Showing results by narrator "Steph Bower" in All Categories

1661, North Berwick, Scotland. One stormy night, healer Honor Seton and her daughter, Alice, are summoned to save the town lord's wife - but they're too late. A vengeful crusade against the Seton women leads to whispers of witchcraft all over town. Present day, North Berwick, Scotland. After an explosive scandal lands her husband in prison, Tess Blyth flees Edinburgh to start afresh in Thistle Cottage. As she hides from the media’s unforgiving glare, Tess is intrigued by the shadowy stories of witchcraft surrounding the women who lived in the cottage centuries ago.

Everyone feels foolish, embarrassed, judged or criticised at times, but this becomes a problem when it undermines your confidence and prevents you from doing what you want to do. Extreme social anxiety and shyness can be crippling, but they are readily treated using cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). In this fully revised and updated edition, Dr Gillian Butler provides a practical, easy-to-use self-help course which will be invaluable for those suffering from all degrees of social anxiety.

We have reached the point of no return. The existential threat of climate change is now a reality. The world has never been more vulnerable. Yet corporations are already planning a life beyond this point. The business models of fossil fuel giants factor in continued profitability in a scenario of a five-degree increase in global temperature. An increase that will kill millions, if not billions. This is the shocking reality laid bare in a hard-hitting new book by David Whyte.

Striving for something can be a healthy and positive attribute; it's good to aim high. But sometimes whatever we do just isn't good enough; we want to be too perfect and start setting unrealistic goals. Such high levels of perfectionism, often driven by low self-esteem, can turn against success and develop into unhealthy obsession, triggering serious mental-health problems, such as anxiety, depression and eating disorders.

Chartered psychologist Beverley Stone helps you work step by step through the decision. She explains the life-sapping harm caused by failing to be decisive and helps you work through your fears and anxieties in order to make the best choice for yourself. In six key life-changing steps, she offers everyone the chance to bring about positive change.

Fears and worries are very common among children, with around 15% thought to suffer from anxiety disorders, the most commonly identified emotional or behavioural problems among children. However, if left unchecked, they can cause more serious problems such as school avoidance, difficulties in making friends and long-term problems with anxiety and depression.

In her powerful debut work Lean Out, acclaimed journalist Dawn Foster unpicks how the purportedly feminist message of Sandberg’s book neatly exempts patriarchy, capitalism, and business from any responsibility for changing the position of women in contemporary culture. It looks at the rise of a corporate “one percent feminism” and at how feminism has been defanged and depoliticized at a time when women have borne the brunt of the financial crash, and the gap between rich and poor is widening faster than ever.

Across the world, an increasing number of people are turning to veganism, changing not just their diets, but completely removing animal products from their lives. For some, this is prompted by concerns over animal ethics; for others, it’s a response to the part played by animal agriculture in the climate crisis or an attempt to improve their own health. Catherine Oliver shows why the veganism movement has become a powerful social, political and environmental force, taking an honest look at how we live and eat

Children today grow up in an increasingly volatile, complex and uncertain world. Theirs is a generation disempowered from steering their lives while society’s systems are failing to provide the support they need. Yet, a country only prospers when its children—from all walks of life—thrive, meaning that the United Kingdom now faces some consequential choices. Raising the Nation builds a compelling case showing why we must nurture smart, strong and kind children to one day inherit the stewardship of society.

The government constantly attacks unions, CEOs devote endless time and resources to undermining them, and many unions themselves are stuck in the past. Despite this, inspiring work is happening all the time, from fast food strikes and climate change campaigning to the modernization of unions for the digital age. Speaking to academics, experts and grassroots organizers from TUC, UNISON, ACORN, IWGB and more, Eve Livingston explores how young workers are organizing to demand fair workplaces, and reimagines what an inclusive union movement that represents us all might look like.