april 2019 – good to read

Markus Zusak
This is the breathtaking story of five brothers who bring each other up in a world run by their own rules. At the center of the Dunbar family is Clay, a boy who will build a bridge – for his family, for his past, for greatness, for his sins, for a miracle. The question is, how far is Clay willing to go? And how much can he overcome? “But if The Book Thief is his most famous book, Bridge of Clay is his magnum opus. Zusak, now 43, was just 20 years old when he first came up with the concept. All these years later, he still speaks of the moment dreamily: ‘I thought of a boy building a bridge, and he wanted to make this one beautiful, great, perfect thing.’” (The Guardian)
Random House, October 2018

Torsten Passie, M.D.
Dr Torsten Passie reveals a rich and largely ignored history of research with microdose, minidose and low-dose LSD, putting claims about microdosing’s extraordinary effects under the microscope. Included is a foreword by Dr David Nichols. He reveals a rich and largely ignored history of research with  microdose, minidose and low-dose LSD, and other psychedelics, and original translations from German to English. At a time when microdosing is being lauded across the media as a potential panacea, this carefully researched and scientifically presented work provides an objective and clear perspective, covering key areas such as tolerance, toxicity, and placebo. A book no discerning researcher, practitioner or psychedelic aficionado should be without.
Psychedelic Press, February 2019

Alice Williams
No matter how much I’d like to be a yoga glamazon, they are not my tribe. My tribe are aqua crew-cut goddesses who smell like samosas. My tribe are neurotic corporate banshees with white knuckles on Goldman Sachs water bottles. My tribe are seven different lineages that all lead to the same destination.’ When Alice Williams gets «phased out» of her dream job, all the demons she usually silences with food start to get too loud to ignore. Unemployed and depressed, she makes the ultimate middle-class, white-girl life change: she signs up to become a yoga teacher. Bad Yogi is the «healing» memoir for people who hate healing memoirs, a delightful peek at the life-changing truth that lies behind all the gurus and jargon.
Affirm Press, March 2019

Jamal Mahjoub 
In 1956, Sudan gained independence from Britain and stood on the brink of a promising future. Instead, it descended into civil war and imploded. The continuing conflict in the western region of Darfur has driven millions from their homes and killed thousands more. Jamal Mahjoub was among those who fled following the coup of 1989. Twenty years later, he returned. Hoping to pull together the fragments of his British and Sudanese identity into a cohesive whole, he explores his own memories of Khartoum, which leads him into an examination of Sudan’s rich past and present. Mahjoub brings colonialism, religion, politics, and memoir together to create a layered and revelatory portrait of a complex country, with his own story at the heart.
Bloomsbury, March 2019

Candice Carty-Willliams
Queenie Jenkins is a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London, straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither. She works at a national newspaper, where she’s constantly forced to compare herself to her white middle class peers. After a messy break up from her long-term white boyfriend, Queenie seeks comfort in all the wrong places…including several hazardous men who do a good job of occupying brain space and a bad job of affirming self-worth. As Queenie careens from one questionable decision to another, she finds herself wondering, «What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who do you want to be?» — all of the questions today’s woman must face in a world trying to answer them for her. Funny and insightful.
Orion publishing, April 2019