A four step plan to break your technology addictions and regain balance in your life. If you are bogged under by Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Gmail, Blackberry, iPad, laptop or X-box, if your heart flutters when you see a flashing red light, your phone beep and your e-mail ping, perhaps technology is increasingly taking over your life. With so much available to us, it is easy to surrender control to it. Our digital lifestyles are more of a weight on our shoulders than we know and many of us can no longer focus on a single task or face-to-face conversation without wanting to reach out or retreat to the virtual world every few minutes. It's time for a digital detox. This 28 day four step plan will get you started - rethink, reboot, reconnect and revitalise, learning to live with technology. 254pp in paperback.

Sub-titled 'How Medical Cannabis and CBD are healing everything from anxiety to chronic pain'. Millions of people around the world are healing illnesses with cannabis yet nonetheless many doctors remain reluctant to discuss cannabis medicine with their patients. There is much conflicting misinformation from unreliable sources, so finding out if cannabis can be an effective treatment can feel nearly impossible. Dr Bonni Goldstein has helped thousands of patients suffering from chronic, difficult-to-treat conditions improved with cannabis. In her revelatory book she explains the current state of scientific research on how cannabis interacts with human physiology to create homeostasis or balance, leading to good health. Many of the plant's compounds including CBD and their therapeutic effects are explained in detail. There is a guide through the confusing array of cannabis-based products now available, and detailed guidance on what to avoid, and how her patients have been able to customise a personalised cannabis regimen. Dr Goldstein presents 28 common conditions which patients have found cannabis treatment to be helpful for including cancer, insomnia and gastrointestinal disorders. She guides you carefully through all the scientific research with big clear headers and short entries of the medicinal effects of CBN, THCA, CBDA and its interaction with the brain and body and how they inhibit COX, decreasing production of prosta-glandins. COX enzymes have also been shown to promote metastasis of breast cancer cells. Includes case studies. Even if you have never smoked that proverbial joint, this therapy is worth learning about. 355pp, large softback, illus and charts. Save £10.

Philadelphia's Mütter Museum has an expansive and historic collection of crania and bones and is home to the towering skeleton of the Mütter American Giant, the remains of a woman so tightly corseted for so long that the garments changed the very structure of her bones together with dozens of other people whose final act is to educate the rest of us of what lives inside. The place is populated by the remarkable dead, a medical mausoleum where bones have taken on a second life. Here is the story of lives stripped down, of the vascularised tissue embedded in an extracellular matrix containing type I collagen - bone. Bone is our structural core giving us support while acting as a foundation for our flesh and internal protection that wraps around our vital organs. It never moves by itself but is essential to our ability to move. Bone has manifested itself in wings, sails, horns, armour and an ever greater array of appendages and ornaments since the time of its origin. We can define bone by its biochemical components, its evolutionary history, its shape and variation, but to boil down bone to numbers, measurements or landmarks will always seem incomplete. The truth of the bone very much depends on who is looking at it. Bones is a marvel, an adaptable and resilient building material developed over more than 400 million years of evolutionary history. Arguably no other part of the human anatomy has such rich scientific and cultural significance, brimming with life and with a potent symbol of death. In this delightful natural and cultural history, Switek explains where our skeletons came from, what they do inside us, and what others can learn about us when these artifacts of mineral and protein are all we have left behind. He makes a compelling case for getting better acquainted with our skeletons and their surprising roles and he bridges the worlds of palaeontology, anthropology, medicine and forensics to illuminate the complex life of bones inside our bodies and out. The elegant and surprising tales make a lyrical love letter to the 206 or so bones in the human skeleton and the colourful figures studied them over the centuries, considering in turn dinosaurs, saints, kings and our own possible future. 276pp, line art.

Cannabidiol is used for a wide variety of ailments, mainly related to pain relief, and can be bought in the UK from pharmacies and health food outlets, though care must be taken with dosage and the form in which it is ingested. An introduction outlines the various forms in which the oil can occur, including a chart of dosage by body weight, and we learn that the author herself cooks with full-spectrum CBD infused into a fat- or oil-based product. The recipes start with breakfast, where Hearty Breakfast Potatoes are fried in CBD coconut oil with the addition of garlic, onion, peppers and a range of spices. Other breakfast dishes include Simple Egg Scramble, Glazed Blueberry Muffins, Cinnamon-Baked Doughnuts, and CBD Avocado Toast. Mains are equally mouthwatering, with a bias towards vegetarian dishes, though they also include Shrimp Summer Rolls with Sweet Chilli Sauce and Fish Tacos. Each recipe can be adjusted to use different ingredients. Side dishes include Spinach-Artichoke Gratin and Roasted Ginger Carrots, and there are accompanying drinks such as a Calming Berry Vanilla Smoothie and a Rum Thai Iced Tea. Pet snacks are not forgotten, with a choice of 10 treats, and the book concludes with Self-Care recipes, including Face Masks (of the cosmetic type), toners, exfoliation scrubs and a massage oil. 160pp, a beautifully produced book with colour photos of every recipe. 20 x 24.2cm.

This true bibliophile tells her personal story of salvation and picnics, ravioli and freedom, Dickens and survival. At the age of 14, Laura Freeman was diagnosed with anorexia, but even when recovery seemed impossible, the one appetite she never lost was her love of reading. Book by book, Laura slowly rediscovered how to enjoy food and life through literature. Always intelligent and full of enthusiasm, her highly engaging memoir is packed with astute insights into the books she has read and a rediscovery of the joy of food. She menders into chocolate in books, discovering Virginia Woolf's criticism, polemic in fiction. 'At dinner, when at home, Woolf has omelettes and good coffee. Luncheon might be rissoles and chocolate custard.' There is no guilt here in her consumption of hardbacks and paperbacks. 'If you were to ask me what I was doing among the Portobello book stalls at half past five in the morning, I would have to invoke the defence of a late-night fridge raider caught with a tub of chocolate-chip ice cream.' 260pp, paperback.

Udo Kischka was an otherwise healthy 62-year old who ran harder than usual to catch a train home, went to bed feeling normal and was discovered unconscious by his wife the next morning, paralysed and blind on the left side and unable to call for help. But Udo was no ordinary stroke patient: he was a specialist in stroke medicine, while his wife Helena Kennerley is a clinical psychologist. Their joint account of how Udo managed his condition is fascinating for the psychological insight Helena brings, the understanding of the science contributed by Udo, and the inspiration deriving from their struggle together as a couple and as a family. When Udo was transferred to the Oxford Centre of Enablement he was there for nine months, longer than the average, and family events like Christmas were very upsetting. Their teenage children found it difficult to cope with their dad's twisted face and slow speech, and there was a feeling that the children should not be given any burden of care unless they requested it. But on day 68 Udo moved his fingers, and as a specialist he knew what a step forward this was. Fatigue was a real foe, and clarity alternated with distraction in his speech, together with a tendency to repetition. To Helena's puzzlement Udo prioritised mobility over cognitive abilities, because standing and walking gave him more of a sense of who he was. As a couple Helena and Udo were advised to make a completely new game plan, and in conclusion Helena describes their experiences with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. 180pp, paperback, resources, bibliography, black and white photos.

Sub-titled ' The Hundred Year Hunt to Cure the Deadliest Disease In History'. 'Even though the initial influenza tested to be negative, Murray now repeated it using a much more sensitive technique. It revealed that Autumn had had the H1N1 Influenza virus, the same virus behind the swine flu outbreak of 2009. In a matter of hours, the virus had destroyed her lungs and was now attacking her heart muscle.' 'Autumn was finally strong enough to return to work. Her medical bills were close to two million dollars. She pulled through because she was close to a medical facility?' An academic from University College, London, Dr Jeremy Brown explores the terrifying and complex history of the flu virus. He looks at the controversy over vaccinations and governments' roles in preparing for pandemic outbreaks. Although a hundred years of advancement in medical research and technology have passed since the 1918 disaster, Dr Brown at the time of writing his book was warning that many of the most vital questions about the flu virus continue to confound even the leading experts. In his book he talks with leading epidemiologists, policymakers, and the researcher who first sequenced the genetic building blocks of the original 1918 virus. How close are we to finding a cure? Timely, interesting, engaging and sobering here is the data, intuition and other weapons of war, the fault in our stockpiles, Tamiflu and the cure that wasn't there, the continuing hunt for a flu vaccine traced right back to enemas, bloodletting and whisky cures of the past. Remainder mark, 258pp, paperback. Cover may vary.

Sub-titled 'A History of the Heart In Eleven Operations' here is the cut and thrust of cardiac surgery demystified lest we forget that venturing into the thoracic cavity was once so daunting. For thousands of years, the human heart remained a deep mystery to medical science. Even as surgery made tremendous strides thanks to the progress of anesthesia and antisepsis, this one organ seemed untouchable. Then in the late 19th century, medics began going where no one had dared and the following decade saw the secrets of the heart exposed. Through the stories of 11 landmark operations, Thomas Morris shows the astounding achievements made by cardiac surgeons and the committed bravery, occasional arrogance, jealous rivalry, and incredible ingenuity they displayed in order to do the job. In the two pages before the Introduction are two stunning line drawings of the heart and its blood vessels and the interior structure with its parts named. It is easily forgotten that just 50 years ago heart surgeons were the most glamorous and best paid professionals in the world photographed with royalty and film stars in an almost exclusively male club. Today there are close to 50 centres of cardiac surgery in the UK alone and every developed nation has hundreds or even thousands of highly trained surgeons. Although the body count in this story is high, it is also full of unexpected recoveries, exhilarating moments of discovery, and celebrations of human ingenuity, those who held the surgical instruments are the heroes and heroines but also the armies of nurses, physiologists, engineers, biochemists and inventors who made this work possible and of course the many patients and their families who willingly allowed their bodies to be used as glorified laboratory specimens. Chapters include Blue Babies, Ice Baths and Monkey Lungs, Rubber Balls and Pig Valves, Metronomes and Nuclear Reactors, Clinical Trial by Media, Fantastic Voyage and I, Robot (Surgeon). 414pp, eight pages of photos the last of which is where the surgeon sits at a console controlling plastic-covered robotic arms.

On a daily basis Consultant Paediatric Neurosurgeon Jay Jayamohan makes life-and-death decisions on the most vulnerable and fragile members of society - babies and children. Daily, parents and carers put their faith in him and his team. Developments in the field of neurosurgery have been massive over recent years, and many of the everyday procedures Jayamohan undertakes would have been undreamt of only a few years ago. Despite this he is on the cutting edge of his work in this area and faces new and puzzling challenges every day. Many of his patients are faced with a lifetime of surgery, with each step along the treatment path often leading to unknown or unexpected repercussions. Though he is proud of his successes he learns from every procedure that goes wrong. Compassionate, frank and revelatory, his book portrays a man faced with potentially devastating decisions who's driven to help as many children as possible. 'There are two ways to open a child's head. The pretty way and the quick way. Usually I shave the hair, use a scalpel to nick the skin then apply an electro-cautery device to burn down to bone level. It's a slow, precise method and leaves almost no scarring. But it takes time. Time, the interminable single note of the heart monitor reminds me, I don't have.' Jayamohan is an Asian who struggled in 1970s Britain as an Asian growing up and he has been featured in two highly acclaimed BBC fly-on-the-wall series following the work of neurosurgeons and their highs and lows. He is truly an inspirational man. 256pp.

A sublime view of the treasures and torments to be found in wakefulness, this is an entertaining and existential nocturnal reverie in search of lost sleep. Rich in imagery, beautiful, jagged and precise, this is a lyrical, witty and humane exploration of a state we too often consider only superficially. With her new memoir, Marina Benjamin has produced an unsettling account that treats our inability to sleep not as a disorder but as an existential experience that can electrify our understanding of ourselves, and of creativity and love. In her bravura piece of writing, at once philosophical and poetical, the book ranges widely over history and culture, literature and art, entwining the author's personal story spliced with cultural criticism. There are moments of stunning poetry suddenly interrupted by passages of fevered introspection. The book aims to light up the workings of our inner minds in which art, philosophy and science jostle together. 133pp.