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I always enjoy talking to my guests about books. Sometimes I don't enjoy the book they've chosen. Often I am surprised by how much I have enjoyed something that I wasn't expecting to enjoy.  Today, though, is different to all of that. It's a real joy to welcome Ripon Ahmed back to the podcast to talk about what must be one of my all-time favourite novels featuring a doctor: The Citadel by A.J. Cronin. It is undoubtedly the book that made me know that I needed to be a GP. And I will be forever grateful for having discovered it when I was a final year medical student.  I've read it several times over the years and so much of it has stayed with me. So much of it seems really topical. And it has been such a pleasure to talk about it today with Ripon and explore the themes in the book, the storyline and how much of it is so very, very relevant to all of us working in health today.

We mentioned the Deep End movement https://www.yorkshiredeependgp.org/

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i've had the best fun setting up and recording today's podcast with Caryn Price and Georgina Benger. We are talking about a book that they have written together called Olive's Day. We also mentioned Willow's Day, which is the second in a series which we hope will be going to be. quite a big series of fabulous books written ostensibly for children but from which grown-ups can learn an awful lot.

Today's episode is all about adjustments, reasonable adjustments, pathological demand avoidance (or persistent drive for autonomy )and how we can support children and young people who have this neurotype in our encounters with them in healthcare care and beyond.


we mention the PDA society who have some great resources and support
https://www.pdasociety.org.uk/

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I'm delighted to welcome Louise Persaud to Bedside Reading today to talk about a beautiful and very thought-provoking novel. Pearl by Sian Hughes. T

"After she left, I wondered, had I been spirited it away or had she? Was I still in the real world or was this some land of bad copy? What if my mother was looking everywhere for me, calling my name?

What if I could fall backwards out of this poor faded replica of reality and land in the middle of a bed of spurge? Look up and see my mother sitting under the apple tree threading her needle to sew my name onto school clothes I would never have to wear."


This is a book told in the first person about the life of a girl whose mother has disappeared. And we think about loss and grief,  about mothering, about motherlessness. We talk about families, about imperfect heroes. There is so much to think about within this novel.

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I'm delighted to welcome Hannah Loret to Bedside Reading today to talk about Overspill by Charlotte Paradise. This is a really gripping, absolutely brilliant novel.

The blurb: Sara is 25. She's never used a tampon without having a panic attack. She starts dating Miles. Three months, they don't touch. Miles respects her boundaries, though he longs for them to melt away. Sara desires Miles, but she knows her body, or rather she knows it is an unknowable thing. Sara wants to be in love, to find a person who allows her to be herself, someone who's happy with everything she is and everything she isn't. Miles hopes he won't hurt her. But how do you navigate a relationship for which there is need? How do you love someone when your body is not your own, and how do you reclaim it? 

This is an absolutely brilliant novel. It has got a narrative around vaginismus and sexual pain,  vaginal pain at its heart but there's a lot more to it than that. And there are some fantastic characters, some really interesting evolutions of relationships.  I couldn't put it down and I think it's a book that I'm going to think about for a really long time.

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It's that strange time of year that we sometimes refer to as Twixtmas again.  I hope people have received lots of fantastic new books to start reading, have eaten a bit too much, drunk a bit too much and are starting to think about plans for 2026.  I've gathered together some friends of the podcast to have a think back over their year of reading in 2025 and to come up with a favourite book from 2025, as well as something that they are really looking forward to reading in 2026.

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A warm welcome today to emergency physician, Johnny Acheson, who is here to talk about his book, When Your Neurons Dance, which is a journey through Johnny's own diagnosis with Parkinson's disease at the age of 41. We explore some of the lessons that he has learned from lived experience of being a doctor, living and working with Parkinson's disease, thinking about the importance of exercise, community, support, education, It's a real eye opener as a book and one that I think we can all learn a huge amount from.

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The Names by Florence Knapp is undoubtedly one of my top fiction reads of 2025, if not my absolute top read of 2025. It is an astonishing first novel, which follows three different storylines, all based on what Cora names her baby boy. Will she call him Gordon? (the name chosen by her husband, also Gordon.) Will she call him Julian? Or will she call him Bear, the name suggested by his sister? This is an absolutely amazing sliding doors type of a novel with some extremely dark themes running through around domestic abuse.

It felt only appropriate to be thinking about the Doctors Association UK and Medical Women's Federation campaign about domestic abuse in healthcare care workers, how prevalent this is. And how much of a problem it can be. So slight trigger warning, we are going to be talking today about abuse, about domestic abuse, and about the effect on women and on families, as well as the huge difficulties that may arise when a perpetrator is in a position of power and privilege.

https://dauk.org/wave-of-activity-to-launch-nhs-domestic-abuse-awareness-day/

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Shred Sisters, the debut novel by Betsy Lerner, was a real highlight of my summer reading this year. It is fabulous novel about a family, particularly about two sisters, Amy and Ollie, and the effect that Ollie's mental illness has on her, on her sister, and on the wider family.


It's been a great joy today to be talking to the author, Betsy Lerner. This is Betsy's first novel, written in her 60s, suggesting that it's never too late to become a novelist. Betsy is also, unexpectedly, a TikTok star, talking about her own life experiences, her diaries, and giving some fabulous, compassionate, wise advice to younger people starting off in their lives and careers.

I absolutely adore Shred Sisters, and it's been a real pleasure to talk to Betsy about it.

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How Christmasy are you feeling? It's December now and I know for some people this is a really exciting time of year.

Today's podcast has been the best fun to record and is about a book which I absolutely adored. In fact, the only thing I didn't like about today's book is the fact that I didn't read it for the first time in December because it is a proper warm hug of a cheesy Christmas romantic comedy. That's not to say that it is without depth, but it really is just about the most perfect book to snuggle up in front of the fire with a hot chocolate and escape into and it was a huge treat to get to talk to Hayley Dunlop, the author, about it today.

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I'm delighted to welcome Professor Paul Crawford to the podcast today. We are talking about his novel, The Wonders of Dr Bent, described in the publisher's blurb as "a twisted tale of murder, revenge and abandonment."

It is sort of a crime thriller, but there's so much more to this novel. There are some beautiful characters. There are two main protagonists who skirt on the edges of health and and illness.  We see characters who are thriving professionally whilst battling with demons of their own. In the background, we have fabulous supporting cast and a real sense of what could be and what could be better if only our mental health services were not designed with the idea that people are either mad or bad or perhaps both or completely well.

Paul enables us to experience that area in between and the value of allowing people to survive and function within their own lives and be of value. It's a really interesting, gripping, thought-provoking novel, and I thoroughly enjoyed talking to Paul about it.