SEL000000 Archives - Duckworth Books

Becoming a Matriarch

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER IN CANADA
A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A CBC BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR
CO-WINNER OF THE 2024 GEORGE RYGA AWARD FOR SOCIAL AWARENESS IN LITERATURE
WINNER OF THE 2024 JIM DEVA PRIZE FOR WRITING THAT PROVOKES
FINALIST FOR THE 2024 GOVERNOR GENERAL’S LITERARY AWARD FOR NONFICTION

All her life, Helen Knott has been surrounded by strong women. She has looked to the women in her family and the larger Indigenous community for guidance, absorbed their stories and admired their independence. But Helen’s path hasn’t been easy and when her mother and grandmother died within six months of each other, she drew upon lessons from her ancestors and the land to discover her inner power and refashion her future.

Exploring their struggles and her own with young motherhood, daughterhood, grief and sobriety, Knott offers an inspiring meditation on how we repair ourselves in the face of tragedy, trauma and injustice; on what it is to be a woman – and become a matriarch.

A Book of Your Own

Drawing on the author’s decades of experience as a psychologist, trainer and advocate for women, this small but perfectly formed, pocket-sized book contains bite-sized snippets of insight and inspiration on communication, relationships, work, body image, overwhelm, emotional trials and more.

Pop it in your bag or nightstand and draw on it to boost your self-belief, awareness, energy and assertiveness each day – or gift it to friends and family to help them confront life’s everyday challenges.

A Woman in Your Own Right

‘The classic assertiveness bible’ GUARDIAN

Do you struggle to state what you want (or don’t want)? Do tricky conversations go wrong? Does it seem easier to suffer in silence? This book has the solutions you need.

Despite advances in gender equality in education, the workplace and the home, many women and girls still find it a challenge to speak up and be heard. Assertiveness – defined by psychologist and assertiveness trainer Anne Dickson as ‘clear, honest and direct communication’ – is an art, which can be learned. Instead of being governed by the desire to please (the Compassion Trap) assertiveness teaches us to take charge of our feelings and behaviours.

In her pioneering handbook, now fully updated, Dickson draws on her long experience of in-person training to give all women the practical skills and tools we need to assert what we feel and want, manage difficult conversations, avoid being sidetracked, say ‘No’, and find self-acceptance.

Rules for Ageing

People never learn. They make the same mistakes generation after generation. So here are the things that everyone should learn about life, then hope to remember.

With a wry sense of humour, Rules for Ageing presents the most realistic, practical, pleasurable and, most importantly, painless advice you will ever receive. This book offers timeless advice for anyone still young enough to learn, and richly amusing reflections on life for those who have seen it all before.

Why Won’t You Apologize?

With her trademark wit, Harriet Lerner offers a joyful and sanity-saving guide to setting things right.

Renowned psychologist and bestselling author of The Dance of Anger sheds new light on the two most important words in the English language, "I’m sorry," and offers a unique perspective on the challenge of healing broken relationships and restoring trust.

Dr. Harriet Lerner has been studying apologies for more than two decades, namely, why some people won’t give them. Now she offers compelling stories and solid theory that demonstrates the transformative power of making amends and what is required for healing when the damage we’ve inflicted (or received) is far from simple. Readers will learn how to craft a meaningful apology and avoid signals of insincerity that only deepen suffering.

In Why Won’t You Apologize? Lerner challenges the popular notion that forgiveness is the only path to peace of mind and helps those who have been injured to resist pressure to forgive too easily. She explains what drives both the non-apologizer and the over-apologizer, and why the people who do the worst things are the least able to own their misdeeds.

The Friendship Cure

Our best friends, gal-pals, bromances, Twitter followers, Facebook friends, long- distance buddies and WhatsApp threads define us in ways we rarely acknowledge. There is so much about friendship we either don t know or don t articulate: why do some friendships last a lifetime, while others are only temporary? How do you break up with a toxic friend? And maybe the most important question: how can we live in the most interconnected age and still find ourselves stuck in the greatest loneliness epidemic of our time? It s killing us, making us miserable and causing a public health crisis. What if meaningful friendships are the solution, not a distraction

In The Friendship Cure, Kate Leaver’s much anticipated manifesto brings to light what modern friendship means, how it can survive, why we need it and what we can do to get the most from it. From behavioural scientists to best mates, Kate finds extraordinary stories and research, drawing on her own experiences to create a fascinating blend of accessible smart thinking, investigative journalism, pop culture and memoir.

One Kiss or Two?

Every encounter begins with a greeting. Be it a quick ‘Hello!’ or the somewhat longer and gracious ‘Sula manchwanta galunga omugobe!’ shaking hands or shaking, well, rather more private parts of our anatomy, we have been doing it many times daily for thousands of years. It should be the most straightforward thing in the world, but this apparently simple act is fraught with complications, leading to awkward misunderstandings and occasionally even outright violence.

In the illuminating and entertaining One Kiss or Two? Andy Scott goes down the rabbit hole to take a closer look at what greetings are all about. In looking at how they have developed, he discovers a kaleidoscopic world of etiquette, body-language, evolution, neuroscience, anthropology and history. Through in-depth research and his personal experiences, and with the help of experts, Scott takes us on a captivating journey through a subject far richer than we might have expected.

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