Choose any 3 books from this fantastic selection of best selling and favourite non-fiction titles - perfect for any season!
Illustrated SA First Aid Manual
The Illustrated South African first aid manual for the home, office and outdoors is a vastly expanded and updated new edition of First Aid for the South African home, office and outdoors. It provides concise yet comprehensive instructions on how to deal with all common first-aid emergencies. There is even a section on basic first aid for domestic pets.
The text is accompanied by step-by-step illustrations, which provide ‘at-a-glance’ reminders for the first aider of the latest procedures to follow. Also included are guidelines on what a first-aid kit should contain at home, as well as at the office or factory, and outdoors. Health hazards faced by first-aid workers are covered, as well as their legal responsibilities.
Everyone's Guide to the Consumer Protection Act
Whether you want to buy a television or a car, provide a service, file a consumer complaint or return an item to a seller, you need to know your rights under the new Consumer Protection Act …
The Consumer Protection Act has given every South African rights and obligations that up until now have not been an issue, and ignorance of the law is not a defence. This easily accessible guide explains how, among other things, the CP Act aims to:
Everyone's Guide to The Consumer Protection Act is therefore essential reading for all South Africans – every home should have one.
Owner Building Made Easy
In Owner building made easy, Tamara Aspeling takes the would-be owner-builder through all the steps involved in the process in a way that's logical, accessible and chronological. She leads through the apparent minefield of regulations, estimating, drawing-up of building contracts and dealing with contractors, suppliers and professional people to the end result – your new home, just as you envisaged it, built the way you wanted it and with the minimum of fuss and expense.
The book deals with the preparation of plans, obtaining local authority approval, costing and estimating, putting the project out to tender and selecting a contractor as well as negotiating a building contract that’s fair to both owner and contractor. Filling a much-needed gap in the South African market, Owner Building Made Easy shows the first-time owner-builder how to anticipate and thus avoid unexpected pitfalls, and follows the house-building or renovation process sequentially from design to completion. Where appropriate professional help might save costly headaches later, Aspeling says so, thereby helping to avoid expensive lessons in false economy.
Homeschooling Primary Years
Spreading across all ethnic groups in South Africa, home-schooling is a growing phenomenon worldwide. More and more concerned parents are choosing home schooling as an alternative to institutionalised, state-controlled education, which is currently in a crisis, and private education, which in turn can be prohibitively expensive. Because home schooling is not the educational route that most of our society follows, prospective home-educators often feel that they are setting out into unchartered territory.
Home-schooling: The primary years is designed to take the mystery and complexities out of this journey. Families, from single-child and single-parent families to large families with children of almost every age group, are discovering how easily and successfully they can educate their children at home. The book provides home-educators with accessible and comprehensive information on legal issues, socialisation, sport, common mistakes to avoid, the benefits of learning at home, available resources, choosing a curriculum, teaching tips, helping children with special needs, and much more. Home-schooling: The primary years demonstrates that home education, ideally, is not ‘school-at-home’, and even includes practical advice for parents on earning an income while educating their children at home.
Change Your Child's Behaviour
Change Your Child’s Behaviour is more than just a do-it-yourself guide to the often-fraught business of dealing with what society in general would define as naughty or difficult behaviour from children. In accessible, non-judgemental, and jargon-free terms, Anchen Witthuhn sympathetically examines the reasons why little ones or preteens may exhibit a variety of challenging behaviours either at school, in the home or in their daily interactions with others.
Dealing head-on with sensitive issues such as discipline, anger management, exposure to inappropriate electronic media and the continuous need for firm, gentle and positive reinforcement, the book goes to the root of the problem. Through a practical, structured individual programme of daily messages, relaxation techniques, feedback and appropriate material, Change Your Child’s Behaviour provides sensible and stress-free solutions to a rangeof widely experienced problems.
Bully Proof
Every day, thousands of South African children go to school filled with terror because they know they’re going to be bullied. Children who are targeted by bullies are at enormous risk, yet many parents don’t know why it is happening to their child, or what to do about it.
Bully Proof looks at every aspect of bullying, from name-calling, taunting and rumour-mongering to physical assault, and examines why and how bullies behave the way they do, and what can be done to help them and their victims. The more we understand bullying behaviour, the better we can address the underlying causes and put effective controls in place.
Studies have shown that the 'whole school' approach, involving pupils, teachers, and parents, is by far the most effective method of reducing incidents of bullying, as well as limiting the potential for future incidents. Implementing an effective anti-bullying campaign is not just about changing the behaviour of a few maladjusted children; it is about changing the philosophy of the entire school. Using a step-by-step approach, this book provides educators, parents, counsellors and children with the tools they need to develop a successful anti-bullying programme.
Everyday Ubuntu - Living Better Together, The African Way
Ubuntu is a Xhosa word originating from a South African philosophy that encapsulates all our aspirations about how to live life well, together. It is the belief in a universal human bond: I am only because you are. And it means that if you are able to see everyone as fully human, connected to you by their humanity, you will never be able to treat others as disposable or without worth. By embracing the philosophy of Ubuntu and living it out in daily life it's possible to overcome division and be stronger together in a world where the wise build bridges, not walls.
These 14 lessons from the Rainbow Nation are an essential toolkit to helping us all to live better, together. In stories that recognise our common humanity, our connectedness and interdependence, Everyday Ubuntu helps to make sense of the world and our place in it. Exploring ideas of kindness and forgiveness, tolerance and the power of listening, it shows how we can all benefit from embracing others. Including practical applications and mindful exercises, it is an inspirational guide to a more fulfilling life as part of the large family to which we all belong
Blink
This book is all about those moments when we 'know' something without knowing why. Here Malcolm Gladwell explores the phenomenon of 'blink', showing how a snap judgement can be far more effective than a cautious decision. By trusting your instincts, he reveals, you'll never think about thinking in the same way again
This is Your Brain on Music
From the author of The Changing Mind and The Organized Mind comes The New York Times bestseller which unravels the mystery of our perennial love affair with music
What do the music of Bach, Depeche Mode and John Cage fundamentally have in common?' Music is an obsession at the heart of human nature, even more fundamental to our species than language. From Mozart to the Beatles, neuroscientist, psychologist and internationally-bestselling author Daniel Levitin reveals the role of music in human evolution, shows how our musical preferences begin to form even before we are born and explains why music can offer such an emotional experience.
In This Is Your Brain on Music Levitin offers nothing less than a new way to understand music, and what it can teach us about ourselves. 'Music seems to have an almost wilful, evasive quality, defying simple explanation, so that the more we find out, the more there is to know...
Daniel Levitin's book is an eloquent and poetic exploration of this paradox' Sting 'You'll never hear music in the same way again' Classic FM magazine 'Music, Levitin argues, is not a decadent modern diversion but something of fundamental importance to the history of human development
Joy of Work
From the creator of hit podcast Eat Sleep Work Repeat comes a revolutionary re-envisioning of how to enjoy your job.
Do you want to get more done, feel less stressed and love your job again? Sometimes having a job can feel like hard work. But between Monk Mode mornings, silent meetings and crisp Thursdays, the solutions are at your fingertips. Bruce Daisley knows a thing or two about the workplace.
In the course of a career that has taken him from some of the world’s biggest media companies to Twitter, via Google and YouTube, he has become a leading expert on how we work now. And in his hugely popular podcast Eat Sleep Work Repeat, he has explored ways to fix it. Now he shares 30 brilliant – and refreshingly simple – tips on how to make your job more productive, more rewarding – and much, much more enjoyable.
Option B
In 2015 Sheryl Sandberg’s husband, Dave Goldberg, died suddenly at the age of forty-eight. Sandberg and her two young children were devastated, and she was certain that their lives would never have real joy or meaning again.
Just weeks later, Sandberg was talking with a friend about the first father-child activity without a father. They came up with a plan for someone to fill in. “But I want Dave,” she cried. Her friend put his arm around her and said, “Option A is not available. So, let’s just kick the shit out of Option B. Everyone experiences some form of Option B. We all deal with loss: jobs lost, loves lost, lives lost. The question is not whether these things will happen but how we face them when they do.
Thoughtful, honest, revealing and warm, OPTION B weaves Sandberg’s experiences coping with adversity with new findings from Adam Grant and other social scientists. The book features stories of people who recovered from personal and professional hardship, including illness, injury, divorce, job loss, sexual assault and imprisonment. These people did more than recover—many of them became stronger.
Art of Possibility
Presenting twelve breakthrough practices for bringing creativity into all human endeavours, The Art of Possibility is the dynamic product of an extraordinary partnership. The Art of Possibility combines Benjamin Zander's experience as conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and his talent as a teacher and communicator with psychotherapist Rosamund Stone Zander's genius for designing innovative paradigms for personal and professional fulfilment.
Everyone's Guide to the South African Economy
Recession, inflation, interest rates, income tax, exchange rates, junk bonds … We are bombarded with these terms every day, but what do they actually mean? And how do they affect you?
In this updated edition of Everyone’s Guide to the South African Economy, all these issues – and more – are addressed. The book clearly explains and evaluates a wide range of economic occurrences – from the budget and the rand/dollar exchange rate to the balance of payments and the role of the South African Reserve Bank
Connector Manager
After conducting a unique global study of over 9,000 people, analysts at the world-leading sales research firm Gartner identified four distinct types of manager. Incredibly, they found one type consistently performs far better than the rest, and it wasn’t the one they were expecting.
Connector Managers understand that it’s not enough for managers to just encourage and teach employees themselves, and that providing constant coaching to employees can actually be detrimental to their independent development. Instead, by connecting employees to others in the team or organisation, Connector Managers can help their employees develop a range of skills beyond their own areas of expertise.
Shots From the Edge
With compassion and care, Marinovich documents more than two decades’ worth of turbulent history and reveals the people involved in the conflict. Some of the moments are deeply moving and profound, others so surreal as to blur into insanity. From coming under fire with United Nations peacekeeping troops in the Lašva Valley and being escorted around Mogadishu by a crew of gunmen for hire, to running through the streets of Johannesburg as Inkatha and the ANC face off at Shell House, the reader is exposed to people, places and experiences that would otherwise be difficult to comprehend.
Wherever You Go, There You Are
Mindfulness is considered the heart of Buddhist meditation. But its essence is universal and of deep practical benefit to everyone. In Wherever You Go, There You Are, Jon Kabat-Zinn maps out a simple path for cultivating mindfulness in our lives, and awakening us to the unique beauty and possibilities of each present moment. Since its first publication in 1994 (as Mindfulness Meditation for Beginners), this book has changed lived across the globe. This tenth-anniversary edition of the original classic text, featuring a new afterword by the author, brings this wonderful book with an even larger audience.
Solve for Happy
Solve for Happy is a startlingly original book about creating and maintaining happiness, written by a top Google executive with an engineer's training and fondness for thoroughly analysing a problem.
In 2001, Mo Gawdat, a remarkable thinker whose gifts had landed him top positions in half a dozen companies and who - in his spare time - had created significant wealth, realized that he was desperately unhappy. A lifelong learner, he attacked the problem as an engineer would, examining all the provable facts and scrupulously following logic. When he was finished, he had discovered the equation for enduring happiness.
Ten years later, that research saved him from despair when his college-aged son, Ali - also intellectually gifted - died during routine surgery. In dealing with the loss, Mo found his mission: he would pull off the type of 'moon shot' that he and his Google [X] colleagues were always aiming for: he would help ten million people become happier by pouring his happiness principles into a book and spreading its message around the world.
The Epigenetics Revolution
A book that would have had Darwin swooning - anyone seriously interested in who we are and how we function should read this.' Guardian At the beginning of this century enormous progress had been made in genetics. The Human Genome Project finished sequencing human DNA. It seemed it was only a matter of time until we had all the answers to the secrets of life on this planet. The cutting-edge of biology, however, is telling us that we still don't even know all of the questions. How is it that, despite each cell in your body carrying exactly the same DNA, you don't have teeth growing out of your eyeballs or toenails on your liver?
How is it that identical twins share exactly the same DNA and yet can exhibit dramatic differences in the way that they live and grow? It turns out that cells read the genetic code in DNA more like a script to be interpreted than a mould that replicates the same result each time. This is epigenetics and it's the fastest-moving field in biology today. The Epigenetics Revolution traces the thrilling path this discipline has taken over the last twenty years. Biologist Nessa Carey deftly explains such diverse phenomena as how queen bees and ants control their colonies, why tortoiseshell cats are always female, why some plants need a period of cold before they can flower, why we age, develop disease and become addicted to drugs, and much more. Most excitingly, Carey reveals the amazing possibilities for humankind that epigenetics offers for us all - and in the surprisingly near future.
Jeopardy
Wilfred's sheer ambition is an inspiration. We can all learn from it.' - Peter Bazalgette 'Based on my career, Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones' approach to risk can produce huge dividends' - Nigel Travis, chairman of Dunkin' Brands and author of The Challenge Culture Jeopardy is the single greatest catalyst for making things happen in life. In Jeopardy, award-winning entrepreneur Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones argues that our natural instinct for caution is one of the greatest barriers to making progress in life and shows how embracing jeopardy is essential if you want to succeed.
Drawing on a life that has taken him from a deprived childhood in inner-city Birmingham to becoming one of the nation's most famous farmers, he demonstrates how we can all go further in life by learning to escape the fears that stop us from achieving our ambitions. Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones is no stranger to jeopardy: he re-mortgaged his house in 2005 to launch his brand 'The Black Farmer' from nothing. Its products are now stocked in all major supermarkets and the business has an annual turnover of several million. In this book, he shows that only by embracing jeopardy, and liberating ourselves from the shackles of uncertainty and self-doubt, can we realise our full potential. What could you achieve, if you decided to stop letting fear hold you back?
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the beloved classic that has sold over 20 million copies worldwide, is celebrating its 25th anniversary with this reissue! With a new foreword, the wisdom of the 7 Habits still holds true after all these years. The 7 Habits have become so famous because they work. They have been integrated into everyday thinking by many millions of people. The reason: They work. Habit 1: Be Proactive. Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind. Habit 3: Put First Things First. Habit 4: Think Win/Win. Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood. Habit 6: Synergize. Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw. The book presents a principle-centred approach for solving personal and professional problems. With penetrating insights and pointed anecdotes, Covey reveals a step-by-step pathway for living with fairness, integrity, honesty and human dignity - principles that give us the security to adapt to change and the wisdom and power to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates.
Linchpin
"This is what the future of work (and the world) looks like. Actually, it's already happening around you." -Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com. In bestsellers such as "Purple Cow" and "Tribes," Seth Godin taught readers how to make remarkable products and spread powerful ideas.
But this book is about you-your choices, your future, and your potential to make a huge difference in whatever field you choose. There used to be two teams in every workplace: management and labour. Now there's a third team, the linchpins. These people figure out what to do when there's no rule book. They delight and challenge their customers and peers. They love their work, pour their best selves into it, and turn each day into a kind of art. Linchpins are the essential building blocks of great organizations. They may not be famous but they're indispensable. And in today's world, they get the best jobs and the most freedom. As Godin writes, "Every day I meet people who have so much to give but have been bullied enough or frightened enough to hold it back. It's time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. You have brilliance in you, your contribution is essential, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do it, and you must."
If your web browser happens to be Google Chrome, you might want to try this.
Open a new tab and click this link (we know. A link without context. It's time to put your trust to the test).
You should see an Add to Chrome button. Feel free to click that.
Hey presto! Now instead of the standard new tab page, you get to look at one of about ten thousand stunning landscapes courtesy of Google Earth every time you open up a new tab.
You're welcome.