“Reality doesn’t always give us the life that we desire, but we can always find what we desire between the pages of books.”

 

 

Salt & Skin - Eliza Henry-Jones 

For someone who normally doesn’t veer toward books of a faery/magical nature, the blurb got me intrigued and totally didn’t disappoint. The way Eliza writes idiosyncrasies is intoxicatingly addictive, regardless of a genre proclivity. Salt and Skin is a story of love, connectedness, grief, fitting in and finding your way. Exploring the topic of the damage global warming is doing in a world of mystical connections with nature. The power of nature and its undiscovered, unexplainable and incredible healing qualities as well as appreciated in immense interchangeability.

When Luda and her 2 children emigrate from Australia to help document the decay of the Northern Scottish Isles and increase awareness of GW, what unfolds is a journey of past and present woes of humanity. Understanding ourselves, each other, finding strength, connection and who we are and want to be to each other. 

Published: 6th July 2023

 

 

Sh!t Bag - Xena Knox

It is arguably rare these days for many of us not to have baggage, however, having a colostomy bag when your 16, in the middle of sitting for your GCSE’s when sport and boys are your main ‘passion’ is not the ideal situation. Being a teenager can be brutal at the best of times, never mind when sporting the activities of your colon on the outside, with no element of gastrointestinal control. Though when faced with adversity you learn to appreciate what IS important, who is important and who treats you like you are important. It is not fair for someone so young to learn such perspective, but it is invaluable all the same.

Sh!t Bag is an endearing look at dealing with challenges, friendships, honesty, teenage chaos and finding humour in the darkest of places.

 

Ebb and Flo - Dr Easkey Britton

I’m sure many of you will understand the concept of being calmer when by the ocean or needing a swim to clear the mind, either wild or otherwise. We know that our mental health suffers if we neglect having enough time in nature, the long winters will attest to that. Although we know it, we rarely stop to analyse why, what the science is. Ebb and Flow helps to decipher this while also looking at the important elements (excuse the pun) of how our propensity to take water and it often unrealised properties for granted will be to our detriment.  

Dr Easkey Britton, a marine social scientist with a PHD in Environment and Society and a five times 'National Female Irish Surfing' Champion as well as author of several books on our relationship with water, including, ‘50 Things to do by the Sea’, ‘Saltwater in the Blood’, and most recently ‘Ebb and Flow: Connect with the patterns and power of water.

 

Do Tell - Lindsay Lynch

Gossip used to be a salacious artform, prose to be hotly sought by insiders of the rich, famous and glamourous.

The immediacy and over-churned nonsense in today’s varied media sources has ruined the exciting anticipation of peeking into the glitz and glamour regarding the likes of 1940’s Hollywood and their ‘fairy-tale’ lives. ‘Do Tell’ takes us back to the incestuous world of Hollywood before it was oversaturated with anybody and everybody ‘having a go’. An enthralling read of morality and survival in a dog-eat-dog industry in times of war and I’m not just referring to WW2. The industry was (is) brutal, pre ‘me too’, shut up and put up if you want to get ahead. But there were people, those in the know, trying to gently work the system to give people what they deserved.  

This book covers archaic issues of blaming and victimising a women’s perspective on her autonomy, from a shockingly 90-year-old perspective that feels scarily ‘current’.

Published on 11^th July

 

 

Show me more books