Friday Freebie!

Well, we told you it was on the way, and now it’s here.

Lorna Robinson has written a teacher’s guide to accompany her new book Telling Tales in Latin, which is now available for you to download for free! The guide contains lesson ideas and activities, translations of all Latin text, running OCR Entry Level Latin vocabulary for each chapter as well as practice sheets which are based on OCR Entry Level requirements.

All through August Telling Tales in Latin is available for the bargain price of £1.19 on Kindle, so why not take advantage of the offer and pick it up, along with a copy of the Teacher’s Guide for free to go with it?

To find out more about Telling Tales in Latin, visit the Souvenir Press website. To download a copy of the Teacher’s Guide, take a look at the Iris Project website.

Recent news for Telling Tales in Latin

The Iris Project awarded the EU Language Label 2013

“This project provides an opportunity for young children to be introduced to Latin, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds and who may not have the opportunity to find out about Latin at any other time of their school career.  The teaching I saw was excellent, based on an exciting programme designed by the Iris project.  In my long career (primary) I have not seen children identifying, analysing and discussing grammar at such a high level as I saw at St. Saviours.”

Stephen Addis review in full

“Congratulations to Lorna Robinson who has produced a real masterpiece, which brings the subject to life.”

Author Corner: Jena Pincott on the Surprising Science of Pregnancy

The latest post in our Author Corner comes from Jena Pincott, author of Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies? The book explores the weird and wonderful science of pregnancy – the why rather than the how-to, and is a fascinating must-read for curious mums- and dads-to-be.

 Her guest blog post tackles 12 old wives’ tales about pregnancy, including morning sickness, baby brain and labour pain. All these and more can be found in her new book Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies? which is available now from Souvenir Press in hardcover, paperback and as an e-book.

 Science vs. Pregnancy Myths

Science tackles 12 old wives’ tales about pregnancy.  Guess which ones endure?

Myth #1: Girls steal their mothers’ beauty:  False. You might even argue that being pregnant with a girl enhances your beauty! Statistically speaking, women carrying girls have more sex during pregnancy than those carrying boys.  Our breasts also grow larger when carrying a girl than a boy.

Myth #2:  You’re eating for two. Not really. You’re actually eating for 1.1.  Even in third trimester, this means eating only, say, three bananas more daily than you would pre-pregnancy.

Myth #3:  You’ll crave dirt and clay.  Possibly true. The scientific explanation: Clay seals the stomach — and, in the past, may have helped to protect mother and foetus from toxins, bacteria, and viruses.

Myth #4: Basketballs are boys, watermelons are girls:  False.  Truth is, your belly can be both a basketball and a watermelon during different phases of the pregnancy.  If you’re pregnant with your first child, you’ll carry higher for longer into the pregnancy because the ligaments holding up the baby are tighter.

Myth #5: Girls make us sicker than boys:  Somewhat true.  A hormone called hCG contributes to pregnancy sickness. Generally speaking, female foetuses put out higher levels of hCG than do male foetuses.

Myth #6: More babies come out on a full moon.  False. The full moon doesn’t trigger labour, according to multiple studies that track births and the lunar calendar. (Note:  Nor are more loony people admitted to psych wards at this time.)

Myth #7:  You can induce your own labour.  Mostly false. In studies, most home-induction remedies such as walking, sex, spicy foods, castor oil haven’t had any significant effect on triggering labour.  BUT there is limited evidence that nipple stimulation (breast pumping) helps the process along if you’re already close to going into labour naturally.

Myth #8: The Chinese birth calendar accurately predicts gender.  False. Multiple studies have shown that when it comes to predicting gender, the Chinese birth calendar is no more accurate than flipping a coin.

Myth #9: Babies look like their fathers.  Not necessarily.  Of course some do, but this doesn’t happen as a rule. The strange thing is that we really think babies often look like their dads— possibly because fathers favour look-alikes. From an evolutionary perspective, this may have reduced the risk of infanticide.

Myth #10: Pregnancy is a turn-off for men. Nope. To the contrary, some studies find that men are generally as attracted or more attracted to their wives during pregnancy than beforehand. While couples may not have sex as often as before (expectant fathers may have a lower sex drive), pregnancy is not the turn-off they fear. From an evolutionary perspective, the pregnant woman benefits from her mate’s support, and sex helps couples bond.

Myth #11:  You’ll forget all about the pain.  Maybe. There’s a 50/50 chance that, five years from now, you’ll think labour pains were less painful than they felt at the time.  Only a small percentage of women look back at their labour pain and remember it as worse than they felt at the time.

Myth #12:  You’ll get pregnesia.  Probably. Many (but not all) studies find that pregnant women experience difficulty storing and retrieving memories. This may be due to hormones or the foetus diverting resources to grow her own brain. While your visual memory is intact (in fact, your ability to recognize and remember faces is better than ever), your ability to remember to do what you  say you’re going to do, or recall a name or street address, may be impaired.   Women carrying girls may be especially afflicted.

 

Literacy Through Latin wins the EU Language Label 2013

We were delighted to learn last week that the Literacy Through Latin project, run by The Iris Project (founded by Lorna Robinson, author of Telling Tales in Latin) has been awarded the EU Language Label 2013 for innovative language teaching projects.

The European Label is an award that encourages new initiatives in the field of teaching and learning languages, rewarding new techniques in language teaching. By supporting innovative projects at a local and national level, the Label seeks to raise the standards of language teaching across Europe. Each year, the Label is awarded to the most innovative language learning projects in each country participating in the scheme.

A judge visited St Saviour’s school in Brixton where the Literacy Through Latin project – and Telling Tales in Latin – was in use in the classroom, to see it in action, and reported:

“This project provides an opportunity for young children to be introduced to Latin, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds and who may not have the opportunity to find out about Latin at any other time of their school career.  The teaching I saw was excellent, based on an exciting programme designed by the Iris project.  In my long career (primary) I have not seen children identifying, analysing and discussing grammar at such a high level as I saw at St. Saviours.”

Lorna Robinson, author of Telling Tales in Latin and founder of the Iris Project was delighted with the news:

“I’m completely over the moon at the news that the Literacy through Latin project has won this prestigious award. The judge who visited St Saviours school in Brixton was delighted at the pupils’ enjoyment of Latin. We have been teaching using our Telling Tales in Latin book at St Saviours and the pupils’ reactions to it have been very positive indeed.”

Congratulations to Lorna and the whole team at The Iris Project on being awarded the EU Language Label 2013 for their Literacy Through Latin programme. To find out more, visit the Iris Project website, or order a copy of Telling Tales in Latin today.

Author Corner: Maths and Anxiety by Steve Chinn

Steve Chinn is the author of The Fear of Maths: How to Overcome It. With over thirty years’ experience of work and research in special and mainstream education, he specialises in maths learning difficulties and dyscalculia. In 1986 he founded and developed a specialist secondary school for dyslexic boys, which went on to win several major national awards.

His experience has led him to realise that anxiety is a major contributor to the mental block that many people develop when it comes to doing maths, and his blog post below explores the five biggest causes of maths anxiety, with suggestions as to how to overcome them.

What’s Holding You Back: Maths and Anxiety
By Steve Chinn

 What is it about maths that creates so much anxiety in so many people? We know that there is maths anxiety, but why not art anxiety or history anxiety?

These are the five most common causes that I have come across for maths anxiety and a few suggestions on how to combat the problem:

1.      Fear of negative evaluation

One of the issues with maths is that the answers to questions are right or wrong and few of us like being told that we are wrong. This is exacerbated when we are wrong in front of other people. Doing maths in public, say working out the tip in a restaurant in front of friends is going to create anxiety.

Building skills for estimating can help. In many situations ‘close enough’ is just as good as ‘spot on’.

2.      Doing maths quickly

It is part of the culture of maths that questions should be answered quickly. It’s hard to know when this demand began, but 6 x7 is 42 whether you take 2 seconds to answer or 10 seconds. Having to do things that you find difficult quickly creates anxiety. Slow down and give yourself time to think. This will give you a chance to be certain of your answer, and will make you less likely to make small mistakes that creep in when you are in a rush.

3.      Knowing the multiplication facts (times tables)

I don’t know why, but I do know that the reality is that some people find rote learning these facts a BIG problem. It is a part of maths that hasn’t changed over time so parents feel able to help their children, so they buy CDs of multiplication facts songs to play on the school run…. anxiety before the child even gets to school.

Start with the easiest times tables (x1, x2, x5 and x10) to build confidence, and then use what you have learnt here to move on to the more challenging ones.

4.      Mental arithmetic

To be successful at mental arithmetic you have to have a good short-term memory, or you won’t remember the question, which is quite a handicap. You also need a good working memory, the memory you use to do things ‘in your head’. Not everyone has good short-term and working memories. This is the way it is. Being able to jot down notes and memory-joggers can be a help and should not generate guilty feelings.

5.      Fractions, division and algebra

These three topics really create anxiety in children and adults. Most people master addition. They find subtraction a bit harder, multiplication a bit harder still and division pretty close to impossible. That, in turn, makes algebra very difficult and thus very anxiety-generating. To be good at algebra you have to understand addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Not just remember the procedures, but really understand. It can be made much easier than you might think. Maths is logical and most things are inter-linked. That inter-linking can be good if you can understand each link, but it becomes a real problem if even one link is missing. Maths is a great subject, but learners need to have the concepts explained in ways that they can understand and that means something far more educational than just feeding facts into memory.

The Fear of Maths by Steve Chinn is published by Souvenir Press. It is available now in paperback and as an e-book.

For more help with maths, take a look at the Maths Made Easy series of books from Souvenir Press. And don’t forget to check out the rest of our Author Corner blog posts!

 

Out today: Where the Ghosts Walk by Peter Underwood

Things are getting more spooky today at Souvenir Press with the publication of WHERE THE GHOSTS WALK: A Gazetteer of Haunted Britain by Peter Underwood.

Britain is the most haunted country in the world with a wealth of places that feed the imagination. From Cape Head in the north of Scotland to Beachy Head in the south of England, it is a land of ghosts and phantoms.

Peter Underwood’s fiftieth published book, WHERE THE GHOSTS WALK is the culmination of a lifetime’s work devoted to investigating the haunted places of Britain. In this his definitive work, Underwood puts together a thorough guide to places across Britain where ghosts have been seen outside – that is, public places, not buildings or private houses, which can be visited by anyone at any time.

It is arranged by the various environments where ghosts appear: airfields, ancient sites, bridges, battlefields, graveyards, gardens, highways, railways, ruins, seascapes, and woods. From the ghosts of Jacobite soldiers in Gallows Tree Lane, the ghost of King Arthur which has been seen in Tintagel, to the phantom Spitfire of Biggin Hill airfield, WHERE THE GHOSTS WALK is an indispensable guide to the rich world of the unexplained.

Peter Underwood is Britain’s leading authority on the paranormal. He is Life President of the Ghost Club Society and President of the Society for Psychical Studies. He has devoted his life to investigating the haunted places of Britain, over 70 years and 50 books.

“The world’s leading ghost hunter” – The Observer

WHERE THE GHOSTS WALK is now available in paperback and as an e-book.

Author Corner: Discovering Classical Myths by Lorna Robinson

Lorna Robinson is the author of Telling Tales in Latin, a new Latin course and storybook for children. With Ovid as the narrator, this book is an ideal first introduction to Latin, and features some of the most famous classical myths including stories from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. These stories are vital for capturing children’s imaginations, and colour illustrations throughout by Soham De help bring these magical stories to life. Telling Tales in Latin features all the grammar and vocabulary needed for the OCR entry level Latin qualification.

Lorna Robinson tells us how she discovered the magic of the myths of ancient Greece, stories that sparked her imagination and which she believes are the way to engage children with studying the classics. Here she shares some of her favourite classical myths.

Like many people, I learned about the myths of the Greeks and Romans as a young child, long before I learned any Latin. When I did first learn Latin, it was alongside descriptions of slaves and masters in country villas, remote and staid characters far removed from the weird, dark, colourful, alive stories that had long fascinated me.

My very first encounter was through the “Usbourne Book of Greek myths and Legends”, which had a picture of the Minotaur on the cover – I can still remember the huge curling horns and the terrible, but oddly human, face. Inside its pages, tales spilled out, precious and mysterious and frightening all at once, in a way my other childhood books were not. All these years later, I still carry those stories with me, and they’ve shaped my world and fuelled my imagination.

Here are two of my favourites!

Orpheus and Eurydice

This is my all-time favourite myth, and appears at the end of my book Telling Tales in Latin, a new Latin course and storybook for children, for that very reason.

The story of a man with the unearthly talent of moving all living things with his song. He lost his wife, and then dared to enter the underworld to ask for her back. Orpheus sings a song of grief so beautiful that even the ghosts weep and Hades is moved. Hades agrees to return Eurydice to life, but on one condition: Orpheus must not turn around before they reach the earth’s surface. They make the gloomy, eerie, lonely ascent, Orpheus first, Eurydice behind. Just as they are getting close, his fear overcomes him and he turns to see if she’s actually there. She instantly slips back into the underworld forever.

There are many things about this story which have haunted me. The fact that this man with his superhuman gift has such a human flaw, and lets his fears overwhelm him is very moving. There’s the image of this one man singing his heart out in that dark, foreboding land, and the ghosts being spellbound as his song enchants the underworld. And finally, there is the unanswerable question of why Hades set this rule at all – is it because he knew Orpheus would fail? Why did there have to be a condition? And why did Orpheus give in, so close to the end?

Persephone and Demeter

This is the story of how we came to have seasons. The tale goes that Persephone, daughter of Demeter, the goddess of fertility and plants, was picking flowers in a field, when Hades saw her and seized her away to the underworld to be his wife. Demeter searched high and low but couldn’t find her daughter. She grieved and mourned, and while she did this, the plants and crops all withered and died as she neglected to care for them. Eventually, she discovered that Hades had her daughter and she went to get her back. While Persephone had been in the underworld, she had eaten six pomegranate seeds and so she had to spend six months of every year with Hades, but for the remaining six months, she could return to earth to be with her mother. And so it was forever more, that for the six months that she is in the underworld each year, Demeter grieves and all the crops and plants and trees die – this is our autumn and winter. But when she returns, everything flourishes again and we have our spring and summer.

As with the Orpheus story, part of the fascination for me with this story is the strange and unwritten rule. Why does eating in the underworld invoke this rule – what does it represent about life and death and beliefs surrounding these things? Also, there is the human element within this goddess who is so powerful, that she grieves desperately for her daughter. And finally, for me there is something wonderful about explaining the seasons in such human, emotional terms.

So these are my favourites. What are yours?

Telling Tales in Latin by Lorna Robinson, illustrated by Soham De, is published May 2013 by Souvenir Press.

Telling Tales in Latin: A New Latin Course and Storybook for Children

Our latest new title for spring, TELLING TALES IN LATIN by Lorna Robinson brings Latin teaching into the twenty-first century.

TELLING TALES IN LATIN: A New Latin Course and Storybook for Children, now available from Souvenir Press, teaches Latin through the magic of storytelling, using Soham De’s vivid illustrations to bring the stories to life.

Narrated by the chatty and imaginative Roman poet Ovid, this new course takes young learners on a journey through some of the tales from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Along the way, they pick up Latin words and grammar, explore the connections between Latin and English and discover how Ovid’s stories still speak to us today. The book features all the vocabulary and grammar needed for the OCR entry level Latin qualification. It is already attracting a lot of advance praise and support, including Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, who is a keen supporter of the teaching of Latin in schools.

“Yet again Lorna Robinson has come up with a wonderful way of getting us to read and love Latin. Not to be missed!” – Boris Johnson, Mayor of London

This is the ideal first introduction to Latin for primary school children, packed with colourful, original illustrations to bring the subject to life. Latin has been found to help children with their literacy, and with learning foreign languages, so the benefits of this Latin course are manifold.

Author Lorna Robinson is the founder of The Iris Project, a charity dedicated to bringing classical culture and languages into the curriculum for all schools, not just those in more privileged areas. The Iris Project’s Literacy Through Latin project has been shortlisted for the 2013 European Language Label for Innovative Projects in language teaching and learning.

TELLING TALES IN LATIN is now available in paperback and as an e-book.

Author Corner: Dr Kai Kermani on Autogenic Training

Dr Kai Kermani is author of Autogenic Training and a leading name in this field of holistic therapy. Read his exclusive blog post for Take Home a Souvenir, to find out what autogenic training is, and how discovering autogenic training changed his life.

About 30 years ago I came across the name Autogenic Training for the very first time, in one of my post graduate study courses for stress management. Like many of you, I had never heard of this technique, and enrolled upon an 8 week course.

This turned out to be the best decision I have ever made: it stood me in good stead for the very difficult times that were to follow over the years. From an accident which left me blind, to the death of my beloved partner six months after my accident, a major heart operation and a massive fire at my home which destroyed everything dear and precious to me, daily practise of Autogenics for the last 30 years has helped me navigate all the major and minor stresses and trials that life has thrown at me.

Despite everything, including my blindness, I am now in a state of complete inner peace, tranquillity, joy and contentment; if my inner peace is disturbed by external circumstances, I can easily return to my peaceful centre with the help of autogenic training.

What is Autogenic Training?

It is one of the most powerful relaxation and self-healing techniques which I have ever come across in my long career in holistic general practice and after my blindness in the use of complementary therapies especially healing which is now my profession.

The technique has 3 different parts which can be utilised for whatever the individual’s needs are. First and foremost, of course, it is a powerful relaxation technique. The emotional off-loading exercises are amazingly powerful and effective in ridding one of suppressed emotions whether current or long standing – something which I used copiously during the various traumatic times in my life. The exercises on gratitude and forgiveness are particularly powerful as they enable the individual to free themselves from the bondage of guilt and regret that afflicts most of us. With the help of some powerful positive and specifically designed affirmations, it can also be a very powerful self-healing technique.

It also has two short exercises which can be used anywhere or any time to help one remain completely relaxed in situations where there is no possibility of doing a full exercise or any other form of meditation. For example while driving, or even using it in some of our interminably long and boring meetings!

As for my book, Autogenic Training, it consists of 3 different sections. The first gives advice on general health and wellbeing. The second section consists of a tutorial on Autogenics so that the individual can easily learn it even if they have no access to qualified trainers, and third section covers over 50 specific conditions which can be helped by the practise of Autogenics in combination with other mentioned techniques.

I thoroughly recommend Autogenic Training to anyone who is interested in making an investment for life for their wellbeing and happiness. This recommendation is not just based on my own personal experiences but also hundreds of people whom I have taught personally or thousands who have used the book before.

Anyone who is interested in finding out more about my healing work can do so by visiting my website.

Dr.Kai Kermani, BSc(Hons.), MBBS, LRCP.,MRCS.,DRCOG.,MRCGP.,BCRP.

Are you ready to discover our authors?

Things have been a little quiet here on the Souvenir Press blog over the last couple of weeks – sorry about that. I’ve been busy working away behind the scenes of the Souvenir  website, and have been lining up some fantastic blog posts for you guys over the coming weeks/months.

We’re going to be bringing back our Author Corner feature, and have currently got several of our authors scribbling away to bring you an exclusive view into their lives. Whether they’re sharing their inspiration, telling the story of how their book came to be, or sharing tips and advice, you won’t want to miss it!

Our previous Author Corner posts featured Jessica Thom writing about her book Welcome to Biscuit Land, Richard Smyth on Bum Fodder: An Absorbing History of Toilet Paper, and Arthur Plotnik, author of Better than Great with a handy guide to terms of endearment for your loved one, suitable for Valentines Day and the rest of the year.

Away from the blog, we’ve had some exciting post this week: finished copies of three of our new Spring titles: Code Name Caesar by Jerome Preisler and Kenneth Sewell, Telling Tales in Latin by Dr Lorna Robinson (both published later this month), and Where the Ghosts Walk by Peter Underwood, published early next month. What do you think?

I hope you all have a lovely weekend, and we’ll be back in the Souvenir Press office on Tuesday after the Bank Holiday. As always, if you’ve got any queries (Where can I buy these books? Can I get your books on my new Nook? Where’s the British Museum in relation to your office?) feel free to leave us a comment below, or you can drop me an email.

 

Author’s Corner: Richard Smyth on Bum Fodder: An Absorbing History of Toilet Paper

Richard Smyth is the author of one of 2012’s most unusual and interesting titles: Bum Fodder: An Absorbing History of Toilet Paper. Described by Robin Ince on BBC Radio 4’s Loose Ends as “the ultimate loo book”, this extraordinary title answers all the questions you never thought to ask about the product we can’t live without. But where on earth did Richard Smyth uncover all of his fascinating nuggets of information?

Imagine you’re writing a book on the long, colourful and thoroughly absorbing history of toilet paper. You’ve covered all the usual bases: the origins of paper in mediaeval China; the invention of modern ‘medicated paper’ in 1857 by the New York quack Joseph Gayetty; the all singing, all dancing space-age super-bidets now edging out loo-roll in Japan…

Now you’re after the weird stuff, the quirky details, the off-beat nuggets of fascinating fact that shed new light on the way the world wipes. Where do you look?

You’d think that Captain John G. Bourke’s 1891 classic Scatalogic Rites Of All Nations would be the perfect starting place. It is, after all, staggeringly, alarmingly, frighteningly comprehensive. It has a chapter on ‘The Ordure Of The Grand Lama Of Tibet’.  It has a chapter on ‘Tolls Of Flatulence Exacted Of Prostitutes In France’. It has a chapter – my personal favourite – on ‘The Use Of Bladders In Making Excrement Sausages’.

But on toilet paper, it is strangely silent.

Other obscure works throw up the odd gem: Samuel Rolleston’s Philosophical Dialogue Concerning Decency (1751), for instance, tells of an old Dutch woman, who, seated beside a gentleman in a communal privy, offers him her mussel shell for wiping (or, rather, scraping) once she has finished with it.

But the thing is, the really good stuff isn’t hidden away in mouldering, un-studied monograms by forgotten fetishists and little-read weirdos. It’s in the Classics library. It’s in the books you’re always told you ought to read but don’t.

There was a time when the highbrow and the infantile mingled happily. Just leaf through a book of eighteenth-century poetry and you’ll find plenty of instances of public intellectuals, serious writers, talking of, among a dazzling variety of other things, toilets: in George Farewell’s ‘Privy Love For My Landlady’, for example, the poet thanks his loathesome landlady for curing him of a bout of constipation (‘When lo! who should pop by but Mother Masters,/At whose bewitching look soon stubborn arse stirs’).

Thus, some of the most illuminating bum-wiping material comes from our most highly-regarded writers and thinkers. From the 16th century, cleric and scholar François Rabelais (‘I have, by long and curious experience, found out a means to wipe my bum, the most lordly, the most excellent, and the most convenient that was ever seen’) – from the 17th, poet Robert Herrick (who placed a curse on any reader who dared to wipe his bum with pages from Herrick’s book: ‘May every ill that bites, or smarts,/Perplex him in his hinder parts’) – from the 18th, Jonathan Swift, Dean of St Paul’s (‘We may, while they strain their throats,/Wipe our arses with their votes’).

Any writer who thus mentions the unmentionable does us a favour by reminding us that the seemingly unsavoury parts of life are still, well, parts of life. Toilet paper – so often a taboo, and yet so utterly ubiquitous – is a prime example. My book, Bum Fodder: An Absorbing History Of Toilet Paper, is my attempt to tell the epic tale of humanity’s love-hate relationship with its torcheculs, xylospongions and lotion-infused three-ply – but who are today’s Rabelaises, Swifts and Herricks? Which of our literary writers venture into this enjoyably daring territory nowadays?

Salman Rushdie, in Midnight’s Children, eloquently expresses the distaste of the hygienic Indian for the British way of wiping (‘No water near the pot… it’s true, My God, they wipe their bottoms with paper only!’) – Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine goes into rewarding detail regarding the fine points of loo-roll (‘Perforation! Shout it out!’) – and Martin Amis, in, say, Money, shows himself to be an heir to Rabelais in terms of the explicit extravagance of his bathroomery (‘I made a highly complicated, demanding, almost experimentalist visit to the bathroom…’).

There must be more: more laureates of the loo-roll, bards of the bum-fodder. Who have I missed?

Bum Fodder: An Absorbing History of Toilet Paper by Richard Smyth is published by Souvenir Press. It is available in hardback and as an e-book. Out now.