Read our posts about Culture

31Mar

Wellcome Book Prize 2015: My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel

Camilla Nicholls

anxiety, books, culture, Wellcomebookprize

Soul

In My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread and the Search for Peace of Mind Scott Stossel uses his own experience of chronic and debilitating anxiety to examine with clarity and charm a condition that is thought currently to affect 15 percent of people in the UK.
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21Mar

Culture Tip: x + y

Jacqueline Palmer

autism, culture, films

Soul

Morgan Matthews' film x + y sensitively explores the world of autistic teenager Nathan; a film for anyone who has ever felt on the outskirts.
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18Mar

Wellcome Book Prize 2015: Do No Harm by Henry Marsh

Louise Chunn

books, career, culture, Wellcomebookprize

Soul

This book may not sound like an easy read. Chapter after chapter about the triumphs, tragedies and tribulations of a London-based neurosurgeon as he looks back over 40 years of treating serious accidents and illnesses. Blood, bone, brain and many tears. Doctors live with life and death decisions every day; they seem to be able to cut themselves off the human tragedy. But some, like Henry Marsh, can use what they see, hear, and ultimately do, to open us up to essential truths about life and what really matters. That’s why this book has made the shortlist of...
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09Mar

Wellcome Book Prize Shortlist Announced

Welldoing

books, culture

Soul

This year’s Wellcome Book Prize shortlist is an amalgam of non-fiction and fiction books that as head of judges Bill Bryson said today, are “all accessible, engaging and beautifully written”. Deciding on the six books that would make the shortlist was “like being in the world’s best book club”, said the best-selling non-fiction author. The prize, which was relaunched last year with the strap line “books for the incurably curious”, is for publications that engage with some aspect of medicine, health or illness. As Ken Arnold, Head of Public Programmes at the...
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21Feb

Iraqi Food I Grew up With is Today's Food Fad

Muna Fadhil

culture, family, nutrition

Body

Digestive health is today's big food fad. People today are discovering food allergies they were not aware of; that some foods make you young and others make you age; that changing your job, partner or lifestyle would have fixed your ailment more efficiently than being loaded up on antibiotics.     This food fashion is all over men’s and women's magazines. Flipping through them at newspaper stalls in London makes me realise that their ground-breaking discoveries are my everyday food habits since I was a child growing up in Iraq. Back then I didn't once stop to...
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18Feb

The Psychology of 50 Shades of Grey

Jacqueline Palmer

culture, films, psychology, sex

Mind

Jacqueline Palmer explores the psychology of controversial best-seller 50 Shades of Grey and the potentially damaging messages the now-movie conveys.
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07Feb

Craftivist Collective: Craft for Wellbeing

Welldoing

creativity, culture, wellbeing

Soul

As the name suggests, Craftivist Collective, founded in 2009, is a movement which seeks to combine craft and activism. Their aim is to provoke awareness and discussion of issues surrounding local and global poverty and injustice. The World Health Organisation includes “contributing to society” as one of their paths to wellbeing. This was the focus of the most recent Craftivist exhibition, which was held in Aldgate East in London. The project, titled #wellMAKING, was the culmination of more than 50 ‘stitch-ins’ held across the nation. It’s goal was to...
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06Feb

Culture Tip: Still Alice

Jacqueline Palmer

culture, films

Soul

A difficult topic, early-onset Alzheimer's is sensitively and touchingly explored in film 'Still Alice', starring Julianne Moore and Kristen Stewart.
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30Jan

Culture Tip: Whiplash

Jacqueline Palmer

culture, films, music, perfectionism

Soul

The film Whiplash examines the pressures of perfection in producing music
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23Jan

Culture Tip: PJ Harvey's 'Recording in Progress'

Camilla Nicholls

creativity, culture

Soul

PJ Harvey’s collaboration with Artangel and Somerset House, Recording in Progress, is an extraordinary insight not just into the recording of music but the making of it too. It is probably one of the most absorbing cultural experiences in London right now. An ‘architectural installation’ by Something & Son with one-way glazing allows groups of up to 45 people a 45 minute session watching PJ Harvey, her musicians, engineers and producers record her ninth album. The slight figure of Harvey stands beneath a bespoke coat of arms engrossed in her work. Her...
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