever since he was a child. As an author, co-founder of wildlife conservation initiatives and spokesperson for various wildlife and nature conservation organisations, he has spent many years championing foxes and their fellow vulpines.
When a serious illness forced him to give up his job, Daniel Peller decided to dedicate his life to foxes. After more than twenty years of observing them, corresponding with international fox specialists and closely working with wildlife shelters, he is now a bona fide fox expert. In 2017, he founded the organisation « Fox Aid », running its online aid network, and campaigning for wildlife conservation.