Blog

Discover the best in WHSmith books & products with reviews and features below.

Filtered by NON-FICTION

Because I’m Not Myself, You See

Ariane Beeston is a child protection worker and newly registered psychologist when she gives birth to her first child – and very quickly begins to experience scary breaks with reality. Out of fear and shame, she keeps her delusions and hallucinations secret, but as the months pass Ariane gets worse. Much worse. Finally admitted to a mother and baby psychiatric unit, the psychologist is forced to learn how to be the patient. With medication, the support of her husband, psychotherapy and, ultimately, time, Ariane rebuilds herself.

Magic Pill

In January 2023, Johann Hari started to inject himself once a week with Ozempic, one of the new drugs that produces significant weight loss. He wasn’t alone – some predictions suggest that in a few years, one in four of the British population will be taking these drugs. While around 80 per cent of diets fail, someone taking one of the new drugs is likely to lose up to a quarter of their body weight in six months. To the drugs’ defenders, this is a moment of liberation from a condition that massively increases your chances of diabetes, cancer and an early death.

Your Time Starts Now

Julie Goodwin was catapulted into our hearts as the first-ever winner of MasterChef Australia. In many ways her win was unlikely. As a child Julie adored music and art, but her career began in youth work, including in a juvenile detention centre housing troubled boys and a toxic all-male staff. After her three sons were born, she and her husband started an IT business.

Ask Jules

In Ask Jules, Jules Robinson puts it all out on the page. She shares her personal experiences, expert tips, and empowering lessons on style, family, motherhood, self-love, wellbeing, manifesting and practising gratitude. Jules’s mission is to give you the tools you need to go after the life you’ve always dreamed of, and to feel good about yourself while you’re doing it – exactly as you are, right now.

All the Beautiful Things You Love

In Ask Jules, Jules Robinson puts it all out on the page. She shares her personal experiences, expert tips, and empowering lessons on style, family, motherhood, self-love, wellbeing, manifesting and practising gratitude. Jules’s mission is to give you the tools you need to go after the life you’ve always dreamed of, and to feel good about yourself while you’re doing it – exactly as you are, right now.

Hope

On a warm summer’s evening in February 2014, eleven-year-old Luke Batty was killed by his father at cricket practice. It was a horrific act of family violence that shocked Australia. The next morning, his mother Rosie bravely stood before the media. Her powerful and gut-wrenching words about family violence galvanised the nation and catapulted her into the spotlight. From that day on, Rosie Batty campaigned tirelessly to protect women and children, winning hearts and minds with her courage and compassion, singlehandedly changing the conversation around domestic violence in this country.

The Health Habit

Are you trapped in a cycle of unhealthy habits? You are not alone – we all have unique barriers that get in the way of making permanent changes to our health. In The Health Habit, psychologist Dr Amantha Imber steps away from the one-size-fits-all approach. Packed with bite-sized advice, The Health Habit is for anybody stuck repeating the same habits and looking for practical solutions that will transform their health for good.

The Woman in Me

In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice—her truth—was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey—and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.

My Journey to the World Cup

Sam Kerr is widely considered to be one of the best female footballers of all time. She is famous worldwide for her skills on the soccer pitch – but before she was the Matildas captain and the leading goal scorer for Chelsea, she was just an average Aussie kid who wanted to play AFL. This is her incredible football journey to the FIFA World Cup, from making the switch to soccer to becoming one of the best female strikers in the world. Sam gives us insights into what keeps her motivated, how she handles the pressures of life as a professional athlete and what she believes is really important in life.

The Boy from Boomerang Crescent

How does a self-described ‘skinny Aboriginal kid’ overcome a legacy of family tragedy to become an AFL legend? One thing’s for sure: it’s not easy. But then, there’s always been something special about Eddie Betts. Betts grew up in Port Lincoln and Kalgoorlie, in environments where the destructive legacies of colonialism – racism, police targeting of Aboriginal people, drug and alcohol misuse, family violence – were sadly normalised. His childhood was defined by family closeness as well as family strife, plus a wonderful freedom that he and his cousins exploited to the full – for better and for worse.

Enough

Throughout this book, Jana shares her life with you: the good, the bad and the ugly. Her stories of sport, medicine, divorce, loss, solo parenting, and media shenanigans are told without embellishment or excuses. On her own admission, she’s often learned the hard way, rumbling with my demons, fighting against self-acceptance, and boxing with negative inner chatter. I’ve often been too honest, shared too much and talked too fast.

Infidelity and Other Affairs

What do you do when your partner’s infidelity upends your life? When you confront living on your own? In amongst parents dying, careers ending and becoming a grandparent? As a journalist, Kate Legge often seeks answers to how people reckon with bad luck or bad decisions. When faced with her husband’s affair, she discovered a fault line of betrayal running through four generations
of his family, which began a search for answers both close to home and more universally.

The Neuroscience of Excellent Sleep

Everyone’s familiar with the consequences of lost sleep: you’re groggy and irritable, your focus is off, you don’t perform at your best, and you’re likely to dump sugary foods and caffeine into your system for an energy boost. But the effects of poor sleep go way beyond these concerns. Indeed, they can be life-threatening.

The Storyteller

Having entertained the idea for years, and even offered a few questionable opportunities (‘It’s a piece of cake! Just do four hours of interviews, find someone else to write it, put your face on the cover, and voila!’), I have decided to write these stories just as I have always done, in my own hand. The joy that I have felt from chronicling these tales is not unlike listening back to a song that I’ve recorded and can’t wait to share with the world, or reading a primitive journal entry from a stained notebook, or even hearing my voice bounce between the Kiss posters on my wall as a child.

Atomic Habits

People think that when you want to change your life, you need to think big. But world-renowned habits expert James Clear has discovered another way. He knows that real change comes from the compound effect of hundreds of small decisions: doing two push-ups a day, waking up five minutes early, or holding a single short phone call. He calls them atomic habits.

Ikigai

We all have an ikigai. It’s the Japanese word for ‘a reason to live’ or ‘a reason to jump out of bed in the morning’. It’s the place where your needs, desires, ambitions, and satisfaction meet. A place of balance. Small wonder that finding your ikigai is closely linked to living longer.

Mental Fitness

The brilliant new book from the Chief Instructor of SAS: Australia
that will explain the principles behind maintaining a healthy mind and body.
The mind and body are often talked about as separate entities, but it’s only when they work in harmony with one another that one can truly push oneself to the highest heights

Noise

We like to think we make decisions based on good reasoning – and that our doctors, judges, politicians, economic forecasters and employers do too. In this groundbreaking book, three world-leading behavioural scientists come together to assess the last great fault in our collective decision-making: noise.

The Mindful High Performer

Who has time for self-care? Chelsea Pottenger didn’t. In May 2015, the successful entrepreneur found herself battling postnatal depression so severe, she landed in a psychiatric hospital. Determined to overhaul her wellbeing, Chelsea dived headfirst into the study of mindfulness and meditation. She radically shifted her priorities, learning to put her mental health first.