Bedside Reading

Send us Fan Mail 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 web...

Send us Fan Mail 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 th...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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, t he 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 reall...

Send us Fan Mail 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 chos...

Send us Fan Mail 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 astonishi...

Send us Fan Mail 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 boo...

Send us Fan Mail It is a great pleasure today to welcome novelist Jane Campbell to Bedside Reading.  Jane is here today to talk about her first novel: Interpretations of Love. Regular listeners may know that I've talked about one of Jane's books before, which is a short story collection called Cat Brushing, which I absolutely loved and it was a treat to be sent a copy of this new book by...

Send us Fan Mail A warm welcome back today to Bedside Reading to Catriona Davis. This is Catriona's fourth time on the podcast, and it's a real treat to have her back. We're talking about All My Wild Mothers by Victoria Bennett, which is an absolutely extraordinary memoir. It is a mixture of a book about plants, gardening, and apothecary garden. I hope I've said that right. It&...

Send us Fan Mail If I'm a bit overexcitable and squealy today, it's because I'm having a proper fangirl moment talking to Dr Lucy Pollock about her second book, The Golden Rule, Listens in Living from a Doctor of Ageing . Ever since I started this podcast, Lucy has been one of my dream guests, so today really has been a dream come true in that she's very generously given up her...

Send us Fan Mail It's a first on bedside reading today in that I've got three guests rather than my customary one and occasional two. I am delighted to welcome to the podcast Beth Osmond, Eleanor Holmes and Sarah Raybould, three doctors who are also published poets. We are going to be talking today about Kathryn Bevis's beautiful collection, The Butterfly House , which on the cover...

Send us Fan Mail I am so delighted to be talking to Emily Katy, the author of Girl Unmasked: How Uncovering My Autism Saved My Life . I love talking to authors. I'm always fascinated to be talking to authors who are also health professionals. Emily is both: a psychiatric nurse and a writer. I've been following Emily on social media for quite a while, I was really excited when her book ca...

Send us Fan Mail I've got two brilliant guests with me to today, Roo Shah and Jens Foell, who have written a phenomenal book called Fighting for the Soul of General Practice: the Algorithm will see you now . This is a wonderful book, two GPs, one based in London, one based in rural North Wales writing about  patient stories and the values of relational medicine, thinking about what we are at...

Send us Fan Mail A warm welcome back today to James Thambirajah, who is here to talk to me about a book called Heart, a History by Sandip Jauhar. This is, I will confess, a book that I probably might not have picked up voluntarily but James is very persuasive, and I'm really glad I did pick it up, because once I had  I was absolutely compelled to keep reading.  Sandip Jawa is a wonderful writ...

Send us Fan Mail It's a warm welcome back to a guest today. I'm delighted to be talking to Susan Matthew about Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent. Susan came on the podcast a couple of years ago and I got an email from her out of the blue recently saying, "I've just read this book, it's absolutely brilliant, I think you'd really like it and I really need to talk abou...

Send us Fan Mail Regular listeners will know that I love talking to writers and I love poetry. So what a joy it is today to welcome Anna Davidson to Bedside Reading to talk about her debut poetry collection: Poetry for Life and Other Chronic Conditions . Anna's poems are absolutely beautiful. It's a very beautiful little book, it's got a gorgeous cover and the contents, both the poe...

Send us Fan Mail A warm welcome back to GP, educator and YouTube sensation, Dave Hindmarsh. Today we are going to be talking about Turn the Ship Around, which is a really interesting book about leadership. Don't switch off if you're not interested in leadership, there is so much here that is transferable. And the thing I really enjoyed about To Turn the Ship Around is that it is not a bo...

Send us Fan Mail A warm welcome today to podcast legend and all round inspiration Dr Rachel Morris. Rachel is best known for hosting her own phenomenal podcast You Are Not A Frog https://youarenotafrog.com/ which helps people work smarter, beat burnout, think more and overthink less.  Rachel is also a speaker, coach and former GP. Find Rachel's coaching business Wild Monday here: https://www....

Send us Fan Mail I've got a cracking episode coming up for you today. I'm delighted to be joined by Joe Thomas, a hospitalist, from Buffalo in New York to talk about the Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese. I loved Abraham Verghese first novel Cutting for Stone more than I can begin to tell you and it's a book that's got a special place in my heart because it was the first bo...

Send us Fan Mail Today's episode is all about a very short and very powerful novel by Max Porter, Shy. In 122 pages Max Porter inhabits the mind of a very troubled teenage boy called Shy.  Nicola Ennis, my guest, and I both  have quite significant life experiences of working with children and young people think that this is probably the best insight into the mind of a troubled teenage boy tha...

Send us Fan Mail A warm welcome back to a previous guest today. It's a real joy to be talking to  Professor Ellie Hothersall-Davis from the University of Dundee. We have come up with today six books which we think would be really, really good as reading material before starting a medical degree. Maybe people listening who have got children or godchildren or nieces or nephews or next door neig...

Send us Fan Mail A warm welcome back today to Victoria Kinkaid who's here to talk about Clytemnestra's bind by Susan C Wilson.  This is a modern retelling of a story from Greek mythology that of Queen Clytemenestra , unwilling wife of Agamemnon.  I really enjoyed my conversation with Victoria.  If you've not come across her before he has been on the podcast before and she was here l...

Send us Fan Mail It's a warm welcome back today to Lizz Lidbury who joins me to talk about The Seven Imperfect Rules of Elvira Carr . This is such an accessible brilliant book. It's described in a lot of reviews as being for people who loved Eleanor Oliphant and I admit I did love Eleanor Oliphant but I'm not convinced that it is so similar to Eleanor Oliphant to need to be pigeonho...

Send us Fan Mail It's a welcome back for my guest this week! I'm delighted to have Jo Maher  GP and active travel enthusiast from Sheffield one the podcast to talk about Selena Goddon's fabulous collection Pessimism is for Lightweights.   Jo and I had a great conversation about how much we love these poems. We talk about activism. We talk about the tension that there sometimes is as...

Send us Fan Mail Joining me today on the podcast is forensic psychiatrist Gill Patterson and we are talking about The Panopticon by Jenny Fagan.  This is an absolutely brilliant book which I read in a day on holiday. There are many themes which are quite dark, quite thought provoking and I think Anais, the central character, will stay with me for a very very long time.   Gill and I talk about fore...