Hearing others’ voices, a new book series for young adults by Balestier Press

Hearing Others’ Voices is a transcultural and transdisciplinary book series edited by British anthropologist Ruth Finnegan and Taiwanese physicist Roh-Suan Tung. The books are designed, in easy-peasy language, to enlighten and attract general readers, undergraduates, young adults and, above all, teenagers about recent advances in thought, overlooked areas of the world, and key issues of the day.

The general editors of Hearing Others’ Voices, Ruth Finnegan and Roh-Suan Tung, have done a tremendous job in eliciting books that tackle perpetual topics of interest such as mental health, the nature of the universe, of music and of storms, shamanism, voices of the Christian west, and our awesome minds and bodies.

The books in the series provide introductions, accessibly written (often illustrated, and linked to audio-video internet material), to the latest insights into fascinating and perpetual topics such as the different ways pain has been handled in the past and present, the history of children, the make-up of our incredible bodies, and much much more. They also reveal something of the wisdom of the often dismissed traditions of, for example, Amazonia, native Australia, and Africa, bringing a wider understanding and ownership of who we are, and how the world has come to be as it is.

With some similarities to the Oxford University Press ‘Very Short Introductions’, but shorter and more immediately readable, and to the popular English Ladybird books for a younger age group but more interactive and personally challenging than either, the books will be particularly suitable for young adults’ school and/or personal reading, and a perfect resource for mind-opening general studies in students’ final school year. They are designed to stimulate readers’ curiosity and provide the material and the insights to start addressing blind spots in self- and cultural-awareness.

The suggestions for further (tougher) reading for those who want to take their understanding further will be an invaluable tool for readers, including those at or preparing for university. 

A notable, and unusual,  feature is the interactive element in the form of discussion questions, suggested mini-projects, and audio-visual Internet links and/or customised blogs on the publishers’ website where readers are invited to contribute and interact.

The aim is to bring the material home to the personal interests of each and every reader, and help them grow. 

Each book is by an acknowledged expert eager to communicate outside the too often closed realms of academe, or by practitioners, sometimes themselves young, who  speak directly from their own experience. No empty pontificating from on high!

General readers and beginning undergraduates too will find much to interest them, set out in straightforward but not simplistic or patronising terms. 

Not so much textbooks as sites for reflection and challenge, books in the series give readers a unique path into greater cognizance of our wonderful world, far and near, east and west, past and present. There are plans to issue some as audiobooks and to translate key titles into world languages, starting with Chinese. 

The series logo has been created specially for Balestier Press by the celebrated designer Rob Janoff, the creator of the Apple logo and a keen supporter of the series’ aims.  We expect his logo to play well with a young adult computer-mad audience. 

Among other titles, the series will include  the inspirational ‘For peace: voices against the fog and blood of war’, a collection from across the world and the centuries; ‘Grass: the miracle from the earth’; ‘Learning  from Native American science’; and the remarkable ‘Listen to the beginning of the universe and what it means’ (with audio).

Other upcoming books by acclaimed experts and practitioners include ‘Teams, voices from the field’ by two New Zealand experts from  sport and from urban planning; ‘Amazonia, the authentic voice of a shaman’, ’Decisions, decisions, decisions – with love: voice from the headteacher’s study’, ‘Listen to your feet’ by a podiatrist and sports physiotherapist,  ‘Time for the world to learn from Africa’ by  Africanist Ruth Finnegan, ‘“Dear Lulu”, a letter God might have written’  by Lord Rowan Williams, FBA (Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of all England  2002-2012), and ‘Listen world! music’s reverberating sounds’,  by Dame Evelyn Glennie CH, virtuoso percussionist.

Though obviously presenting relevant and necessary information and in this sense educational, the prime aim is to engage rather than instruct. Young people, like their elders, need to know, and reflect on, who they are, how they have come to be like that, how the world is, how and why it has come to be as it is. and where, in their hands, it may be going.