{"title":"Anna Jacobson","description":"\u003cp\u003eAnna Jacobson’s work spans a compelling intersection of \u003cem\u003eArts \u0026amp; Culture\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003ePolitics \u0026amp; Current Affairs\u003c\/em\u003e, offering sharp insights into the complexities of modern life. Her writing is marked by a blend of personal reflection and incisive social commentary, inviting readers to engage deeply with pressing cultural and political themes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith a style that balances memoir with critical analysis, Jacobson’s titles explore identity, memory, and activism, making her an essential voice for those interested in contemporary biography and the nuanced stories that shape our world.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"anxious-in-a-sweet-store-by-anna-jacobson-9780645536843","title":"Anxious in a Sweet Store","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnna Jacobson mixes up the fiercely serious with the whimsical in her second book of poems, exploring a daily life of navigating small rituals and routines along with anxiety, a crippling companion.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAnxious in a Sweet Store\u003c\/em\u003e is Anna Jacobson's second illustrated poetry collection where the 'sweet', whimsical, humorous, and quirky is juxtaposed with the 'anxious' forces of mental illness within the disabling mental health 'care' system.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDip into this collection as you please, pick and choose, or devour the whole lot from start to finish. You are invited to take lessons in anxiety, play a French horn, learn how to photograph poets, and haunt a seclusion room in a psychiatric ward. Themes of food, family, dreams, and culture crystallise, while the poet's mind is fizz bang sherbet on the tongue.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAnxious in a Sweet Store\u003c\/em\u003e is an inventive collection of poems that build and enrich each other across threads of music, anxiety, and observation from a writer who wants her voice heard so others feel less alone in their experiences.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'Unfolding tenderly and peppered with observational humour, \u003cem\u003eAnxious in a Sweet Store\u003c\/em\u003e is an intimate and insightful collection about the mind, about family, and about the beauty and complexity in daily life. Anna Jacobson lights up the dark. This gift of a book had me smiling and tearing up.' - Ellen van Neerven\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46830101790956,"sku":"9780645536843","price":30.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/22814003482417.jpg?v=1758273432"},{"product_id":"how-to-knit-a-human-by-anna-jacobson-9781761170041","title":"How to Knit a Human","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eShortlisted, 2025 Shalom Collective Australian Jewish Writer Awards, Leslie and Sophie Caplan Award for Jewish Non-Fiction\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eShortlisted, 2025 Shalom Collective Australian Jewish Writer Awards, The Jewish Independent Award for Young Jewish Writers\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eShortlisted, 2024 Queensland Literary Awards, The Courier-Mail People’s Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eI want to know what it was like to have crossed into the realm of madness. After all, I did it. I went mad. Why can't I have the secret knowledge that comes with it?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHow do you write a memoir when your memories have been taken? She awakens in hospital, greeted by nurses and patients she doesn't recognise, but who address her with familiarity. She decides to untangle the clues.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eHow to Knit a Human\u003c\/em\u003e is Anna's quest to find her self and her memory after experiencing psychosis and Electroconvulsive therapy in 2011, at the age of twenty-three. As the memory barriers begin to crumble, Anna weaves her experiences around the gaps of memories that are still not accessible. Anna writes and creates art on her own terms. This book is a reclamation of story and self.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eHow to Knit a Human\u003c\/em\u003e is a precise and searching memoir that illuminates the fragile balance that can exist between memory and one's sense of self. The writing reflects superbly on the profound impact of memory loss caused by psychosis and its treatment, and shows us how storytelling can form part of healing through the sharing of experiences and a deeper understanding of them.\u003c\/strong\u003e - Kri Gslason\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIn this wise, wry and moving memoir Anna Jacobson reclaims her self from the institutions that sought to define her. As she asks vital questions about care, memory and inheritance, Jacobson reminds us of the recuperative joy of creative life.\u003c\/strong\u003e - Mireille Juchau\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThis book is a revelation. If Leonora Carrington teamed up with Janet Frame you might get something close to the kind, gentle, weird and brutal brilliance of \u003cem\u003eHow to Knit a Human\u003c\/em\u003e. Anna Jacobson has shifted my perspective on art and illness. 100 stars. Bravo!\u003c\/strong\u003e - Kris Kneen\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eHow to Knit a Human\u003c\/em\u003e is a visceral and immersive memoir carefully crafted as well as genre-bending. Jacobson delves deep into her own unquiet mind only to emerge artistically victorious. A triumph.\u003c\/strong\u003e - Lee Kofman\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBlazing, incantatory and furious, this is a work of unshakeable witness. Jacobson sorts through the shapes and shades of memory, dropped stitches and invisible repairs, to forge a blazing work of consolation and recuperation, a paean to resilience and creativity.\u003c\/strong\u003e - Felicity Plunkett\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eHow to Knit a Human\u003c\/em\u003e, Anna Jacobson gives us a sheaf of home-made X-rays that net interior light. Her ability to stand both inside and outside of memory as an encased form has allowed Anna a rare set of insights, something akin to planting seeds in the air, that initially subsist then quietly grow under the moisture in her own breath. As writer, artist and musician, it is fortunate that Anna has the intellectual, emotional, familial and spiritual machinery to approach memory (as itself and herself), in a way that she can watch the pieces of the existential jigsaw move inside the box without her even touching them.\u003c\/strong\u003e - Nathan Shepherdson\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThis is a warmly engaging story that doesn't shy from the harsh realities, but weaves it all into a satisfying fabric... Jacobson writes and creates art to help herself heal, and with \u003cem\u003eHow To Knit A Human\u003c\/em\u003e, she hopes to help others who struggle \"feel less alone\" with their experiences. With this work, I think she's achieved both.\u003c\/strong\u003e - \u003cem\u003eTasmanian Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIt's through her creative practice, through knitting together the threads of art and memory, that she is able to assert her lost autonomy - and to write this moving memoir.\u003c\/strong\u003e - Catriona Menzies-Pike, \u003cem\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA concentrated, strikingly poetic portrait of someone descending into what she calls her \"madness\". For much of the book [Jacobson] employs the third person and refers to herself as \"she\", a distancing strategy that often chillingly accentuates the eerie, intensity of the experience. Like a kind of magic lantern show, Jacobson takes the reader inside the mind of the subject, to hauntingly powerful effect.\u003c\/strong\u003e - Steven Carroll, \u003cem\u003eSydney Morning Herald \/ The Age\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eHow to Knit a Human\u003c\/em\u003e is a meticulously constructed documentation of \"madness\", institutions and the reclamation of one's memories.\u003c\/strong\u003e - Fiona Murphy, \u003cem\u003eThe Saturday Paper\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46843974713580,"sku":"9781761170041","price":94.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/1001563482815.jpg?v=1758822778"},{"product_id":"all-rage-blaze-light-by-anna-jacobson-9780645984095","title":"All Rage Blaze Light","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNew poetry from the author of \u003cem\u003eAnxious in a Sweet Store\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAll Rage Blaze Light\u003c\/em\u003e, Anna Jacobson's third fiery illustrated poetry collection, is for anyone who has ever needed therapy from their therapy. Join Anna in escaping darkrooms to become a colour artist, dancing with pianos resisting magnetism, surviving rentals on the same street as your therapist's office, becoming trauma's apprentice, learning to say—don't tell me how to breathe, crossing through yellow lines to paint with golden thread, and above all, witnessing how words and art can heal and provide solace.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTraversing emotional registers with sharp observation and wit, Anna's poetic voice is experimental in style and form as she powerfully navigates and connects moments with light. Sharing recognition and an understanding with readers about the frustrations of seeking help, this blazing poet digs for agency.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47075876339948,"sku":"9780645984095","price":30.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/27286523482417.jpg?v=1765188328"},{"product_id":"amnesia-findings-by-anna-jacobson-9780702262586","title":"Amnesia Findings","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAmnesia Findings\u003c\/em\u003e, by Anna Jacobson, is the winner of the 2018 Thomas Shapcott Prize for Poetry.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eNow I knit myself back into a human. It's hard work relearning the steps - slip-stitch, drop-stitch, pick-up stitch, loop. I get into a rhythm. The pattern is complex - I drop a few stitches. The holes form gaps in my memory.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eKnitting visions and memories, Anna Jacobson's collection traces the skeins of lost histories and the spaces of dropped stitches. Exquisite and whimsical, these poems bear witness to the broken and healed. Gentle but robust, these are poems of personal resilience, framed by explorations of Jewish culture and family and fuelled by a boundless and exhilarating imaginativeness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47423757648108,"sku":"9780702262586","price":30.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/61HcnlIJsCL._SL1500.jpg?v=1774429764"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.pro\/collections\/anna-jacobson.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}