Readings.com.au: St Kilda Bestsellers

The Brain That Changes Itself

An astonishing new scientific discovery called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the adult human brain is fixed and unchanging. It is, instead, able to change its own structure and function, even into old age.

Psychiatrist and rersearcher Norman Doidge, M.D., travelled around the United States to meet the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity, and the people whose lives they’ve transformed — people whose mental limitations or brain damage were previously seen as unalterable, and whose conditions had long been dismissed as hopeless.

We see a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole; a woman labeled retarded who cured her deficits with brain exercises and now cures those of others; blind people who learn to see; learning disorders cured; IQs raised; ageing brains rejuvenated; stroke patients recovering their faculties; children with cerebral palsy learning to move more gracefully; entrenched depression and anxiety disappearing; and lifelong character traits changed.

Doidge takes us onto terrain that might seem fantastic. We learn that our thoughts can switch our genes on and off, altering our brain anatomy. We learn how people of average intelligence can, with brain exercises, improve their cognition and perception, develop muscle strength, or learn to play a musical instrument — simply by imagining doing so.

Using personal stories from the heart of this neuroplasticity revolution, Dr Doidge has written an immensely moving, inspiring book that will permanently alter the way we look at our brains, human nature, and human potential.

Guide To Ethical Supermarket Shopping

Our choices affect the world we live in - whether we see it or not, whether we like it or not. We are in fact powerful people, and especially so when our energies are put together.

Companies today are beginning to see the need for a triple bottom line, where environmental & social criteria for success are as important as economic.

In a similar way we, as consumers, are realising that a "cheap" buy is often not a "good" buy. The real cost of an item is often unseen, involving issues such as labour conditions and fair trade, energy and transport used, raw materials and production processes, packaging and wastes produced. All things that affect us and our planet in the long term, if not the short.

The Lost Dog

Whatever the linguistic equivalent of perfect pitch may be, she has it - Sunday Telegraph (UK)

The Lost Dog is the extraordinary new novel by the acclaimed writer Michelle de Kretser. Her first novel, The Rose Grower, was a bestseller in both hardback and paperback. Her second, The Hamilton Case, won the Commonwealth Prize (SE Asia and Pacific), the Tasmania Prize and the Encore Prize, and was a New York Times Notable Book.

Set in present-day Australia and mid-20th century India, The Lost Dog is a haunting, beautifully written work that brilliantly counterpoints new cityscapes and their inhabitants with the wild, ancient continent beyond. With its atmosphere of menace and an acute sense of the unexplained in any story, The Lost Dog intriguingly highlights the collision of the primal and the civilised, modernity and the past and home and exile.

A mystery, a love story, a celebration of dogs and the joy they bring us, and a meditation on the essence of art and nature, The Lost Dog is a gripping contemporary novel which explores the weight of history as well as different ways of seeing and comprehending the world.

The Gargoyle

Accidents ambush the unsuspecting, often violently, just like love.

After a horrific car accident a man lies in hospital with severe burns to almost all of his body. He endures the pain, the hideous disfigurement and the excruciating treatments to remove the dead and rotting skin only in the hope of becoming well enough to end his life.

Then Marianne Engel, sculptor of gargoyles, appears. She unravels a wild, impossible tale of a life they had together, a tale that begins with her nursing him when he was burned once before, seven hundred years ago in Germany. Weaving stories within her story—fables of love in Japan, Iceland, Italy and England—Marianne slowly brings beauty and love into his life.

The Gargoyle is a brilliant love story, sweeping across centuries and continents. When it ends you’ll want to read it again.

The Age Good Food Guide 2009

With nearly 300 reviews of Melbourne restaurants and extensive coverage of destinations further afield, The Age Good Food Guide 2009 edition will point you in the right direction for every occasion.

John Lethlean and Necia Wilden share a great enthusiasm for food, wine, restaurants and quality journalism and writing. In this, the 29th edition of The Age Good Food Guide, their focus is clearly on the best places to eat and drink in Melbourne and country Victoria.

Melbourne's most respected guide to eating out.

Walk With Me: A History of Sacred Heart Mission St Kilda

Father Ernie Smith began to walk with the people of St Kilda in 1982. His were the first of many steps taken in forming St Kilda’s Sacred Heart Mission which today employs 150 staff and 450 volunteers who help thousands of people access the basic necessities of life, connect with the community and develop support networks that nurture their lives. Against the backdrop of changing demographic and housing patterns in Melbourne, and changes in the church and models of caring, this history of the Sacred Heart Mission traces the way this agency has evolved and responded to the social issues of homelessness and prostitution and the effect of these on the local community of St Kilda.