'Elegant and accessible.' Daniel J. Levitin, author of This Is Your Brain on Music

But why is it so evocative? There’s no logical reason why a rousing, percussive tune should invoke swashbuckling pirates, or a slow melody on the flute remind you of a summer day from childhood. And yet, as research shows, it consistently does – and what’s more, if you hear pirates, others likely hear pirates as well.

For all that listening to music can feel like an intensely subjective experience, it holds objective, measurable power over the way our brains function. Exploring the strange and magical science of music perception, musician and psychologist Elizabeth Margulis examines the nature of ‘musical daydreams’. From the intense link between music and memory (music is more likely to prompt Proustian-style flashbacks than food, madeleines or otherwise) to why you keep returning to the music you loved at sixteen – and for that matter, the music your parents loved at sixteen – Transported reveals the compelling new science behind why music is so integral to who we are.

'Timely… there couldn’t be a better moment to explore the power of music to free our minds, inspire our imaginations, and awaken lost memories.' Renée Fleming

'Fascinating… Her book is the message in a bottle, urging us to connect more deeply with our inattention.' Wall Street Journal

'Absolutely extraordinary…I needed this book 30 years ago.' MEL ROBBINS, #1 bestselling author of THE LET THEM THEORY

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Feeling overwhelmed? Open when… stress takes over.

Facing self-doubt? Open when… imposter syndrome strikes.

Lost your direction? Open when… you need fresh motivation.

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This is the book for life's twists and turns, when being human starts to get complicated.

A must-have companion to Dr Julie's international bestseller Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?, which taught us the skills to strengthen our future mental health, Open When… is the book to turn to when you find yourself in the eye of the storm.

Within this book are a series of Open When style letters from Dr Julie to help navigate the moments of overwhelm, confusion or self-doubt that we all face when life gets messy.

Offering calm, clarity and a laser focus on the best way forward, each personal letter is followed by real-time tools that will help you re-frame the situation and decide on your next move.

Every chapter covers a new scenario; universal problems that each of us will likely face at some point. So, whether you’re experiencing:

• Stress
• Pressure to perform
• Dealing with difficult people
• Trying to fit in
• Making big decisions
• Arguments with your partner
• Big emotions causing anxiety

Open When… brings the words you need to hear to get back on the front foot, feeling ready to take on everything life throws your way.

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Praise for Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?

'Sound wisdom, easy to gulp down. I'm sure this book is already helping lots of people.' MATT HAIG, bestselling author of REASONS TO STAY ALIVE

'A toolkit of deceptively simple strategies for life's troubles. Everyone could benefit from the wisdom of Dr Smith' i 'BEST NON-FICTION BOOKS OF 2022'

'Julie Smith is the psychology teacher you wish you'd had at school' EVENING STANDARD

'This book is a goldmine. I truly treat it like a handbook now' STYLIST

'It's real, it's authentic . . . Very practical and very, very helpful' LORRAINE KELLY

'I'm blown away by her ability to communicate difficult ideas with ease, simplicity and practicality. Amazing. Go and buy it now!' Jay Shetty

'If you want to feel like you have a therapist sitting across from you, empowering you with how to be your best self, this book is for you!' Nicole LePera, New York Times bestselling author of How to Do the Work

'Full of sound, helpful advice with life skills, from building confidence to managing stress' Sunday Times

Instant No. 1 Sunday Times Bestseller, January 2025

We’ve been told that pain is purely physical, something to do just with bones and body parts. The truth is that pain is constructed by the brain – influenced not just by injuries, but also by emotions, expectations and environment. This means you have infinitely more control over pain than you ever imagined: because if the brain can change, pain can change.

Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and rich patient stories, Rachel Zoffness completely upends the myths we’ve been told – finally reconnecting physical and emotional pain, and providing a roadmap for healing. The fact is that chronic pain is treatable. But to do that, we must target the whole person, not just a body part.

Whether you live with chronic pain or know someone who does, this book offers more than insight – it offers an empowering way forward.

When bestselling writer Clare Mackintosh lost her five-week-old son, she searched for help in books. All of them wanted to tell her what she should be feeling and when she should be feeling it, but the truth – as she soon found out – is that there are no neat, labelled stages for grief, or crash grief-diets to relieve us of our pain. What we need when we’re grieving is time and understanding. With 18 short assurances that are full of compassion – drawn from Clare’s experiences of losing her son and her father – I Promise it Won’t Always Hurt Like This is the book she needed then.

Once dismissed as unscientific, psychoanalytic therapy is proving to be among our most effective medical treatments of any kind – outperforming psychiatric drugs and rivalling vaccines in its power to prevent and heal. Why does it work so well?

Perhaps because one of the most controversial figures in psychology was right all along. Neuroscience now confirms much of what Sigmund Freud conjectured over a century ago: our deepest struggles stem, not from chemical imbalances, but from buried memories and unconscious conflicts that no pill can touch.

Using enthralling case studies and cutting-edge brain science, pioneering neuroscientist Mark Solms makes the case that psychoanalysis should resume its position as our master theory of the mind. Yet modern research also reveals where Freud got important things wrong. Could correcting these errors make therapy even more effective?

As psychiatric diagnoses soar and standard treatments continue to fail many patients, The Only Cure offers a revolutionary hope: a real science of healing, rooted in the radical idea that our suffering arises from truths we haven’t yet faced.

A New York Times bestseller and enduring classic, All About Love is the acclaimed first volume in feminist icon bell hooks’ “Love Song to the Nation” trilogy.  All About Love reveals what causes a polarized society, and how to heal the divisions that cause suffering. Here is the truth about love, and inspiration to help us instill caring, compassion, and strength in our homes, schools, and workplaces.

“The word ‘love’ is most often defined as a noun, yet we would all love better if we used it as a verb,” writes bell hooks as she comes out fighting and on fire in  All About Love. Here, at her most provocative and intensely personal,  renowned scholar, cultural critic, and feminist bell hooks offers a proactive new ethic for a society bereft with lovelessness-not the lack of romance, but the lack of care, compassion, and unity. People are divided, she declares, by society’s failure to provide a model for learning to love.  

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. The  Utne Reader  declared bell hooks one of the “100 Visionaries Who Can Change Your Life.”  All About Love  is a powerful, timely affirmation of just how profoundly her revelations can change hearts and minds for the better.  

“Each offering from bell hooks is a major event, as she has so much to give us.”  -  Maya Angelou

In this day and age, whatever we think we feel, you can be sure that the past has had a part to play in it. In Soft, Ferdinand Mount tells the millennium-long history of emotion through vivid snapshots, masterly storytelling and bizarre historical anecdotes.

Revealing all the weird and wonderful ways people in the past expressed their grief and joy, Mount explores the shifting importance societies have placed on empathy for the misfortunes of others. Each seismic moment, Mount argues, from the French Revolution to Civil Rights, has had a corresponding sentimental revolution that has fuelled these great political turning points.

But during this long history, powerful feelings have frequently come under attack. No one wants to be accused of being sentimental; its detractors call it soppy, effeminate and populist – the stuff of soap operas and pop songs. The Reformation tried to stamp out excessive emotion, the Victorians resolutely maintained their stiff upper lips and no one loathed sentimentality more than the modernists – and yet, today, it is not the stoics who are ruling the roost: we are living in an age of emotion.

This is a witty, pacey story of the understanding of emotions and the way they have swayed civilisation.

Dr Kate Marvel is a renowned climate scientist and researcher whose work on climate change led her to grapple with strong, complicated emotions. Initially, she resisted those feelings, afraid they would interfere with her objective scientific judgement. But over time she realised that there is no one way to think – or feel – about climate change. To live on and care for our changing planet, we need to embrace the full spectrum of human emotion.

As Marvel argues, we need every emotion we can muster if we’re going to counter the usual myopic perspectives on climate change and care enough to make better decisions. And this book is a dazzling call to care.

In Human Nature, each chapter uses a different emotion to illustrate the science behind our changing climate. We feel the wonder of being able to use climate models to predict the future. We feel anger at those who have knowingly destroyed the planet for profit. We feel love for our beautiful Earth, the only good planet. With Marvel as our guide, we get to feel it all – and we can begin to turn our strong feelings into strong action.

Human Nature is a remarkable, hopeful look at climate science that prioritises feelings – and in doing so charts a path forward for life together.