The Language of Kindness
The award-winning nursing memoir and #1 Sunday Times Bestseller
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4.5 • 185 Ratings
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
Read Costa Award-winning author Christie Watson's incredible No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling memoir of nursing today.
'It made me cry. It made me think. It made me laugh' Adam Kay, author of This is Going to Hurt and Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas
Christie Watson was a nurse for twenty years. Taking us from birth to death and from A&E to the mortuary, The Language of Kindness is an astounding account of a profession defined by acts of care, compassion and kindness.
We watch Christie as she nurses a premature baby who has miraculously made it through the night, we stand by her side during her patient's agonising heart-lung transplant, and we hold our breath as she washes the hair of a child fatally injured in a fire, attempting to remove the toxic smell of smoke before the grieving family arrive.
In our most extreme moments, when life is lived most intensely, Christie is with us. She is a guide, mentor and friend. And in these dark days of division and isolationism, she encourages us all to stretch out a hand.
'A powerful insight into the life of nurses' The Times, Books of the Year
'A remarkable book about life and death and so brilliantly written it makes you hold your breath' Ruby Wax
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Novelist Watson (Where Women Are Kings) portrays the constant chaos and deep sense of purpose she experienced while training to be and working as a nurse in England in this rewarding memoir. "Each hospital is a country, unique and separate, with an infrastructure and philosophy different from the next one," yet she shows the "language of kindness" to be a universal one among nurses. In descriptions of working on the mental health ward for the first time, of first assisting at a birth, and of carefully extricating a premature infant "from his bed of wires" to cuddle with his mother, whom he stares at "for the longest time without blinking." There's not a linear personal story to this book. It zigzags through the different wards she works in and the types of nursing she does, touches on nursing theorists, and moves back and forth in time as she passes through different life phases. The result is less conventional memoir than appreciation of a profession. "Somewhere between science and art," nursing "is all about the smallest details, and understanding how they make the biggest difference," Watson observes. Her recollections of inhabiting this in-between space are revealing and will be especially resonant for people who work in health care. Correction: An earlier version of this review misspelled the author's first name and incorrectly stated the narrative took place in the 1990s.
Customer Reviews
Recommend!
Couldn’t put this book down! Highly recommend:) makes you feel like your there!
You CANNOT beat NHS staff !
It was ok but they waffled on a bit too much about who the first ever nurse was, or ordinated from. The story’s of real life cases were interesting, but there just wasn’t enough of it. I also strongly feel that some of the things you disclosed about chemo treatment possibly causing someone to end up in anaphylactic shock, is too much for some people, especially those about to start treatment. It’s just one more thing they have to be terrified of. Some secrets in this book are things we are better off not knowing, especially those who are ill. However it wasn’t a bad bedtime read. The fact this lady is a nurse and works for our fantastic NHS I have the most amount of respect for and truly thank you from the bottom of my heart. People like you are truly worth their weight in Gold. Your Dad, I’m sure would be so proud of you and I’m sure your children burst with pride too. I pray you have the most amazing, healthy and happy life going forward, as you most certainly deserve it.
Eye opening
I purchased this book, as I am a student nurse. It is beautifully written and well researched. Really shows a day in the life for a nurse. Reading of this authors student nursing experience was really reassuring. I couldn’t put it down