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Today's book is one like nothing else I've ever read. It's a real treat to talk to liaison psychiatrist Amy Gledhill about In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Mercado. This is an extraordinary memoir. It is incredibly beautifully written and it is ostensibly about a controlling and abusive relationship with the complicating factor of being a queer relationship. There's much more to it than that. It is incredibly beautifully written, very very short chapters, so incredibly readable and
quick and though deep and one that you might well want to go back to again and again. 

There is so much learning and reflection in the book and I've really really enjoyed exploring it with Amy.

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It's a huge treat today to welcome Chella Quint OBE to Bedside Reading. Chella is a period activist and educator from Sheffield and she is the author of two absolutely wonderful books including Own Your Period: a fact-filled guide to period positivity which I think is quite possibly one of the best non-fiction books for young people that you could ever want to read. It is phenomenal for older people as well and for grown-ups, for doctors, for anybody, definitely definitely one to put on your Christmas list  to give to lots of people. It's a book that debunks so many period myths and answers so many potentially unanswered questions. 

I had a great conversation with Chella.  Please do follow her period positive  website https://periodpositive.com/

and and her social media:
https://www.instagram.com/period_positive/

https://twitter.com/PeriodPositive

https://www.facebook.com/periodpositive/

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A warm welcome today to former GP and now headache specialist, Dr Janice Heath, who joins me today to talk about The Outrun, Amy Liptrot's memoir of alcoholism, addiction, recovery and living in Orkney. It's a really beautiful book which has been made into a very recent film starring Saoirse Ronan and the storytelling and the imagery in the book are absolutely stunning. (Janice has watched the film. I haven't yet. I've seen the trailers though and actually the images seem just as Amy describes them and in her beautiful, beautiful writing.) There's a lot to think about here in terms of thinking about addiction and recovery:  addiction and the path through from chaos into something manageable. I really enjoyed talking to Janice much in the same way that I really enjoyed the book.

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It's a welcome back today to psychiatrist Gill Patterson, who's here to talk about the Scottish Book Trust's Book Week Scotland publication of 2024, which is called Hope. This is a collection of true stories written by people from Scotland. The Scottish Book Trust produce 65,000 free copies of Hope which are available in Scotland or from the Scottish Book Trust website https://shop.scottishbooktrust.com/products/hope-book It was brilliant to talk to Gill both about her own story that is featured in this collection and about what this collection means and why the Scottish Book Trust are such a fabulous organisation.

We mentioned some resources around perinatal mental illness

RCGP perinatal toolkit https://elearning.rcgp.org.uk/mod/book/view.php?id=13115&chapterid=606

RCPsych https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mental-health/mental-illnesses-and-mental-health-problems/post-natal-depression

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It's a real joy today to welcome GP Eugenia Lee back to Bedside Reading to talk about Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See, which is a fabulous novel. It's historical fiction based on the true character of Tan Yunxian who was a doctor in 15th century China . She lived to the ripe age of about 92 and published a book of her cases in 1511. That book survived into the current day and Lisa See has picked that up, and what is known of Lady Tan and then created this fabulous historical novel. It's a really, really good read and I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Eugenia about it.

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It was a huge honour to get an email from Rachel Zimmerman's publicist asking if I would consider reading a pre-publication copy of her new book, Us After, and to have Rachel on the show. Us After is the astonishing memoir of Rachel and her daughters' lives after the death of her husband Seth by suicide.

Before you think this is all going to be very, very depressing, it really isn't. It's an incredibly important and insightful book which Rachel describes as being "a little window for those people who say, 'I can't imagine what it must have been like'" because she wanted to give other people a sense it. There's family life. There are tears. There is the incomprehensible death of her beloved husband and through it so much optimism and hope and a sense of needing to move forwards. I absolutely loved Us, After and I have really, really enjoyed talking to Rachel.

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Welcome to the first episode of season 8 of Bedside Reading!!

I am delighted today to welcome Martin Billington back to Bedside Reading to talk about you don't have to be mad to work here, the memoir of Benji Waterhouse, NHS psychiatrist and stand-up comedian.

It was great fun to hear Benji talk about his book and when I saw him live a couple of years ago and and I was really excited when the book came out that I really desperately wanted to read it. It didn't disappoint and it was really interesting to talk to Martin.  We explore the power of humour, the power of black comedy, recognition of the stresses that people, particularly those working in mental health services, are under, and the value and power of storytelling to make sense of what is going on in our lives. It's a brilliant book and I really, really enjoyed talking to Martin about it.

Martin has his own podcast "So what happened to us all?" listen here: https://martinbillington1.podbean.com/

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It's a rewind episode today. I think lots of people have been watching the incredible season three of Heartstopper on Netflix. If you haven't, you certainly should. If you've not discovered Heartstopper at all, you've got such a treat if you want to binge all three series (or better still to pick up the wonderful graohic novels by Alive Oseman).

 I've chosen to bring back an episode, an episode that's actually been one of the most downloaded episodes of Bedside Reading ever,and that is me talking to GP Ellie Corso about one of the Heartstopper associated novellas:  This Winter.  This short and brilliant novella features in series three of Heartstopper as one of the episodes, I think episode five in the current series. It is such a wonderful short novel, there is so much to talk about and I think with all the Heartstopper fever we have around at the moment it's only right to bring it back. Enjoy.

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A warm welcome today to Rebecca Henleywillis, who describes herself as a "Patchwork GP". Listen on to find out what a patchwork GP is. (spoiler: I love the term and I think I'm going to start using it myself fairly soon.)

This is the final episode of season seven of Bedside Reading, and we are talking about Strong Female Character by Fern Brady. This is an astonishing memoir. Fern Brady is a comedian. Many of you may have seen her on Taskmaster. She is articulate. She is funny. She is capable. She is autistic. 

This book explores her life, some of the challenges she's had, and her late diagnosis of autism. It was really, really good to talk to Rebecca and think particularly about autism in women but also autism as a later life diagnosis and thinking about adjustments, families,  the myriad of ways that we can make things better or worse for people. We also spent some time thinking about autism in healthcare professionals and how easy it is to miss and how important it is to ask the right questions. I've loved revisiting this book and I've thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Rebecca.

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Trigger warning: baby loss

This episode is especially for baby loss awareness week. Tamarin Norwood's incredible book about her son Gabriel

In the Lancet:

Wakley Prize Essay in the Lancet (2021)
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02690-8/fulltext 

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02797-5/fulltext

About the book online:

If you want to buy the book: https://theindigopress.com/product/the-song-of-the-whole-wide-world/)

(or on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Song-Whole-Wide-World-gut-wrenching/dp/191164873X)

Essay in the Sunday Times: https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/article/how-losing-my-baby-changed-my-idea-of-motherhood-r8jvdlcjb

Essay in the Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/baby-loss-ronaldo-child-grief-b2060596.html

Reviews of the book in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/28/grieve-child-book-tamarin-norwood-memoir-pregnancy-death 

the TLS: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/regular-features/in-brief/the-song-of-the-whole-wide-world-tamarin-norwood-book-review-julia-bueno

and T&F journal Life Writing: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14484528.2024.2384755 

The book and other writing-related work in healthcare: 

• THE SONG OF THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD been added to medical and midwifery curricula in the UK (Cambridge University and Warwick Med School) and in Australia (Newcastle School of Nursing and Midwifery), and is now gifted to bereaved families by one baby loss charity (Held In Our Hearts) and was a World Book Day recommendation by Sands, the UK's principal baby loss charity. It is the subject of two case studies exploring the role of literature in compassionate healthcare training, to be presented at the upcoming NHS NES Conference.
• 'FROM THE HEART' NOTELETS are packs of note cards with memory and writing prompts for parents whose baby has sadly died. These were created by Tamarin Norwood and Scottish baby loss charity Held In Our Hearts with HEIC funding, and are now provided for bereaved parents across 5 NHS Boards in Scotland as part of their baby loss support, and are increasingly being taken up by hospitals in England including Great Ormond St Hospital. 

https://www.lboro.ac.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2023/march/baby-loss-writing-resources-tamarin-norwood-study/ 

 I proposed these notecards in the following article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14484528.2021.1871705

Contact:
[email protected] 
@TamarinNorwood on