Must Read Non-Fiction For March 2025

As ‘n eietydse mediese speurder het die forensiese patoloog Ryan Blumenthal al derduisende outopsies uitgevoer wat tot die arrestasie van ’n groot aantal misdadigers gelei het. Dit is sy groot doel en strewe om oortreders aan die pen te help ry. In Outopsietafel beskryf hy van die moeilike lesse wat hy as ’n jong patoloog moes leer en hy vertel van die ongewone en dikwels grusame sterfgevalle wat hy al teëgekom het.

Part historical detective story, part memoir, Fading Footprints traces the author’s journey into the magical folklore of the /xam hunter-gatherers of the Upper Karoo. Through archival research and on field trips in South Africa, De Prada-Samper reveals the tragic scope of  the genocide of the /xam San by European colonisers.

Jay Shetty, social media superstar and host of the #1 podcast ‘On Purpose’, distils the timeless wisdom he learned as a practising monk into practical steps anyone can take every day to live a less anxious, more meaningful life.

Over the past three years, Jay Shetty has become a favourite in the hearts and minds of millions of people worldwide. One of his clips was the most watched video on Facebook last year, with over 360 million views. His social media following totals over 32 million, he has produced over 400 viral videos, which have amassed more than 5 billion views, and his podcast, ‘On Purpose’, is consistently ranked the world’s #1 health-related podcast.

In this inspiring, empowering book, Shetty draws on his time as a monk in the Vedic tradition to show us how we can clear the roadblocks to our potential and power. Drawing on ancient wisdom and his own rich experiences in the ashram, Think Like a Monk reveals how to overcome negative thoughts and habits, and access the calm and purpose that lie within all of us.

The lessons monks learn are profound but often abstract. Shetty transforms them into advice and exercises we can all apply to reduce stress, improve focus, improve relationships, identify our hidden abilities, increase self-discipline and give the gifts we find in ourselves to the world. Shetty proves that everyone can – and should – think like a monk.

The new book from the multi-million-copy bestselling author of The Art of Thinking Clearly

Have you ever:
Got stuck in your career?
Said ‘yes, sure’ when you should have said ‘sorry, no’?
Tried to change someone?
Listened to your inner voice?

These are all examples of habits, decisions and behaviours that will derail your efforts to build a life of success – of better decisions, career and relationships; of happier and healthier living.

In his new international bestseller, Rolf Dobelli reveals 52 of life’s biggest mistakes, and shows why the key to living well is so much simpler than you might think. Just understand what the pitfalls are… then avoid them.

Evolution is a series of bets, and no animal gambles the way humans do. This has led us to unprecedented ecological dominance, via the steepest odds and unlikeliest of outcomes, but our winning streak cuts both ways: the secret to our success may yet be our downfall.

The Gambling Animal offers a revelatory retelling of the human story. Drawing on their unique research into the management of risk by humans and other animals – including our most impressive compatriots, elephants – Glenn Harrison and Don Ross reveal the hidden logic of our rise. But with an ecological crisis on the horizon, how long can our winning streak continue?

Samuel Daniell is the first biography of the life and work of one of the most accomplished, yet least-known artists from the era of British exploration.

His biography is a fascinating example of how art contributed to the accumulation of scientific knowledge and the extension of British imperial power.

Published as a standalone on International Woman’s Day, the essay that became a touchstone of the feminist movement and inspired the term ‘mansplaining’, with an afterword on its origins

This famous and influential essay, which describes the time when, at a party, a man explained to Rebecca Solnit the argument of her own book, inspired the term ‘mansplaining’ and established Solnit as a vital figure of the feminist movement, and one of the leading thinkers of our time. Fierce, incisive and funny, it exposes the inherent sexism of our patriarchal culture.

From invasion to liberation, September 1939 to April 1945, as Renee was marched from ghetto to camp, there was one constant. One hand that clutched hers – her mother’s. Every day for nearly six years, mother and daughter were bound together in hell. From Auschwitz-Birkenau to Bergen-Belsen, they were a powerful source of solace and hope for one another.

The strength of Sala’s love gave them both something fragile yet beautiful to cling to in an ugly, depraved world. It was her mother who hid Renee, lied to the SS, went right when she was directed left – whose small actions had life-saving consequences. Now, for Renee, the need to share has finally overcome the desire to forget.

A Mother’s Promise is a love letter to a mother eighty years in the making.

Many theories that form the bedrock of good parenting were created decades before devices even existed – they don’t consider the significant impact on a child’s psychological and physical development. The landscape of the early years has changed so quickly, yet parents and caregivers do not have access to the evidence-based, practical advice they need to manage this invasion of screens. They can see their children become addicted to devices, but don’t know what to do. Generation Zombie will fill this knowledge gap.

Through her clinical work as a psychotherapist, work with schools and as a duty of care psychologist, Dr Charlotte Armitage has witnessed the terrifying impact of screen time on her clients and their families. However, unlike other addictions, the harmful consequences of devices are not widely recognised. With the vital insights in her book – including practical tips and engaging case studies – her mission is hopeful and empowering; to enable parents to make a positive change. Away from devices, you will be amazed how quickly you notice children’s behaviour change.

In this revised and updated paperback edition, award-winning journalist John Sweeney goes behind the headlines to investigate what really happened to Alexei Navalny in the freezing Polar Wolf penal colony in a remote part of Siberia in February 2024. This is a warts-and-all portrayal of the highly charismatic but controversial Russian opposition leader who at one time flirted with the far right. Murder in the Gulag lifts the lid on the reality of life in Russia today and asks what Navalny’s death means for the future of Putin, Russia and the West.

Coming March 2025

From ancient megalodons to fearsome Great Whites, this book tells the complete, untold story of how sharks emerged as Earth’s ultimate survivors, by world-leading paleontologist John Long.

Sharks have been fighting for their lives for 500 million years and today are under dire threat. They are the longest-surviving vertebrate on Earth, outlasting multiple mass extinction events that decimated life on the planet. But how did they thrive for so long? By developing superpower-like abilities that allowed them to ascend to the top of the oceanic food chain.

John Long, who for decades has been on the cutting edge of shark research, weaves a thrilling story of sharks’ unparalleled reign. The Secret History of Sharks showcases the global search to discover sharks’ largely unknown evolution, led by Long and dozens of other extraordinary scientists.

As the tale unfolds, Long introduces an enormous range of astonishing organisms: a thirty-foot-long shark with a deadly saw blade of jagged teeth protruding from its lower jaws and bizarre sharks fossilized while in their mating ritual. With insights into the threats to sharks today, how they contribute to medical advances, and the lessons they can teach us about our own survival, The Secret History of Sharks is a riveting look at scientific discovery with ramifications far beyond the ocean.

Coming March 2025

A devastating account of the depraved crimes of the UK’s most prolific serial killer, Rose West, and an analysis of the psychology that drives someone to abuse and murder.

Rose West was, on the face of it, a typical mother living with her husband, Fred, and their children in a three-storeyed terraced house in Gloucester. But behind the building’s modest facade, 25 Cromwell Street was the scene of truly terrible crimes, an authentic House of Horror.

Inside the family home, the many young female victims lured there and the couple’s own children were subjected to horrific, prolonged sexual violence and torture. It would take decades before the Wests’ dark secrets were finally discovered, but do we know the full story of their depravity yet?Nine bodies were dug up from beneath their home, but how many victims were buried elsewhere?

Fred confessed – as a ‘gift’ to Rose – to having murdered on his own, but did he truly act alone?

Or was Rose, in fact, the driving force in their folie à deux, their shared psychosis?

True crime writers Farber and Daniel get to the bottom of these questions and more, including how the killer couple’s psychology and relationship changed over time.

Coming March 2025

Do you feel like we’re living in the end times? Does it seem like everything is on fire, and one disaster follows another?

Here’s a small comfort: you’re not the first to feel that way. If there’s one thing that people throughout history have agreed on, it’s that history wasn’t going to be around for much longer.

This book is about the apocalypse, and how humans have always believed it to be very f*cking nigh. Across thousands of years, we’ll meet weird cults, failed prophets and mass panics, holy warriors leading revolts in anticipation of the last days, and suburbanites waiting for aliens to rescue them from a doomed Earth. We’ll journey back to the ‘worst period to be alive’, as the world reeled from a simultaneous pandemic and climate crisis. And we’ll look to the future to ask the unnerving question: how might it all end?

But it’s also a book about how we live in a world where catastrophe is always looming – whether it’s a madman with a nuclear button or the slow burn of environmental collapse. Because when we talk about the end of the world, what we really mean is the end of our world. Our obsession with doomsday is really about change: our fear of it, and our desire for it, and how – ultimately – we can find hope in it.

A judgement-free, no-nonsense parenting guide that explains how you can still be a great parent (even if you didn’t have one yourself).

Licensed marriage and family therapist, and founder of the popular Conscious Mommy community on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, Bryana Kappadakunnel shows how your upbringing is probably impacting your parenting style in ways you don’t even fully recognize: from how you manage your own emotions to how you connect with your kids in their vulnerable moments. The secret to successful parenting is to UN-learn the wounded patterns you grew up with and create new ways to connect with your child.

Many of us didn’t have a perfect childhood. But it’s never too late (or too early!) to transform into the parent you were always meant to be-grounded, present, intentional, compassionate and confident. Parent Yourself First shows you how to break free of past patterns that no longer serve you and heal from generational trauma. Connect with your child, understand their needs, and guide them to the happy, healthy life they deserve.

Coming March 2025

In Peter Beinart’s view, one story dominates Jewish communal life: that of persecution and victimhood. It is a story that erases much of the nuance of Jewish religious tradition and warps our understanding of Israel and Palestine. After Gaza, where Jewish texts, history and language have been deployed to justify mass slaughter and starvation, Beinart argues, Jews must tell a new story. After this war, whose horror will echo for generations, they must do nothing less than offer a new answer to the question: What does it mean to be a Jew?

Beinart imagines an alternate narrative, which would draw on other nations’ efforts at moral reconstruction and a different reading of Jewish tradition. A story in which Israeli Jews have the right to equality, not supremacy, and in which Jewish and Palestinian safety are not mutually exclusive but intertwined. One that recognizes the danger of venerating states at the expense of human life.

Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza is a provocative argument that will expand and inform one of the defining conversations of our time. It is a book that only Peter Beinart could write: a passionate yet measured work that brings together his personal experience, his commanding grasp of history, his keen understanding of political and moral dilemmas, and a clear vision for the future.

Coming March 2025

Thousands of years ago, in a part of the world we now call ancient Mesopotamia, people began writing things down for the very first time.

What they left behind, in a vast region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, preserves leaps in human ingenuity, like the earliest depiction of a wheel and the first approximation of pi. But they also capture breathtakingly intimate, raw and relatable moments, like a dog’s paw prints as it accidentally stepped into fresh clay, or the imprint of a child’s teeth.

In Between Two Rivers, historian Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid reveals what these ancient people chose to record about their lives, allowing us to brush hands with them millennia later. We find a lullaby to soothe a baby, instructions for exorcising a ghost, countless receipts for beer, and the adorable, messy writing of preschoolers. We meet an enslaved person negotiating their freedom, an astronomer tracing the movement of the planets, a princess who may have created the world’s first museum, and a working mother struggling with ‘the juggle’ in 1900 BCE.

Together, these fragments illuminate not just the history of Mesopotamia, but the story of how history was made.

Coming March 2025

The world’s bestselling Grand Prix handbook is back for the new season.

This is the definitive guide to Formula 1 in 2025. A complete examination of all the teams racing this season, every driver and all the tracks featured in the packed Grand Prix calendar.

Also including a full review of the 2024 season and a breakdown of the new rules and regulations for 2025, this indispensable guidebook features a full breakdown of last season’s drivers’ and constructors’ world championship results – as well as a fill-in chart for 2025, so each book becomes your own personalised guide to the year’s action.

Written by bestselling F1 author Bruce Jones and containing dozens of breathtaking photographs and detailed circuit illustrations plus a statistics section highlighting the major records in F1 history, this is the only guide you’ll need for the racing action ahead.

Coming March 2025

A globe-trotting investigation into the catastrophic reality of the multi-billion-dollar global garbage trade.

Dumps and landfills around the world are overflowing. The millions of tonnes of garbage generated every day have given rise to waste wars, cons and cover ups across thousands of miles and multiple oceans. And few people have any idea they’re happening.

Roaming across five continents, Alexander Clapp delves deep inside the world of Javanese recycling gangsters, cruise ship dismantlers in the Aegean, Tanzanian plastic pickers, whistle-blowing environmentalists in the jungles of Guatemala, and a community of Ghanaian boys who burn Western cellphones and televisions for cents an hour. He reveals how most of our trash actually lives a secret second life, getting shipped, smuggled or dumped from one country onto another, with devastating consequences for the poorest nations of the world.

Waste Wars is a jaw-dropping exposé of how and why, for the last forty years, our garbage has spawned a massive global black market, one that offloads our consumption footprints onto distant continents, pristine landscapes, and unsuspecting populations.

Coming March 2025

‘I never realised that there could be such suffering in the world, and that anyone could live through it’ – from Edith’s diary, 1st July 1945

After Germany occupied the Netherlands in 1940, fourteen-year-old Edith was still filling her diary with carefree stories of school, parties and boys. But her entries soon record a darkening world. By 1942, as the Nazis escalated their persecution of the Jewish population, Edith began a bitter struggle to survive.

Hidden in plain sight but a courageous Christian family, with a German officer billeted in the next room, Edith faced the horrors of war under constant threat of discovery and betrayal. Weaving together Edith’s diaries with letters smuggled between family members and her own memories, this extraordinary memoir of ‘the Anne Frank who lived’ is a profoundly moving account of grief, loss, courage – and one girl’s remarkable belief in humanity in the face of despair.

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY ESTHER FREUD

Coming March 2025

A fascinating exploration of how to use the power of storytelling to create irresistible pitches, build passionate brand loyalty, motivate teams and lead with charisma.

Coming March 2025

In A BLACK GIRL IN THE MIDDLE, a timely, compelling, and blazingly honest essay collection, Shenequa Golding holds up her magnifying glass to both her own experiences and those of young Black women everywhere. With her trademark wit and originality, Shenequa covers identity-searching themes of white supremacy, feminism, misogyny, love, sex and heartbreak.

But this isn’t just a book about Black women’s trauma, it is also a book that embraces and celebrates the things that make Black women different. For readers of SLAY IN YOUR LANE, Candice Brathwaite and Issa Rae.

Coming March 2025

We all spend a huge amount of time trying to get people to listen to us, and despite our best efforts, we often fail. But what if the secret to influencing others was in first accepting them?

This is known as validation: the act of showing someone that you understand their experience and accept it as valid.

As both a means and an end, validation skills are proven to impact five key areas of our life: enhancing our relationships, de-escalating conflict, increasing our ability to drive behaviour change, influencing growth in others, and developing a stronger connection to self. In this groundbreaking book, Stanford University psychologist Caroline Fleck explains why validation is a catalyst for transformation, and shares her step-by-step framework to put this powerful skillset into practice.

Coming March 2025