This month we have five copies of Amy Chandler’s 2018 FSHI Prize Winning book to giveaway, entitled Self-Injury, Medicine and Society: Authentic Bodies.

This book provides an appreciative, sociological engagement with accounts of the embodied practice of self-injury. It shows that in order to understand self-injury, it is necessary to engage with widely circulating narratives about the nature of bodies, including that they are separate from, yet containers of ’emotion’. Using a sociological approach, the book examines what self-injury is, how it functions, and why someone might engage in it. It pays close attention to the corporeal aspects of self-injury, attending to the complex ways in which ‘lived experience’ is narrated.

By interrogating the way in which healthcare and psychiatric systems shape our understanding of self-injury, Self-Injury, Medicine and Society aims to re-invigorate traditional discourse on the subject. Combining analytical theory with real-life accounts, this book provides an engaging study which is both thought-provoking and informative. It will appeal to an interdisciplinary readership and scholars in the fields of medical sociology and health studies in particular.

If you are interested in receiving one of these free copies, please email BSA Membership with your name and postal address and we will pick five winners at random in October. Please note that you must be a BSA member to enter this book draw. If you aren’t a member and would like to find out how to become one and see what other benefits are available to you, please visit the Membership section on the BSA website.

Thank you to everyone that entered last month’s free giveaway for Winning the Vote for Women: The Irish Citizen newspaper and the suffrage movement in Ireland by Louise Ryan. The winners have now been chosen and notified. Congratulations to you all.