Providing a history and a beautifully illustrated practical guide to kangaroo mothering, this book explains the approach that is changing the way mothers relate to newborn babies and improving the way hospitals treat premature babies and their parents. Already used in 30 countries around the world where incubators are in short supply, kangaroo mothering has been adapted in the Western world alongside incubator care to heal the sense of isolation and helplessness both parents and babies can feel in the tense initial weeks of a baby' s life. Once a newborn baby' s heart rate and feeding have been stabilized, the babies are positioned in close skin-to-skin physical contact with their mother, or even their father, for 24 hours a day. The book explains how to use the technique and why it helps regulate the baby' s body temperature so that it can continue to grow, stimulates breastfeeding, and gives the baby a wonderful feeling of security and strengthened bonding.

In this new book, a preeminent literary thinker muses over the central question of how we can feel at home in the world, given that the world is independent of and indifferent to our wishes. Drawing on books and films, cultural history and his own experiences, Gabriel Josipovici argues that it is possible to feel comfortable in the world and in our relationships with others only if we value touch over sight, if we respect distance but also work to overcome it. Josipovici moves from a Charlie Chaplin film to passages from Proust, from the world of sport to the world of addiction, from medieval pilgrimages to the cult of relics, from a wedding photograph of his grandparents to some of Chardin's most enigmatic paintings. Through these seemingly disparate topics he provides engaging and wise commentary on connection and communication in life. Contrasting the senses of sight and touch, Josipovici notes that although sight seems to give us the totality of what we behold, it is only when we walk or feel our way across the distances that things become more than images and begin to constitute the world in which we, as touchers and not mere observers, are included. If we depend on sight - which seems to offer a frictionless domination over reality - we may avoid the pains and uncertainties of living, but we also lose our involvement with life.