One of our very favourite things about contemporary print culture is that there really is a magazine for everything. From bathing culture to modern witchcraft, the creativity, breadth and diversity of the magazine world never fails to amaze us.  That’s why we’ve chosen to bring you SICK magazine for your October Surprise. SICK began life as a zine-style pamphlet, produced by editor-in-chief Olivia Spring, and since its first issue, it has been a unique presence in the magazine world, dedicated to elevating the voices and experiences of chronically ill and disabled people. More

In South Korea, you can go to "prison" to relax. Sounds strange? Well, it is. You can get locked up in solitary confinement in a wellness centre designed like a prison. You lock out responsibilities, work, stress and emails and focus on your inner self. At least that's the concept. "The true prison is the world outside," says the founder of the jail-themed retreat.⁠ ⁠ For this weirdly fantastic book we want to present here, artist Tyler Coburn commissioned ten creatives to spend time in five square metres of solitude in this wellness centre - and write. They handed in their phones, exchanged their clothes for a uniform, took their rice porridge meals through a door slot and slept on the floor. ⁠ ⁠ During their time in this mock prison, they were guided in their writing by certain questions: How can the relaxation promised by Happitory be reconciled with the way solitary confinement works in real prisons? What kinds of thinking and writing are made possible by the restrictions - no books, no internet, only writing materials? How might the writing here relate to other texts produced in prison, such as those by Oscar Wilde, Antonio Gramsci, Kim Dae-jung, Shin Young-bok?⁠ ⁠ In its entirety, 'Solitary' is unique in that it is both a collection of texts and a collective artwork: an experiment in site-specific writing.⁠ Buy

"There is food within 3 metres of your front door," this book claims. Well, if you live in Berlin, you might think of a juicy falafel rather than wild herbs when you hear that sentence. Nevertheless, this is a fantastic guide for anyone who is fed up with the ever-same supermarket zucchini and aubergines. Eat Weeds will help you forage for wild foods and discover new tastes. From the forest to the sea, from the riverbank to your own garden.⁠ Buy

This wonderfully shiny book teaches us how mushrooms can feed us, heal us, free us and save our world! Wait, what?!⁠ ⁠ Think about it, the kingdom of fungi has survived all five major extinction events! They are the so-called architects of the natural world, integral to all life. They sustain critical ecosystems, recycling nutrients and connecting plants across vast areas, and help to produce many staples of modern life, such as wine, chocolate, bread, detergent and penicillin. So let's take a moment and study what these little spores can teach us. Today, in the face of urgent ecological and societal crises, fungi are being engineered to grow meat alternatives, create new sources of medicine, produce sustainable biomaterials, remediate the environment and even expand our collective consciousness.⁠ ⁠ The Future is Fungi is a complete introduction to this hidden kingdom. Exploring their past, present and potential future impact in four key areas – food, medicine, psychedelics and mental health, and environmental remediation – this book not only reveals how fungi have formed the foundations of modern life but how they might help shape our future. Rich with informative texts, 3D digital art and tips on how to immerse yourself in the world of fungi, this is a manifesto for the future, an invitation into a deeper awareness of our relationship with the natural world, each other, and ourselves. Buy

Replacement, one could say, is at odds with individualism. If something is irreplaceable, then theoretically it has more value than something that can be easily replaced. So who wants to be replaceable? Amber Husain does! Disillusioned by her first real job, the kind that brings you a pay check that sustains a life, she realises that a permanent job is not automatically a guarantee for permanent relevancy. On the contrary, it "felt causally connected to my growing doubt about the beauty and meaningfulness of life."⁠ ⁠ Fun enough humans continue to build machines that replaces human labour. Starting with the washing machine. But instead of leaning back and enjoying all that free time, we compete with robots and create useless jobs are suppose to make us feel important and needed. ⁠ ⁠ Replace Me is a celebration of the possibilities for political transformation inherent in the act of embracing one's own replaceability.⁠ Buy

On 10 June 2020, the scholar James Nwoye Adichie died suddenly in Nigeria. In this tender and powerful essay, expanded from the original New Yorker text, his daughter, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the bestselling author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun and a self-confessed daddy’s girl, remembers her beloved father. Notes on Grief is at once a tribute to a long life of grace and wisdom, the story of a daughter’s fierce love for a parent, and a revealing examination of the layers of loss and the nature of grief. ⁠ ⁠ ‘Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language’ Buy

About ten years ago, Mathias de Lattre's interest in psychedelics led him to start researching psilocybin, a naturally occurring hallucinogenic substance produced by about 180 species of mushrooms. He had an intuition that these fungi could provide an alternative to the psychiatric treatment of his mother, who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. His search took him from prehistoric cave paintings in France to traditional medicinal practices in the Peruvian jungle to psilocybin researchers in London and Zurich. Through text and images, Mother's Therapy brings together science and humanity.⁠ Buy

Society disables sick people by not considering their needs in structures or the build environment. So having sick people in creative teams would be a huge asset and is grossly underestimated. But a common barrier for chronically ill people who want to work in the creative industries is the one-size-fits-all structure of office work and the frequent subconscious assumption that all employees are able-bodied. ⁠Sick is a magazine to elevate the much needed voices of sick and disabled people. It is entirely created by sick and disabled writers, poets, designers, and artists. An illustration by Hayley Wall adorns the cover of the second issue.⁠ Buy ⁠