We’re all in this together. Strong social connections make communities more resilient. But today Australians have fewer close friends and local connections than in the past, and more of us say we have no-one to turn to in tough times. How can we turn this trend around? In Reconnected, Andrew Leigh and Nick Terrell look at some of the most successful community organisations and initiatives – from conversation groups to community gardens, from parkrun to Pub Choir – to discover what really works. They explore ways to encourage philanthropy and volunteering, describe how technology can be used effectively, and introduce us to remarkable and inspirational leaders. Reconnected is an essential guide for anyone interested in strengthening social ties. ‘Reconnected offers practical ideas, told through engaging stories of successful community-builders, about how to build a more connected Australia.’ —Robert D. Putnam, Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University and author of Bowling Alone and The Upswing ‘This inspiring collection of strategies and stories brings hope for the future. Reconnected shows that we are the revolution.’ —Dr Catherine Barrett, founder of The Kindness Pandemic

In the magical time between night and day, when both the sun and the moon are in the sky, a child is born in a little blue house on a hill. And Miu Lan is not just any child, but one who can change into any shape they can imagine. The only problem is they can't decide what to be: A boy or a girl? A bird or a fish? A flower or a shooting star? At school, though, they must endure inquisitive looks and difficult questions from the other children, and they have trouble finding friends who will accept them for who they are. But they find comfort in the loving arms of their mother, who always offers them the same loving refrain: "whatever you dream of / i believe you can be / from the stars in the sky to the fish in the sea." In this captivating, beautifully imagined picture book about gender, identity, and the acceptance of the differences between us, Miu Lan faces many questions about who they are and who they may be. But one thing's for sure: no matter what this child becomes, their mother will love them just the same. Kai Cheng Thom is a writer, performance artist, and psychotherapist in Toronto. Her first poetry book, a Place Called No Homeland, was published in 2017. Kai Yun Ching is a community-based organizer, educator, and illustrator in Montreal. Wai-Yant Li is a ceramics artist and illustrator in Montreal.

Basketball.

Welcome to Eye Candy, the East Side’s hottest nightclub where the bartenders are hot, the cocktails are fancy, and danger lurks just under the surface... Eve Webber, the gorgeous and savvy owner of Eye Candy, knows better than anyone that growing up on the wrong side of the tracks comes with certain complications. Determined to run a clean business and fix up the East Side, Eve’s plans get temporarily stalled when a potential new hire walks into her bar. The sexual chemistry crackling between them is a potent distraction...even if she refuses to mix business with the promise of pleasure. Detective Matt Dorchester lives by strict rules that have kept him alive in impossible situations. When his latest undercover assignment has him playing a bartender, his desire for the passionate owner has him breaking every single one. Eve is in danger and her life depends on his secrecy. But once their attraction reaches a climactic conclusion, Matt must make a desperate choice: Tell her the truth about who he really is—or risk a once-in-a-lifetime love to save her life?

With a clear-eyed affection for the wandering souls who populate his stories—as they cling to talismans like a cowboy shirt, a chenille bedspread and a 1953 classic Ford—Matt Cohen causes us to look at them, and the worlds they inhabit, in unexpected ways. In his darkly comic, wholly original manner, he moves and surprises us, makes us laugh, and reveals the many sides of his extraordinary imagination.

Book two of Mandala, the mind-bending action-thriller that melds the mundane and the magical, the real and the surreal, the brutal and the beautiful. How do you hunt a lost soul? In a sprawling urban core of everyday America, Gradie pushes on the edge of reality, and finds something more. A world he will never remember. A story he can’t forget. An invitation to join an odd group of assassins, and an unlikely group of friends. He will face neon eyes that search through his memories, astral teachers who demand his identity as sacrifice, and trials of spirit that shatter everything he believes makes him who he is, until something else forms in the ruins. A Hardworlder. A journey of Souls. A war of Realities. A struggle of spirits. An epic saga unlike any other, that’s only just beginning…

Knowing very little English, eleven-year-old Jingwen feels like an alien when his family immigrates to Australia, but copes with loneliness and the loss of his father by baking elaborate cakes.

A hypnotic and mystifying exploration of land and legacy, investigating what it means to be an intergenerational, Indigenous survivor of Residential Schools Jordan Abel’s new work grows out of the groundbreaking visual expression in his recently published NISHGA, a book that combined nonfiction with photography, concrete poetry, and literary inquiry. Whereas NISHGA integrated descriptions of the landscape from James Fenimore Cooper’s settler classic The Last of the Mohicans into visual pieces, Empty Spaces reinscribes those words on the page itself, and in doing so subjects them to bold rewritings. Reimagining the nineteenth-century text from the contemporary perspective of an urban Nisga’a person whose relationship to land and traditional knowledge and spiritual traditions was severed by colonial violence, Abel attempts to answer his research question of what it means to be Indigenous without access to familial territory. Engaging the land through fiction and metaphor, Abel creates an eerie, looping, and atmospheric rendering of place that evolves despite the violent and reckless histories of North America. The result is a bold and profound new vision of history that decenters human perception and forgoes Westernized ways of seeing. Rather than turning to characters and dialogue to explore truth, Abel invites us to instead understand that the land knows everything that can and will happen, even as the world lurches toward uncertainty.

An eleven-year-old immigrant must clear her name when things start disappearing from a Boston settlement house Innocenza Moretti’s parents died in a fire when she was two. Ever since, she’s lived with her grandmother and seven lodgers in the flat downstairs from her aunt, uncle, and cousins in a crowded tenement in Boston’s North End. Innie’s world changes when she and her cousin Teresa become members of a settlement house where immigrant girls can learn more about American life. Best of all, they’ll get to participate in a library club. At school, Innie has to share books with two or three other girls. Having her own books would be like eating Sunday dinner every day. The girls’ first assignment at the settlement house is unpacking books that had to be moved because of the recent fire that tore through the city. But now valuable things are vanishing: a pottery mug. A silver teapot. Money. And the prime suspect is Innie! With the help of Teresa and their new friend Matela Rosen, Innie searches for the real culprit. A secret tunnel under Copp’s Hill Burying Ground leads them to a surprising thief. This ebook includes a historical afterword.

Hypnoanalysis presents a critical review of a report on hypnoanalysis. The book discusses the advantages of this method; the the definite change in the functional organization of the patient; and the specific schizophrenic personality. Some of the topics covered in the text are the description of a hypnoanalysis case; the demonstration of the use of hypnosis in the treatment of a patient; and the developments in the application of the treatment. The narration of the patient's journal; the daily experiences of the patient as the treatment is continuing; and the dynamic interpretation of the experiment are also presented. The book further tackles the characteristics of the subject patient; the description of the emotions and behaviors of the patient; and the theory and practice of hypnoanalysis. A study of hypnoanalytic procedures is also presented. A chapter is devoted to the use of free association, dream induction, automatic writing, hypnotic drawing, crystal, and mirror gazing as a tool in treating the patient. The book can provide useful information to psychoanalysts, doctors, students, and researchers.