From beneficial microbes to the way we eat, environmental chemicals we're exposed to, how we sleep and how we exercise, here you will discover natural, science-backed interventions to help you build your blueprint for strong immunity. Conduct a self-assessment to identify your weak spots, learn how to combat common and debilitating health challenges such as allergies, stress, infection and autoimmunity and how tweaking your lifestyle habits will allow your immune system to work at its best. Running deep into every aspect of our mental and physical health, our immune system is our wellness system, with vital roles far beyond just fighting germs. Learn the science of rest and the quality of sleep, healthy surroundings, gain mobility, muscle and momentum and navigate your immune-brain romance by supporting our immune system from the bottom up. The book will make sure you have all the tools to nail the best foundations and there are added in some nice-to-have extras for elevating your health. Learn about free radicals which are oxygen-containing molecules with an uneven number of electrons generated normally every day as part of our metabolism and used to fight off germs. As free radicals can be damaging to our own tissues, they are normally neutralised by antioxidants and if there is an imbalance, this results in biological damage to our DNA and the proteins that make up our bodies. This in turn can accelerate ageing and lead to a vast number of inflammatory health conditions. Rejuvenate your immune fitness, tackle gut and chronic inflammation and there are suggestions for snacks like less-meat meatballs, roasted chickpeas and the traditional oat baked Scottish dish made with whisky called Cranachan, a little like granola. Plus probiotics, pollen, hay fever, this experienced immunologist shares her 20 years' plus experience with us. 393 page paperback.

With alkaline recipes, this health transforming book looks at the four-letter word that's secretly destroying your health - ACID. It causes inflammation and is the culprit behind many of our current ailments from weight gain to chronic disease and cancer. The good news is that health visionary Dr Daryl Gioffre shares his revolutionary plan to rid your diet of highly acidic foods, alkalise your body and balance your pH. An acidic lifestyle includes consuming foods such as sugar, grains, dairy, excess animal proteins, processed food, artificial sweeteners, along with lack of exercise and proper hydration - and stress. They all cause inflammation. The plan outlined in the book in seven steps and seven days will help you gain more energy, strengthen your immune system, diminish pain and acid reflux, improve digestion, focus and sleep and lose excess weight and bloating naturally. Taking minerals such as magnesium, calcium, potassium and sodium bicarbonate is a fast way to neutralise acid so that your body doesn't need to do it all on its own. Alkaline minerals are also very calming to the nervous system and will put your body into a deeper REM sleep when it needs it most. With recipes for easy, delicious snacks and meals like Apple Cabbage Salad with Beetroot, Spiced Cold Tomato Ginger Soup and Savoury Avocado Wraps among them, all about dietary, metabolic, emotional and environmental acids, there are also quizzes to help you test your levels, much about breathing, saunas, kidney stones, limiting net carbs, how dairy is scary and much more. 284pp in very large softback.

Does size matter? This ground-breaking book explores human size difference, specifically unusual bodies big and small, as a cultural marker in western scholarship, exploring miniaturism, giganticism, obesity, and the lived experiences of actual big and small people. The work addresses the use of physical measures to judge normalcy, goodness, gender identity and beauty while examining art, literature, folklore, social practices and scientific discourse ranging from the 17th century to the present. The book begins looking at the 'little man' (how Edmund Burke believed the miniature man inspired wonder) and small bodies, before moving on to big bodies and the concept of the "monstrous giant". Discover that the much loved fairy tale character Tom Thumb aligns with three characters in legend, a miniature valiant knight in King Arthur's court, a lustful and over-confident person who attempted to ravish a Queen and someone of similar stature who found success as an instructor, teaching children their letters and moral lessons in words of few syllables. One section of the book looks at the figure of the pygmy in postcolonial revision and brings Roald Dahl's 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory under the lens, critiquing the Oompa-Loompa characters who are 'clearly constructed as African pygmies' as they are described as 'pure black' with 'fuzzy heads' and are no taller than Wonka's knee. While considering larger bodies, the author considers how giants have historically been thought of as not smart, whether that is Homer's Polyphemus tricked by Odysseus or an early edition of Jack the Giant Killer in which the young boy outsmarts the two-headed Welsh giant through clever sleights and illusions. The study also considers Ted Hughes' fable The Iron Giant and the modern idea of a friendship between boy and giant or boy and technology as the iron man (who also happens to be an enormous sentient machine) consumes metal in order to survive but handles the human boy sensitively. To bring the ideas and theories to life, the book also includes fantastic images such as the cover design for Tom Swift and His Giant Robot in 1954, Louise Lentz Woodruff's sculpture featuring an enormous robot guiding a young male and female figures, and a painting by Anthony van Dyck of Queen Henrietta Maria with Sir Jeffrey Hudson in 1633 which portrays the monarch with a favoured member of her household, the 'court dwarf' Jeffrey Hudson. Colour images, 346pp.

Exquisite pen and ink images to colour in for yourself for calmness, the book is grouped by desert with the camel, phoenix, lizard, cactus, scarab and thunderbird and more, the prairie and savannah with the deer, bison and bee, mountains and woodland with the fox, Arctic fox, eagle, cougar, lovebirds, wolf, butterflies, raven and bear and more, the rainforest with frogs and butterflies, hummingbirds and elephants, toucans and tarantulas, rivers and wetlands with cranes and dragonflies and oceans and seas with blue whales, dolphin, lobster, puffin, sea turtle, humpback whales and polar bear and many more. All you have to do is colour in these stunning illustrations drawn by artist Sue Coccia, animal totems representing a deep spirituality. As we concentrate on the colour schemes, shapes and details in this Native American looking set of drawings we appreciate the birds and animals and bees of mother earth and learn to reduce our stress and live a more calm and relaxed life. For each there is a tiny description of the polar bear for example with its wisdom, power, the Shaman and the terrapin grounded with wisdom and endurance. Even as black and white artworks, they could be removed for framing from the extra large softback. 96pp.

Thai body work, massage and medicine, herbal medicine and spiritual meditation has been in the process of constant evolution for over 1,000 years. Thai massage at its most basic is a complex sequence of soft tissue pressing, stretching, twisting and joint manipulations and the techniques presented here are essentially a pot pourri of those taken from various regions of Thailand. Beginners will find them flowing and harmonious and very similar to what you could expect to receive at the hands of a Thai master. Ayurvedic and Thai massage historically refer to 72,000 theoretical lines, called Sen, based on drawings from the Wat Pho tablets. There are 60 carved epigraphs that depict the ten Sen lines and pressure points and in this book sections of the Chinese Meridians are used where they correspond to similar positions of the Thai Sen lines. This is where the body's vital life energy flows - physical, mental and emotional processes where any imbalance or blockage in the distribution of this energy can cause pain and disease. The book shows lessons with dots and arrows superimposed over photographs to show the techniques and clear direction and the range of movement involved in all the manipulations. The tenet is that ageing is often more to do with how we feel than with the passage of time. Organised by muscles, the mechanics, the Thai body work programme explains with big clear step-by-step colour photographs and bullet points and fact boxes the feet, legs, both legs and back, chest and abdomen, arms, hands, neck and face, lying on either side, lying face down and the sitting position, followed by tailormade treatments and massage routines to ease chronic pain. Thai massage can help maintain health and useful vitality and improve sports performance with powerful healing forces. Large softback, 160pp, colour.

Darkly funny and touching, previously published in hardback as 'My Mad Dad' this is a rather special, warm and funny and loving and deeply moving book. Inadvertent cross-dressing. Attempted murder. Jail break. A waltz at a funeral. A hernia the size of Guernsey. These are the moments that glitter the messy road from cared-for to carer, a journey that Robyn Holingworth finds herself on when she's only 25 years old. Leaving London to return home to rural South Wales, Robyn finds that it's her old life - same teddy bears resting on her pillow, their bodies tucked under the duvet, same view of the garages behind which she'd had her first cigarette and her first kiss - but so much has changed. Her dad, the proud, charmingly intelligent, self-made man who made people laugh, is in the grip of early onset Alzheimer's. His brilliant mind which saw him building power stations and literally bringing light into the lives of others has succumbed to darkness. As Robyn settles back into the rhythms of life in the rain-soaked vast Welsh valleys, she keeps a diary charting her journey as the Dad she knew disappears before her eyes. Lyrical, poignant and with flashes of brilliant humour, the book explores how in helping others we can heal ourselves. 234pp, paperback with fairly large print.

Samer Nashef is a cardiac surgeon at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge and a world leading expert on risk and quality in surgical care. He tells heart-stopping stories of transplants, coronary artery bypasses, aorta repair and cardiac arrest and also delivers humane advice about medical realities rarely observed - the futility of obsessing over diet, the necessity of calculating risks, the role of decision making, and the resilience of doctor and patient alike. He takes a scalpel to the medical profession and asks if patients get the standard of care they have a right to expect from their surgeons. Nashef is co-creator of the Euroscore System, a safety and monitoring tool that predicts the outcomes of heart surgery and he has saved thousands of lives too. In his spare time he compiles cryptic crosswords for the Guardian and the Financial Times under the pseudonym The Naked Surgeon. His Monologues speed from the transporting of a donor's heart at the motorway hard shoulder to cautionary stories of excessive intervention gone awry in US hospitals, to a traumatic trip to bring advanced cardiac surgery to the Palestinian West Bank. Magnificently warm, Nashef has the best imaginable bedside manner. 276pp, paperback.

With humour and reassurance, at last this is a book on nutrition that tries to make you understand how little we know, answering age old questions and a lot more besides for everyone curious about the everyday products we consume or use. Nutrition is a mess of marketing, classism, science, truth, guilt, confusion and outright hucksterism. Cheese puffs, coffee, sunscreen, vapes, hand sanitiser, Zaidan reveals the weird science behind everyday items that may or may not kill you, depending on whom you ask. If you're curious which health studies to trust, what dense scientific jargon really means, and how to make better choices when it comes to food and health, dive right in. Zaidan makes chemistry more fun than a potions class as he demystifies package ingredients we buy in the supermarket and explains how we know whether something is good or bad for you in exquisite, hilarious detail and at breakneck speed 'with brilliant analogies that even an 11 year old can understand.' Chapters include Microbes Are Trying to Eat Your Food, Plants Are Trying to Kill You, Processed Food Is Bad For You, Right?, Sunburnt to a Crisp, and Is Coffee the Elixir of Life or the Blood of the Devil? 'James Lind ran a controlled trial. On a voyage aboard the HMS Salisbury, he took 12 sailors with scurvy and split them up into six groups of two. Each group got a different potential cure: a quart of hard cider, 75 drops of sulphuric acid, two spoonfuls of vinegar, half a pint of sea water, the 'bigness' of a nutmeg, or two oranges and a lemon.' Can you guess the result? See page 168. Some of the language is utterly hilarious, like DNA, if it were the title of a movie, the sub-titles might read: Your Genetic Code, or The Blueprint of Your Life, or There Is No Such Thing As Free Will. With scientific and also hilarious diagrams, 297pp, paperback. Chemistry has never been such fun.

'Pioneers of alcohol-based comedy' - The Sunday Times, this pair of award-winning alcohol experts are also historians and write and perform together. Their motto is drink less, drink better, and their almanac is sub-titled 'Adventurous Drinks and Eccentric Tales for Every Day of the Year.' As Aristophanes once said 'Quick, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.' That's just one of 366 (29th February is free) entries in this eclectic, elbow-bending anthology of discerning drinks and fascinating and unusual facts. Other stories include a pair of whisky highballs for 'National Giraffe Day', a South African sparkling wine served at the inauguration of both Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela, an Alpine elixir inspired by a chap who eats aeroplanes, and a gin cocktail created in honour of someone who sewed monkey's testicles onto the face of a Frenchman. The pair know that alcohol is a fickle fellow that can flip from faithful friend to fearsome foe in the space of a few sips. The 1st January marks the fact that Bass (of the Pale Ale) Triangle registered the first ever trademark in 1876 and 2nd January the most famous bookseller Erika Roe unclasped her bra and ran on to the rugby pitch while England was playing Australia. The pair are drinking a pint of Naked Ladies from Twickenham Fine Ales, a brewery situated less than a mile from the stadium. The birth of Isaac Newton, the death of Sir Ernest Shackleton, the Gibson Flying V guitar patented (1958) is celebrated with a Gibson Martini. For each there is a little potted history plus of course the recipe, ingredients and how best to serve with garnishes, using a cocktail shaker, crushed ice, strainer etc. Firsts include steps on the Moon (communion wine used by Buzz Aldrin) and the first episode of Mad Men released in 2007 celebrating that Don Draper drank - a lot - with Hamm's Beer, an American cult classic, now owned by Coors. 272pp, stylish design.

Born in Glasgow and qualified as a doctor in 1983, John Quin worked as a consultant physician specialising in diabetes and endocrinology and has been writing about art, music and literature for more than 20 years. Yet for 33 years he worked as a physician for the NHS in both Scotland and England. Days on the wards were uproariously funny one minute, infinitely tragic the next. From tackling fraudulent medical students to trying and failing to induce hypoglycaemia in Glaswegian alcoholics (all in the name of research), Dr Quin packs his memoir with tales of joy and reward, of getting the diagnosis right, and the disaster of getting it wrong. Chasing Chekhov's two rabbits of medicine and writing, Quin sought solace in literature, art and music, applying the lessons of Bulgakov's Country Doctor to 1980s Glasgow, when none of the patients seemed to have a full complement of fingers, and 21st century Brighton, dealing with the consequences of a decade of austerity measures. Darkly amusing, his memoir is an acute insight into the farcical frustrations and tensions of working in a chronically underfunded NHS system but also a timely reminder of the humanity of the staff who care for us. 336pp.