Don’t let your new year’s resolutions fizzle out to a flop. Kick off your fresh start with our fantastic selection of feel-good titles to help find yourself, finesse your goals, and flourish in February!

Building a Second Brain

RRP $24.99

Discover the full potential of your ideas and make powerful, meaningful improvements in your work and life by Building a Second Brain.

For the first time in history, we have instantaneous access to the world’s knowledge. There has never been a better time to learn, to create and to improve ourselves. Yet, rather than being empowered by this information, we’re often overwhelmed, paralysed by believing we’ll never know or remember enough.

This eye-opening and accessible guide shows how you can easily create your own personal system for knowledge management, otherwise known as a Second Brain. A trusted and organised digital repository of your most valued ideas, notes and creative work, a Second Brain gives you the confidence to tackle your most important projects and ambitious goals. From identifying good ideas, to organising your thoughts, to retrieving everything swiftly and easily, it puts you back in control of your life and information.

 

The Intuition Toolkit

RRP $29.99

Five easy rules for developing intuition, based on trailblazing research by a top Australian neuroscientist. Learn when it’s safe to rely on intuition in decision-making and when it’s not.

Intuition has saved lives and averted disasters, and it also lies behind countless innovative decisions. Steve Jobs, for one, regularly relied on his intuition in making business decisions at Apple. The Intuition Toolkit is scientifically solid, highly readable and utterly fascinating.

 

Everyone is Creative

RRP $24.99

Everyone is born creative (have you ever met a child who wasn’t creative? Neither have we). Our experiences directly impact our ability to stoke our imaginations and let that creativity flow – and that is what this book aims to unlock.

Whatever type of creative you are, this is the only book you’ll need to get started, stay motivated, keep your creativity flowing and make your ideas happen.

 

How to be an Artist

RRP $19.99

As the witty and passionate chief art critic for New York magazine, Jerry Saltz is often approached by artists, both amateur and professional, asking him for advice: How do I get started? How do I get better? Is what I’m doing even art at all? They want to know, in short, how to be an artist.

Now, expanding on his viral cover story for New York magazine – and drawing on his decades of immersion in the art world – Saltz has the answers. HOWTO BE AN ARTIST is an indispensable book of practical inspiration for creative people of all kinds. Brimming with dozens of brand new rules, prompts, exercises, and tips designed to break through creative blocks, ignite motivation, and conquer bad habits, this book is designed to help artists of all kinds – painters, photographers, writers, performers – realize their dreams.

 

Creative Demons and How to Slay Them

RRP $35.00

If you’ve ever embarked on a creative endeavour, then there’s a good chance you’ll have been bedevilled by self-doubt, fear of failure or a lack of inspiration at some point along the way. This book will help you to banish those mind-forged monsters one by one, no matter how grotesque or scary they may be.

Drawing on inspirational anecdotes from art, philosophy, neuroscience, nature, music and contemporary culture, creativity expert Richard Holman provides you with your very own mental armoury to see you through every stage of the creative process. By learning through the experiences of such creative luminaries as Leonardo da Vinci, Marina Abramovic, J.K. Rowling, Dr Seuss and Herbie Hancock, you’ll find out how best to overcome the perils of procrastination, the sting of criticism, the seductive tug of convention or the gnawing feeling that you’re not up to it.

It’s time to say farewell to your demons and make your next creative project the very best it can be.

 

Create Dangerously

RRP $2.50

‘To create today is to create dangerously. Any publication is an act, and that act exposes one to the passions of an age that forgives nothing’

Camus’s powerful lecture, as relevant today as ever, argues against ‘art for art’s sake’, while his Nobel Prize speech brilliantly sets out his vision of the artist’s role and responsibilities.

 

 

Quotes to Live By

RRP $32.99

This is a selection of the very best and most psychologically acute quotations from The School of Life, covering such large and diverse topics as relationships, regret, anxiety, work, friends, family, travel and, not least, the meaning of life. Some of these quotations elicit an immediate nod of recognition, others leave us thoughtful and a few are just plain funny.

The book is organised by The School of Life’s key themes – Relationships, Self-Knowledge, Sociability, Work, Calm and Leisure – that together amount to a tour around the most profound sorrows and joys of the human mind and heart. Offering comfort and consolation in a compact format, The School of Life: Quotations to Live By is ideally suited to our impatient, anxious and searching times.

 

The Language of Trees

RRP $35.00

In this deeply thoughtful collection, artist Katie Holten guides us on a journey from prehistoric cave paintings and creation myths to the death of a 3,500 year-old cypress tree, from Tree Clocks in Mongolia and forest fragments in the Amazon to the language of fossil poetry. In doing so, she unearths a new way of seeing the natural beauty that surrounds us and creates an urgent reminder of what could happen if we allow it to slip away.

The Language of Trees is an astonishing fusion of storytelling, knowledge and art that reveals how these living, feeling, communicating beings make our world, change our minds and rewild our lives.

 

Four Thousand Weeks

RRP $22.99

Four Thousand Weeks is an uplifting, engrossing and deeply realistic exploration of this problem that draws on philosophy, literature and psychology to cover the past, present and future of our battles with time. It goes far beyond practical tips, and its many revelations will transform the reader’s worldview.

Drawing on the insights of ancient philosophers, Benedictine monks, artists and authors, Scandinavian social reformers, renegade Buddhist technologists and many others, Oliver Burkeman sets out to realign our relationship with time – and in doing so, to liberate us from its grasp.

 

The Burn After Writing Deck

Import $41.00

Based on the phenomenal bestseller Burn After Writing, a card deck that asks how honest you can be—with others and yourself.

It’s time to be honest with yourself—and anyone you trust with your secrets. Comprising 100 cards with probing questions based on the internationally bestselling journal Burn After Writing, this thought-provoking card deck is a tool for reflection, conversation, and revealing the truth that hides behind the many masks we wear in daily life.

Organized in three levels that get progressively deeper as you go, and featuring dozens of all-new prompts, The Burn After Writing Deck is perfect for getting to know anyone better—including yourself. Play in pairs, in a group, or solo. But however you play, prepare to be honest. If you dare.

 

Bright Shining

RRP $34.99

Grace is both mysterious and hard to define. But we live in an era when grace is an increasingly rare currency. The silos in which we consume information dot the media landscape like skyscrapers, and our growing distrust of the media, politicians and public figures has choked our ability to cut each other slack, to allow each other to stumble, to forgive one another.

So what does grace look like in our world, and how do we recognise it, nurture it in ourselves and express it, even in the darkest of times?

 

4 am

RRP $39.99

In 4 am, Zara and Michelle have curated forty of their very best columns alongside ten brand-new ones – plus the follow-up replies from many of the original contributors, updating readers on what happened next.

From navigating toxic friendships and romantic dilemmas to finding the courage to pursue your dreams, these are the conundrums that keep us up at night – answered with compassion, wisdom and wit.

With contributions from rising stars Pema Bakshi, Madison Griffiths, Eliza Sholly and Maggie Zhou, 4 am is a must-read for anyone seeking guidance and inspiration in the modern world.

 

The Artist’s Way

RRP $34.99

Since its first publication, The Artist’s Way has inspired the genius of Elizabeth Gilbert, Tim Ferriss and millions of readers to embark on a creative journey and find a deeper connection to process and purpose. Julia Cameron guides readers in uncovering problems and pressure points that may be restricting their creative flow and offers techniques to open up opportunities for self-growth and self-discovery.

A revolutionary programme for personal renewal, The Artist’s Way will help get you back on track, rediscover your passions, and take the steps you need to change your life.

 

 The Practice of Not Thinking

RRP $24.99

What would happen if we learnt to look instead of see, listen instead of hear and feel instead of touch? With remarkable clarity, Ryunosuke Koike shares the ways we can incorporate Zen practice into our daily life, resulting in a more productive, honest and present way of living.

Koike’s theory tells us that our energy is predominantly being used to think negative and unnecessary thoughts, causing us to lose our ability to make decisions and our five senses to lose their strength. Ranging from complacency in your relationship, over-commitment at work to searching for approval from others, The Practice of Not Thinking will teach you how to re-train your brain and eliminate these challenging habits, leading to a quieter and more peaceful life.

 

The Creative Act

RRP $45.00

From the legendary music producer, a master at helping people connect with the wellsprings of their creativity, comes a beautifully crafted book many years in the making that offers that same deep wisdom to all of us.

The Creative Act is a beautiful and generous course of study that illuminates the path of the artist as a road we all can follow. It distils the wisdom gleaned from a lifetime’s work into a luminous reading experience that puts the power to create moments – and lifetimes – of exhilaration and transcendence within closer reach for all of us.

 

Atomic Habits

RRP $35.00

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.

 

Sand Talk

RRP $24.99

Tyson Yunkaporta looks at global systems from an Indigenous perspective. He asks how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently?

Sand Talk provides a template for living. It’s about how lines and symbols and shapes can help us make sense of the world. It’s about how we learn and how we remember. It’s about talking to everybody and listening carefully. It’s about finding different ways to look at things.

Most of all it’s about Indigenous thinking, and how it can save the world.

 

All About Love New Visions

RRP $24.99

As bell hooks uses her incisive mind to explore the question “What is love” her answers strike at both the mind and heart. Razing the cultural paradigm that the ideal love is infused with sex and desire, she provides a new path to love that is sacred, redemptive, and healing for individuals and for a nation.

All About Love is a powerful, timely affirmation of just how profoundly her revelations can change hearts and minds for the better.

 

 

Year of Magical Thinking

RRP $19.99

From one of America’s iconic writers, a portrait of a marriage and a life – in good times and bad – that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. A stunning book of electric honesty and passion.

This powerful book is Didion’s ‘attempt to make sense of the weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness … about marriage and children and memory … about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself’. The result is an exploration of an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage, and a life, in good times and bad.

 

Minding Your Mind

RRP $34.99

Written with compassion and curiosity, warmth and humour, Minding Your Mind is for anyone who wants the best for their mental well-being but might not know the best way to get there. It’s a check-up for everything happening between the ears and through the body, flagging the warning signs when things get wobbly and offering a pathway to a more fulfilling life.