Coping with suicide – The Bell Bookshop

How the Female Body Works

Emma — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“Witty and wise – How the Female Body Works is a wonderful blend of science and humour. I laughed, I learned, and I felt seen. A must-read for anyone in a female body – and anyone who knows one.” – Dr Charlotte Gribbin, Consultant Aesthetic & Regenerative Medicine Physician

‘Technically, we’re close, my body and I. We go everywhere together. And yet, I know little about how it actually works…’

How much do any of us really know about our bodies? We know, for example, that women live longer than men, but why? We are told our brains are better at multi-tasking, but is that true? What exactly are hormones? Like: what do they look like? What’s the point of PMS? Why are women twice as likely as men to develop Alzheimer’s? And what’s the deal with things like osteoporosis – why are our bones so damn fragile?

For years, award-winning journalist Polly Vernon drove her body around like it was a car – and she had zero interest in the manual. This book charts her mission to lift the bonnet, have a good old rummage and find out what’s really going on. She talks to neuroscientists, academics, medics, midwives, gynaes, psychologists and physios. People who really know their stuff.

And so here it is, THE complete guide to the female body – head to toe, inside and out, physical and emotional – with reassuring advice on how to mitigate the ways it makes life trickier, along with notes of celebration for the ways it helps us out.

Full of facts and stories that will blow your mind, this is a book you’ll want to pass on to every woman (and man) you know.

Though the bodies fall

Emma — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

MicheÃ¯ ¿ ½l Burns lives alone in his family’s bungalow at the end of Kerry Head in Ireland. It is a picturesque place, but the cliffs have a darker side to them: for generations they have been a suicide black spot. MicheÃ¯ ¿ ½l’s mother saw the saving of these lost souls – these visitors – as her spiritual duty, and now, in the wreckage of his life, MicheÃ¯ ¿ ½l finds himself continuing her work. When his sisters tell him that they want to sell the land, he must choose between his siblings and the visitors, a future or a past.

There is no blue

Emma — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The three protagonists in this memoir are dead: a mother, a father, and a sister. A bookish and artistic family living in a beautiful old house in a pleasant part of Toronto. Two girls growing up in the 60s and 70s. All seems well until one of them begins to manifest signs of distress, leading, eventually, to a diagnosis of schizophrenia. In this triptych of beautifully written memoir-essays, Canadian author Martha Baillie reflects on the complex entangled lives of her mother, father and sister.There Is No Blue is both a close observation of a family’s experience of a diagnosis of mental illness, and a layered story of grief.

Grief Works

Emma — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

*** Sunday Times Bestseller ***

‘Fascinating. A wise and compassionate book full of insight and understanding that would help anyone experiencing grief, or those surrounding them’ Cathy Rentzenbrink

‘A wonderfully important and transforming book – lucid, consoling and wise’ William Boyd

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Grief Works is a compassionate guide that will inform and engage anyone who is grieving, from the ‘expected’ death of a parent to the sudden unexpected death of a small child, and provide clear advice for those seeking to comfort the bereaved.

Julia Samuel guides you gently through her eight practical pillars of strength – that include the power of saying ‘no’ to the structure and building of good new habits – to support you and help you to gradually rebuild your life in the face of grief:

With personal real-life stories of loss, and brilliantly accessible and practical advice, Grief Works will be passed down through generations as the definitive guide for anyone who has lost a loved one, and will revolutionise the way we talk about life, loss and death.