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  Gentle and Fierce - Essays

  Vanessa Berry

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  To be gentle is to resist the privileging of command above compassion. It is a quiet voice, a persistent whisper, calm and consoling. Ferocity is an armour, a forceful expression of resolve and protection. To be fierce is to know the intensity of the edges of feeling. It is the voice that calls out, intending to be heard.  
  Gentle and Fierce focuses on the world that humans share with animals. Having spent her life in city environments, Vanessa Berry’s experiences with animals have largely been through encounters in urban settings, representations in art and the media, and as decorative ornaments or kitsch. The essays in Gentle and Fierce suggest that these encounters provide meaningful connections, at a time when our shared world is threatened by environmental destruction. Berry responds with attentiveness and empathy to her subjects, which include a stuffed Kodiak bear, a Japanese island overrun by rabbits, a porcelain otter and Georges Perec’s cat. The essays are accompanied by Berry’s illustrations, which reflect her eye for detail and her background as an artist and zine maker. 
  Who better than Vanessa Berry, with her pointillist attention and sly humour to document the surprising ways that animals enrich, inform and shadow our human natures. Whether recollecting Frank a taxidermied Kodiak bear, noting the snails that turn letters to Sylvia Plath into lace, or zipping together a personal history with flies, Berry elevates and commemorates those lives that are entangled – too often invisibly – with our own. Ethically astute, formally clever and deftly political, Gentle and Fierce evokes the work of John Berger and Jenny Odell. An urgent and poignant reminder of what we have lost and might yet gain from the more-than-human world. – Mireille Juchau

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  How to Defeat the Far Right:...

  Nick Lowles

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  ‘A brilliant and challenging book’ GORDON BROWN 
  From the founder of Britain’s leading antifascist organisation, HOPE not hate, this is an urgent call to resist the forces of extremism on the march in Western societies – and how to go about it. 
  If you’re shocked and disconcerted by the rise of intolerance and hate, you’re not alone. 
  Drawing from 35 years of campaigning and journalism, Nick Lowles shows how anti-immigration, antisemitic and Islamophobic attacks have proliferated in the modern world, and how Britain – with the likes of Tommy Robinson and the growth of Reform UK – has been far from immune from far-right politics. 
  From HOPE not hate’s pioneering campaigns against the BNP in east London to the impact of the ‘manosphere’ and the issues in Netflix's Adolescence; from explorations of the pernicious influence of ‘race science’ and conspiracy theory to the interplay of deprivation and intolerance in Britain’s deindustrialised towns, Lowles entwines his inspirational story with hard-won lessons from decades of activism. 
  His conclusions – which do not shy away from awkward truths for campaigners – suggest practical ways for the far right to be defeated. And he shares powerful examples – from a participant-led youth club in Hull to Syrian refugees connecting with local people over falafel in Bradford – of finding the joy in showing that, hard as it can seem, HOPE can triumph over hate. 
  In his latest non-fiction work, Lowles explores the social and political ideologies that underpin totalitarianism and organised terrorism. It's a true biography of activists fighting against ethnic intolerance and fascism, making it a must-read for those interested in these topics. 
  nan 
  HarperCollins 2025

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  The Silence Between Us - A...

  Cécile Barral, Oceane Campbell

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  The Silence Between Us is a raw and original double memoir tracing a mother and daughter as they try to understand and rebuild their relationship after the daughter's suicide attempt. 
   
  Because Oceane had just turned eighteen when she attempts to end her life, the hospital has to respect her request: to not notify her parents. But despite the distance between them, Cécile knows something is wrong with her fiercely independent daughter. As Cécile steps in to care for Oceane, the two reckon with things left unsaid and begin to rebuild a relationship that is both fragile and beautiful. 
   
  Years later, when Oceane asks her mother to write something with her about that time, she never expects Cécile to already have so many pages hidden away, filled with words that had helped her make sense of the grief. 
    
  In The Silence Between Us, Oceane pieces together her story through old diary entries, emails, hospital records and psychiatric reports, interspersed with Cécile’s own accounts. Slowly, we learn about the traumas that forced the chasm between mother and daughter, as well as the college sexual assault that pushed Oceane over the edge. As Oceane lets Cécile back into her life and they attempt to negotiate both the mental-health and legal systems, we also see the fractures start to mend. 
   
  At once delicate, unflinching and surprisingly uplifting, The Silence Between Us is a unique story of mental health and family that dares us to say things we’d rather avoid.  
   
  Includes foreword by psychiatrist Patrick McGorry AO, Professor of Youth Mental Health and former Australian of the Year. 
   
   ‘An extraordinary and beautifully written book.’ PATRICK McGORRY

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  Boxer Bouncer and Now a Doctor

  Doctor Jeff Slater

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  It all started in a small industrial town in the north of England. Walking into a boxing gym was the start of an amazing metamorphosis for the 14-year-old. At age 20, he had developed into a 16-stone boxer, powerlifter and ferocious street fighter, with a knock-out punch in both hands. This is the story of a young man who, lacking education, immigrated to Australia at just 18 years of age only to experience the twilight world of sleaze and violence in Perth’s underbelly, confronting and often overcoming the many challenges he encountered. Returning to England at 21, he mastered his craft as a bouncer and street fighter, attended two universities, obtained three degrees and was awarded a doctorate at the age of 39.

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  The Uninvited - On The Road With...

  Steven Vance Taylor

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  In 1998, The Uninvited were poised to become the next multi-platinum darlings of the new millennia. With a hit song burning up the charts and a major label release described as “The breakthrough album of the next decade,” everything was teed-up for a life of sold-out arenas, gold plated Ferraris and Dom Perrion on draft. But the chances are you never heard of The Uninvited – so what the hell happened?  
  THE UNINVITED: ON THE ROAD WITH THE GREATEST ROCK BAND YOU NEVER HEARD is the story of 5 friends stuffed in a van on a Homer-esque nationwide odyssey, clinging desperately to a gossamer thread of one-hit-wonder fame while sharing the stage with legends like Cheap Trick, Blues Traveler, The Violent Femmes, Chris Isaak, and many more.   
  For two sweat-drenched and mind-altering years, The Uninvited had fame by the tender bits and squeezed hard. And for Steve, just when it looked like life couldn’t get any better, it did; Mia, so achingly unattainable for so many years, landed squarely in the attainable category. But all these dreams collided in a rush to come true, threatening to unravel everything, just when he held it all in his hand.  
  THE UNINVITED is a chaotic tale set in the early days of Napster and the last days of Warehouse Records on Sunset Blvd. It’s a memoir for anyone who’s ever cranked the volume up on Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins, or stood in the audience singing their lungs out, and wondering what life is like on the other side of that stage. Unlike any other rock memoir, THE UNINVITED chronicles the harrowing sacrifice necessary to attain a dream – and more importantly, what it takes to let it go.    
  And there was a gnome, too. He was kind of an asshole. 

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  When Wisdom Arrives - From...

  Rosalyn Rourke

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  If thoughts and feelings were truth, they would be called facts. In the pages of this fable and companion memoir, we learn about truth and the simple way we can transcend the lie of unworthiness. Imagined unworthiness shows up as a tyranny of thoughts and feelings that cause psychological suffering. Eleven-year-old Gem struggles with looping thoughts and feelings of self-hate because of her body weight. She believes she is unworthy of love. A wise woman comes into young Gem's life and demonstrates that her looping, hurtful, repetitive thoughts are untrue. When Gem moves her attention away from her habitual looping patterns, she finds her true 'I,' a deeper part of herself that is free. The true 'I' is not tied to thoughts and feelings, or the past or future. It is a presence that is available in each person. Rosalyn Rourke has been all three characters in the fable and all three in the memoir companion: the judgmental mother, the hurt daughter, and the wise woman. Even with a successful, decades-long psychotherapy practice and credentials as an eating disorder expert and trauma specialist, Rosalyn struggled with worry and judgment about her daughter, Melissa's, weight. The same protocol Gem discovers in the fable helped Rosalyn transcend compulsive worry and judgment about Melissa's weight and later helped her transmute grief after Melissa's unexpected death. When Wisdom Arrives in our lives, we discover how imagined unworthiness can transform into the knowledge of what we are in truth.

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