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Book Blog

The Interview: Tell Me the Planets, Stories of Brain Injury

Author Ben Platts-Mills and Matthew, who lives with a brain injury, discuss the groundbreaking new book, Tell Me the Planets.

Adam Kay on Taking This is Going to Hurt on Tour

The author of our Non-Fiction Book of the Month for May, This is Going to Hurt, discusses croissant accidents, awkward stories and taking his book on tour.

Five Ways to Change the Medical Profession

Psychologist and author Caroline Elton gets under the skin of a health system pushed to breaking point.

A Waterstones Exclusive Q&A with Henry Marsh

"The private healthcare system in the UK, anyway, is entirely parasitic on the NHS for the training of its staff and for bailing it out when things go wrong." Described as ‘a book about wisdom and experience’, Henry Marsh’s extraordinary memoir, Do No Harm, paved the way for a wave of new publishing that gave medicine a human face. To mark the publication of his compassionate and unflinching second book, Admissions, we present an exclusive Q&A in which Marsh considers the changing world of modern medicine, debates around end of life care and the precarious future of the NHS. 

Extract: When Breath Becomes Air

Two years following the death of its author, neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air  was posthumously published to global acclaim, working as both a candid portrait of the symptoms and treatment of cancer and as a meditative essay on what it is to prepare for death. As Being Mortal’s Atul Guwande observed, ‘the dying are the ones who have the most to teach us about life.’ As our Non-Fiction Book of the Month for January, we’re honoured to be able to present Kalanithi’s introduction to this remarkable memoir, an extract deeply affecting in itself.

Behind the Label ‘Autistic’

John Williams’ My Son’s Not Rainman is a deeply personal and hilarious book, overflowing with fascinating insights into his son’s autism. Intended not only to dispel the notion that all autistic children are geniuses,  Williams' tender and comic writing shows so clearly the astonishing, witty, charismatic boy behind the label ‘autistic’.

How comics bridged the language gap between fine art and medicine

Ian Williams' graphic novel The Bad Doctor is the culmination of a quest to marry his professional interest in medicine with his passion for art - and a belief that the two could work to compliment each other in a truly unique way.

Do No Harm - Henry Marsh

Think brain surgery and you think calm competence, clinical precision. Think again. Top neurosurgeon Henry Marsh sheds light on the chaos, confusion and self-doubt of life inside the operating theatre.