The start of a new year is not just a time to start getting excited about what new books to read but also a time to reflect on how you could improve your life. These 6 books are recommended by our booksellers to help inspire you for a better 2024!
Transform your life with tiny changes in behaviour, starting now.
People think that when you want to change your life, you need to think big. But world-renowned habits expert James Clear has discovered another way. He knows that real change comes from the compound effect of hundreds of small decisions: doing two push-ups a day, waking up five minutes early, or holding a single short phone call.
He calls them atomic habits.
In this ground-breaking book, Clears reveals exactly how these minuscule changes can grow into such life-altering outcomes. He uncovers a handful of simple life hacks (the forgotten art of Habit Stacking, the unexpected power of the Two Minute Rule, or the trick to entering the Goldilocks Zone), and delves into cutting-edge psychology and neuroscience to explain why they matter. Along the way, he tells inspiring stories of Olympic gold medalists, leading CEOs, and distinguished scientists who have used the science of tiny habits to stay productive, motivated, and happy.
These small changes will have a revolutionary effect on your career, your relationships, and your life.
Caroline Hirons knows skin. An established industry expert and aesthetician, she knows what works, what doesn’t, what you need and what you absolutely do not.
Whether you are a skincare pro or overwhelmed by information, Skincare: The New Edit covers where to start, how to build a routine, ingredients to look for and things to avoid, whatever your age, skin concerns or budget.
Fully revised and updated, this book is packed with all the latest skincare recommendations, brands
and techniques… and no nonsense. Including:
- Brand new photography
- All new product recommendations
- Industry updates
- Fully restructured for maximum usability
- New sections on black skin, SPF, maskne, perimenopause and menopause
This Book May Save Your Life by Dr. Karan Rajan
The hilarious, myth-busting survival guide to the human body from TikTok’s favourite General Surgeon.
Though the odds are stacked against us, the human body has an extraordinary tendency to survive…
Full of hard-learned lessons and health hacks from Dr Karan Rajan’s years working the hospital wards, This Book May Save Your Life is a head-to-toe ode to our amazing bodies – warts and all – that will help you to worry less and live better for longer.
Here, Dr Karan explains the weird and wonderful bodily functions that keep us going, and offers practical advice to help you thrive when things go wrong, including:
THE DANGERS OF PLUCKING YOUR NOSE HAIRS
YOUR UNTAPPED NATURAL REFLEXES TO COMBAT STRESS
HOW TO MANAGE PAIN WITH SIMPLE MIND TRICKS
AND WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER HOLD IN A FART
How to Argue with a Meat Eater by Ed Winters
Challenge their beliefs; change the world
If you are a vegan, you’ll know all too well how provocative it can be – you never know when you’ll be challenged or how. But being able to face down and rebut arguments against veganism is hugely important. Not just because many of the arguments lack substance, but because every interaction provides a pivotal moment to create change.
How to Argue With a Meat Eater will teach you to not only become a skilled debater, sharing the secrets of renowned vegan educator Ed Winters, but it will arm you with powerful facts and insights that will give pause to even the most devout meat eater.
Providing you with the knowledge to become a better conversationalist and critical thinker, and the motivation to create a more ethical, kind and sustainable world, let this book be your guide and inspiration to know that, no matter what the argument, you can win every time.
A cutting-edge new vision of biology that proposes to revise our concept of what life is – from Science Book Prize winner and former Nature editor Philip Ball.
Biology is undergoing a quiet but profound transformation. Several aspects of the standard picture of how life works have been exposed as incomplete, misleading, or wrong.
In How Life Works, Philip Ball explores the new biology, revealing life to be a far richer, more ingenious affair than we had guessed. With this knowledge come new possibilities. Today we can redesign and reconfigure living systems, tissues, and organisms. We can reprogram cells, for instance, to carry out new tasks and grow into structures not seen in the natural world. Some researchers believe that ultimately we will be able to regenerate limbs and organs, and perhaps even create new life forms that evolution has never imagined.
Incorporating the latest research and insights, How Life Works is a sweeping journey into this new frontier of the nature of life, a realm that will reshape our understanding of life as we know it.
The Book You Want Everyone You Love to Read by Philippa Perry
Get closer the people who matter the most with the help of the nation’s favourite therapist, PHILIPPA PERRY
Life is all about relationships and the quality of those connections, whether that’s with family, partners, friends, colleagues or most importantly yourself. If you can get those relationships on a functional and even keel, then the other tricky stuff that life throws your way becomes easier to manage. In this warm, practical and witty book, No.1 Sunday Times bestselling psychotherapist Philippa Perry shows you how to approach life’s big problems.
How do you find and keep love? What can you do to manage conflict better? How can you get unstuck and cope with change and loss? What does it mean to you to be content? Are other people just annoying or are you the problem? With a healthy dose of sanity, Philippa Perry’s compassionate advice could help you become a happier, wiser person. Includes some material adapted from the Ask Philippa columns in Observer Magazine.