That’s right. Your favourite indie publishers have taken another step into the digital world. Our monthly newsletter will contain all the latest offers and updates from Souvenir Press HQ, including new titles, competitions, links to exclusive free chapter downloads, and more.
So what are you waiting for?
This week has seen a flurry of reviews come in for a selection of Souvenir titles. Below you will find extracts of four great reviews, and the links to the full versions, for four very different titles – as if you needed reminding of the fantastic eclectic mix of titles available from us at Souvenir Press.
Better than Great – Arthur Plotnik
“Better Than Great is a bravura, ingeniously inventive, roaringly intelligent thesaurus of praise and acclaim… Where has this paean-worthy, distressingly excellent book, which certainly goes the whole hog, been all my life?” – YA Yeah Yeah blog
“Written with a real sense of fun, this is a book to delight anyone with a sense of humour, an inquiring mind and a reasonably strong stomach… it has certainly been a smash hit in our house, where it has been perused by readers aged from 49 to 14.” – The Garden Window blog
Through A Dog’s Eyes – Jennifer Arnold
Five out of five stars. “This is an enlightening read, and after finishing this book, I felt I looked at my dog in a new way and I have definitely learned a lot about dog behaviour… This book is a fascinating, informative and worthwhile read for any dog owner.” – The Little Reader Library (on GoodReads, soon to appear on her blog)
Why Does My Rabbit – Anne McBride
“I would recommend every rabbit owner have a read of this book!” – The Rabbit House
This Sunday, 27th January, is Holocaust Memorial Day 2013. Souvenir Press has two eye-opening books on the tragedies and atrocities faced by Jews all over Europe during the 1940s.
Ashes in the Wind by Dr Jacob Presser is a first-hand account of the tragedy of 1940-45. Beginning in 1940, 110,000 Jews were deported from the Netherlands to concentration camps. Of those, fewer than 6,000 returned. Ashes in the Wind is a monumental history of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, and a detailed and moving description of how the Nazi party first discriminated against Jews, before segregating them and finally deporting them to the gas chambers (a process fully outlined in the mass of administrative documents discovered by Dr Presser). At a time when there are increasingly fewer survivors of the Holocaust the eye-witness accounts and contemporary descriptions in Ashes in the Wind powerfully outline, for future generations, the process of dehumanisation, and the silent conformity by Dutch civilians, that allowed the Holocaust to happen.
Address Unknown by Kressmann Taylor is a rediscovered classic, originally published in 1938 – and now an international bestseller. Described by the New York Times Book Review as “the most effective indictment of Nazism to appear in fiction”, Address Unknown is written on the eve of the Holocaust as a series of letters between an American Jew and his German friend. It is a haunting tale of immense and enduring impact, exposing the poison of Nazism. This memorable story survives in an age of racial, ethnic and nationalistic intolerance as a searing reminder that history can repeat itself.
Just in case you’ve been living under a rock these past couple of months, let me break it to you: The Duchess of Cambridge is pregnant.
With the baby expected in July, she has been in and out of hospital for hyperemesis gravidarum, and has reportedly taken to hypnotherapy to combat her feelings of nausea, as well as taking up pilates to improve her fitness for pregnancy.
Now, you may not be suffering as much as the poor Duchess of Cambridge, but there’s no avoiding the fact that pregnancy is tough on women’s bodies… and that’s before the birth! Luckily, help is at hand, and here at Souvenir Press we’ve got a couple of recommendations for any mums-to-be out there.
If you think hypnotherapy might be your thing, then you should read HYPNOBIRTHING by Marie Mongan. The most remarkable natural childbirth technique to have been developed in decades, Marie Mongan takes the pregnant woman through the techniques and philosophy of a new form of gentle, natural birthing. Drawing on self-hypnosis, guided imagery and special breathing techniques the Hypnobirthing method can bring about a shorter, easier birth.
And if you’re not far enough along just yet to be thinking about the birth (though in all likelihood you’ll have been thinking about it from day 1!), then perhaps you’re thinking about how best to get in shape for the birth. And no, I don’t mean a size eight!
THE FITMAMA METHOD by Marie Behenna makes Marie’s acclaimed FitMama exercise programme available to all mums-to-be. Giving birth is the single most challenging physical activity the majority of women will face in their lifetime, so why not prepare for it by training and exercising, by toning and strengthening your body so that you can approach labour and delivery with confidence. It encompasses not only exercise but also advice on diet, nutrition, posture, recovery and general wellbeing. All in all, this is your complete guide to confidence and fitness for pregnancy, labour and birth.
You should also check out the baby and childcare section on our website.
According to the experts, today is the most depressing day of the year. The third Monday of the New Year, when the festivities of Christmas seem like months ago, when it’s freezing cold and spring seems nothing more than a distant glimmer on the horizon.
For the majority of us, though, this feeling will pass. It will probably last no more than an hour or two, by which point most of us will tell ourselves not to be so silly. We will get up and carry on with our day, perhaps a little gloomy, but nothing more than the usual Monday blues.
For some, this is not the case. Depression affects, on average, one in ten of us in the UK. Clinical depression affects 1 in 20.
If depression is something that affects you, or a loved one, then we recommend UNDOING DEPRESSION by Richard O’Connor. UNDOING DEPRESSION demonstrates how to replace depressive patterns of thinking, it offers the possibility of replacing these habits with new, more effective skills. It is rated 4.8 out of 5 stars on Amazon, and the full Depression Alliance review of the book can be found here:
“I found the book informative, helpful without being condescending, and well worth the read. But the most important measure of this book will be whether the reader finds it helpful in recovery; I am confident that many will.” — Depression Alliance
Available in paperback and in e-book format, including Kindle, iBooks, Kobo, Sony and more.
Let me know why you’re going on a digital diet, and join in!
Why do you need a digital diet? Let us know and send us your picture – tweet it with #digitaldiet or comment with a link to your digital diet picture! Here’s a couple of ideas to get you started.
And remember to sign up to join in with the Digital Diet!
Today would have been the 84th birthday of Martin Luther King Jr, leader of the Black Civil Rights movement in America. One of the greatest orators in American history, remembered for his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech, Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. He was assassinated on April 4th 1968.
His book STRIDE TOWARD FREEDOM is published as part of the Independent Voices series by Souvenir Press, dedicated to publishing writers who provide alternative viewpoints and challenge conventional wisdom.
Martin Luther King, Jr. described STRIDE TOWARD FREEDOM as “the chronicle of 50,000 Negroes who took to heart the principles of non-violence, who learned to fight for their rights with the weapon of love, and who, in the process, acquired a new estimate of their own human worth.”
On December 1st, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Rallied by the young preacher and activist Martin Luther King, Jr., the black community of Montgomery organised a historic boycott of the bus service, rising up together to protest racial segregation. This was the first large-scale, non-violent resistance of its kind in America and marked the beginning of a national Civil Rights movement based on Martin Luther King, Jr’s principles.
STRIDE TOWARD FREEDOM is the account of that pivotal turning point in American history told through Martin Luther King’s own experiences and stories, chronicling his community’s refusal to accept the injustices of racial discrimination.
Good morning, and happy Monday, all.
To ease you into another working week (complete with freezing temperatures and lots of snow forecast), we’ve got a nice little freebie for you. Perhaps something to read on your lunch break, or on your way home.
You can now read the first chapter of MUTANT 59 for free; all you have to do is tweet about it.
To download a free sample chapter of MUTANT 59, click here and follow the instructions.
MUTANT 59 is a sci-fi classic by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis, the two men who created Doctor Who’s metallic nemesis, the Cybermen. The book imagines one of the most terrifying tragedies that modern science could create, a chilling and topical story of what happens when scientific research goes wrong and spreads terror through London (and endangers the world). When an airplane crashes the Ministry of Transport investigates. What caused it to fall out of the sky and could it happen again? Slowly they discover that science has unleashed a genetically engineered bacteria that feeds on (and destroys) all plastic materials. No-one takes any notice of the material used to build gas pipes, electrical insulation, cars and planes until it begins to disintegrate and explode…
Look around you – just a quick glance. It’s everywhere, isn’t it? Plastic, everywhere you look. If you take a minute to imagine the world without it, that’s when things get frightening.
Enjoy your free chapter of MUTANT 59 – if enough people are interested, maybe you’ll see more free chapters from us at Souvenir Press in the future.
With the weekend fast approaching, the chances are that most of us are looking forward to having a drink or two, perhaps Friday night, perhaps Saturday night…
But what you won’t be looking forward to is what comes after. The dreaded hangover.
But fear not, my friends! THE WRATH OF GRAPES by Andy Toper is your essential guide to dodging the hangover bullet, allowing you to look smugly at those still suffering by mid-afternoon the following day. “Hangover?” you’ll say, as though the thought had never even crossed your mind. “No, I’ve been feeling fine all day!”
So whether you want to cure your hangover by eating a mixture of raw eels and bitter almonds (a 16th century cure which, remarkably, seemed to have some success), or you want to avoid one altogether, in which case the Outer Mongolia method of drinking tomato juice with a pickled sheep’s eye may be more up your street, THE WRATH OF GRAPES contains a wealth of facts on hangovers, and how to avoid them.
And in with the funny and bizarre historical cures from around the world, you’ll find a great deal of useful information, too. Find out why we get hangovers, how to avoid them, what you can do to cure them, and a sneaky chapter on what to drink if you favour the ‘hair of the dog’ approach. Which, coincidentally, originated in Roman times and involved actual dog hair. But not for hangovers.
And if you want to test your new-found knowledge, take a look at THE MEDICINAL BENEFITS OF WINE DRINKING, the ebook edition of YOUR GOOD HEALTH (pictured below), while you’re at it. Discover how drinking wine (in moderation, of course) could, in fact, leave you healthier than if you didn’t.
(Note: Souvenir Press recommends drinking sensibly. And don’t drink and drive, folks. That’s not cool.)
Yesterday saw the first post go up on the Digital Diet blog, entitled “Planning my Digital Diet“. I am looking for other UK bloggers to join me on a digital diet next month – an opportunity to rework your relationship with technology to make it work for you, rather than the other way around.
I am going on a digital diet because I want to reclaim my brain. I want to be able to focus on one task for more than five minutes at a time without the internet intruding.
If you can relate to this, take a look at the site, and maybe consider signing up. Try something new this year!
Take Home a Souvenir! 