Hospice chaplains have traditionally played a unique part in palliative care, providing human compassion and support to help ease life's final chapter. This book thoughtfully tackles the question at the heart of modern hospice chaplaincy: do chaplains have a distinctive role in an increasingly secular society?A comprehensive look at why and how this work needs to be done, each chapter will be a rich resource for hospice chaplains and anyone working within a hospice multi-disciplina...

With nationalism and the far right on the rise across Europe and North America, there has never been a more important moment to face up to what we, in Britain, are doing to those who seek sanctuary. Still the UK detains people indefinitely under immigration rules. Bail hearings go unrecorded, people are picked up without notice, individuals feel abandoned in detention centres with no way of knowing when they will be released.In Refugee Tales III we read the stories of people who ha...

'A wonderful read' -- Lorraine KellyIn this book for dog lovers everywhere, Jonathan Wittenberg says his dogs have taught him, more than anything else, how to appreciate the wonderful world in which we live -- and how to develop better relationships with his friends and families.In this wonderful, warm account of one man and his dog, Jonathan brings all the big themes of friendship, faithfulness, kindness, cruelty, grief, prayer and spiritual companionship ...

‘Moving – at times almost unbearably so – and fascinating’ Antonia FraserA family’s story of human tenacity, faith and a race for survival in the face of unspeakable horror and cruelty perpetrated by the Nazi regime against the Jewish people.Growing up in the safety of Britain, Jonathan Wittenberg was deeply aware of his legacy as the child of refugees from Nazi Germany. Yet, like so many others there is much he failed to ask while those who could have answ...

A dog's guide to life - how to be a kinder, compassionate, more mindful and wiser human.Anyone who has ever fallen hopelessly in love with a dog will know dogs have the capacity to love us back unconditionally, welcome us home with unbridled excitement, forgive us endlessly for our impatience, comfort us when we're feeling low - and then play games with wholehearted contentment - bringing endless joy to our lives.Dogs' sheer zest for embracing life in all i...

'Hugh Mackay is one of this country’s most perceptive social commentators' - Sydney Morning HeraldInsightful and engaging, What Makes Us Tick? helps to explain what drives us, concerns us and is important to each of us – from Australia's leading social researcher, Hugh Mackay.Dr Mackay has spent a lifetime listening to people talk about their dreams, fears, hopes, disappointments and passions. As well, his bestselling book...

What do people actually mean when they say 'God'?Around two-thirds of us say we believe in God or some 'higher power', but fewer than one in ten Australians attend church weekly. In Beyond Belief, Hugh Mackay presents this discrepancy as one of the great unexamined topics of our time. He argues that while our attachment to a traditional idea of God may be waning, our desire for a life of meaning remains as strong as ever.Mackay int...

Dorothy Rowe shows us how to have the courage to acknowledge and face our fears – only through courage can we find a sustaining happiness.‘Beyond Fear’, first published in 1987, has changed the lives of thousands of people. In this edition, the renowned psychologist Dorothy Rowe examines the changes in the psychiatric system since 1987 in the context of showing how most of our suffering comes from our greatest fear, that of being annihilated as a person, when we shall disappear lik...

A little while ago, concerned that the next time they got together, one of them would be in a coffin, Jeff Lucas and Adrian Plass decided to start exchanging letters and this book is the result. Breathtakingly honest, funny, moving and immensely enjoyable, Seriously Funny is a celebration of 21st century Christianity as well as a no-holds barred expose of its sillier side. And they are equally hard on themselves their most embarrassing moments are a joy to read.Adrian Plas...

Witty, acerbic, insightful musings from Robert Dessaix, one of Australia's finest writers.One Sunday night in Sydney, Robert Dessaix collapses in a gutter in Darlinghurst, and is helped to his hotel by a kind young man wearing a T-shirt that says FUCK YOU. What follows are weeks in hospital, tubes and cannulae puncturing his body, as he recovers from the heart attack threatening daily to kill him.While lying in the hospital bed, Robert chances upon Philip L...

Adrian Plass considers the pull of the spirit and of the flesh and how this often leads us to live compartmentalised lives. We allow God only into certain bits and suffer embarrassment when our compromised private lives and shiny public lives collide.War of the Worlds is about spiritual warfare, maturity, prayer and the fear of true commitment. It's a book that battles to reunite the secret world of what we are, with the public world of what we appear to be, in an outrageo...

Highly Commended in the 2012 BMA Book AwardsWe live in a world where bad things can, and do, happen irrespective of whether we are good or bad, whether we consider ourselves lucky or doomed, and with no regard to fairness. Any of us can find ourselves facing redundancy, the breakdown of a relationship, bankruptcy or any number of life changing crises, or supporting someone else who is. And sometimes, no matter how much we might try, there’s nothing we can do to prevent or ...