Find your sisu: the Finnish concept of resilience, grit, and determination Finnish-born writer Katja Pantzar was raised and educated in Canada, where the consumerist and materially obsessed culture left her feeling empty and unhappy. When she received treatment for depression in her mid-20s, the doctor treating her simply prescribed medication and sleeping pills, with no thought given to her lifestyle. After moving to Finland, Katja discovered sisu: the Finnish approach to well-being defined by a special kind of resilience, grit and courage. She embraced this way of living and experienced a dramatic turnaround in her health and happiness. Simple, functional exercise (as simple as riding her bike to work), the Nordic diet, spending time in nature and taking up cold-water swimming together with a more courageous outlook all served to transform Pantzar's life: her anxieties, fatigue and pain left behind in the sea. In Finding Sisu, Pantzar offers an honest (no place is perfect - Finland is not an exception) and uplifting account of her physical and psychological health transformation from a slightly lethargic depressive into an energetic optimist. She examines the link between sisu and the Nordic reputation for excellent wellbeing and overall life satisfaction, and looks at the ways in which we, too, can apply sisu to our lives - wherever we may be. Finding Sisu is a personal but also practical approach to the power of this 500-year-old philosophy and how it can help us all to lead healthier, happier - and braver lives.

The man behind Purple magazine is the chronicler of his generation, exposing the lifestyles of the creative elite through his intimate, autobiographical photographs. Purple magazine has gained cult status during the span of its twenty-year history, and its editor Olivier Zahm has become a celebrity in the international fashion world. Notorious for his obsessive photographic documentation of his life and surroundings, which he shares daily with a huge fan base on his blog purple DIARY, Zahm said to the New York Times in 2010, Even in the bedroom I have my camera, I sleep with my camera, I have lunch with my camera, I go to dinner with my camera and I'm recording my experience. Presented in the form of a free-flowing personal scrapbook, the book follows Zahm through a fantasyland populated by the artists, socialites, models, and celebrities who regularly appear in his magazine, such as Terry Richardson, Karl Lagerfeld, Andre Saraiva, Dash Snow, Lindsay Lohan, Chloe Sevigny, Daphne Guinness, Carine Roitfeld, Nate Lowman, Leigh Lezark, and Kate Moss. His idealistic belief in creative and sexual freedom is made evident in the many nude portraits of female friends and lovers. This voluminous book is an important historical document of our times, exposing the lifestyle and inspirations behind Purple magazine, which has had a profound influence on the approach to contemporary fashion photography.