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Imprint: Penguin
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Published: 05/03/2020
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ISBN: 9780141986432
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Length: 272 Pages
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Dimensions: 198mm x 16mm x 129mm
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Weight: 202g
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RRP: £9.99
What Dementia Teaches Us About Love
A SUNDAY TIMES, NEW STATESMAN AND FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
'Immensely powerful . . . her investigation of this terrible illness is sensitive and compelling' Sunday Times
After her own father's death from dementia, the writer and campaigner Nicci Gerrard set out to explore the illness that now touches millions of us, yet which we still struggle to speak about. What does dementia mean, for those who live with it, and those who care for them?
This truthful, humane book is an attempt to understand. It is filled with stories, both moving and optimistic: from those living with dementia to those planning the end of life, from the scientists unlocking the mysteries of the brain to the therapists using art and music to enrich the lives of sufferers, from the campaigners battling for greater compassion in care to the families trying to make sense of this 'incomprehensible de-creation of the self'.
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Imprint: Penguin
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Published: 05/03/2020
-
ISBN: 9780141986432
-
Length: 272 Pages
-
Dimensions: 198mm x 16mm x 129mm
-
Weight: 202g
-
RRP: £9.99
Reviews
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Immensely powerful . . . an incisive and compelling read. Gerrard, a crime novelist and former journalist, visits the "fresh hell" of hospitals across the UK, and interviews sufferers and those whose lives have been indelibly shaped by the diagnosis of a loved one . . . As well as being part-memoir and part-reportage, What Dementia Teaches Us About Love is also a great part philosophical inquiry into the nature of self and what it is to be human.
The Sunday Times
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Essential reading about love, life and care
Kate Mosse, author of Labyrinth
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An extraordinarily luminous book, at once terribly sad and frightening but also somehow hopeful and energising.
Nick Duerden, Independent
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Nobody has written on dementia as well as Nicci Gerrard in this new book. Kind, knowing and infinitely useful
Andrew Marr
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Gerrard ranges widely and wisely, raising questions about what it is to be human and facing truths too deep for tears
Blake Morrison, poet and author of And When Did You Last See Your Father?
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This is a tender, lyrical, profound, urgent book . . . Gerrard has penned a treatise on what it is to be human
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, columnist and author
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Evocative and powerful, shining a light on a world which is often hidden and misunderstood
Jane Cummings, Chief Nursing Officer for England
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Gerrard writes beautifully, encyclopaedically and with humanity
Nicholas Timmins, senior fellow at the Institute for Government and the King’s Fund, honorary fellow of Royal College of Physicians, author of Five Giants
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Nicci Gerrard exudes understanding of the breadth, scale and complexity of the dementias and the challenges they pose for society. Yet she communicates simply, personally and practically as if speaking individually to each of us
Sebastian Crutch, Professor of Neuropsychology, Dementia Research Centre, University College London
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Nicci Gerrard writes with power, insight, empathy and extraordinary beauty about the world of dementia . . . and demonstrates how we can address the fear, despair and ignorance that has accompanied its spread
Paul Webster, editor of the Observer
