I saw Francesca Segal in conversation with Amanda Craig at the Jewish Book Festival in March 2018 and was immediately intrigued when she said she was writing a non-fiction book about the premature birth of her identical twin daughters ten weeks before their due date. Published in the UK this week, ‘Mother Ship’ is presented as a diary of the 56 fraught days the babies (initially known as A-lette and B-lette) spent in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in the weeks leading up to Christmas 2015. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Hospital
Mother Ship by Francesca Segal
Filed under Books
Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
Having greatly enjoyed ‘Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery’ by Henry Marsh late last year, I wanted to read ‘Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine, and What Matters in the End’ by Atul Gawande, a book which formed the basis of the Reith lectures entitled ‘The Future of Medicine’ on BBC Radio 4 last year. Gawande is a writer and practicing surgeon based in Massachusetts who has published three other books about medicine. In ‘Being Mortal’, he tackles the wider issue of mortality addressing the process of aging, dying and death, without focusing on a specific area of healthcare or even his own career. Continue reading
Filed under Books
Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh
Now approaching retirement after working as a senior consultant at St George’s Hospital in London since 1987, ‘Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery’ is Henry Marsh’s reflection on a long and distinguished career in neurosurgeon. Yet the first sentence of the opening chapter is rather disconcerting to say the least, especially coming from one of the most experienced neurosurgeons in the UK: “I often have to cut into the brain and it is something I hate doing.” Having encountered a significant number of highs and lows throughout his career, it is soon clear this isn’t something Marsh has ever taken for granted. Continue reading
Filed under Books
A Little Blog of Books 
You must be logged in to post a comment.