Bedside Reading

Send us Fan MailImagine you could be rid of your sadness, your anxiety, your heartache, your fear.Imagine you could take those feelings from others and turn them into something beautiful.Lynx is a Grief Nurse. Kept by the Asters, a wealthy, influential family, to ensure they’re never troubled by negative emotions, she knows no other life.When news arrives that the Asters’ eldest son is dead, Lynx does what she can to alleviate their Sorrow. As guests flock to the Asters’ private island for the wake, bringing their own secrets, lies and grief, tensions rise.Then the bodies start to pile up.With romance, intrigue and spectacular gothic world-building, this spellbinding debut novel is immersive and unforgettable.I'm joined by Anna Young to discuss Angie Spoto's debut novel

Send us Fan MailIan Walsh is a Surgeon, psychosexual therapist, academic, musician and an alcoholic. We are talking about Ian's phenomenal book. The Belly of the Whale. It's quite hard to describe this book other than as the rawest most honest warts and all account of his recovery from addiction. There is so much to think about and I'm almost embarrassed to say how much I enjoyed reading it because it takes you to some very very dark places but it's a book I think I will come back to again and again. It is a book I have recommended endlessly to people I really hope that it ends up on reading lists for medical students, for nursing students, for doctors, for nurses, for anybody who is working with anyone who is an addict and recognising how common addiction is that's probably all of us.Ian and I talked about the work of the Institute of Psychosexual Medicine https://www.ipm.org.uk/Buy your copy of Ian's book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Belly-Whale-Mr-Ian-Walsh/dp/1722187344

Send us Fan MailToday's book is a slightly different type of book to actually almost anything that I've ever read before Kinder scout the people's mountain by Ed Douglas and John Beattie looks like a coffee table book. It is big. It is full of absolutely beautiful photography but also some incredibly accessible and interesting prose about the social history and the environmental history of the area around kinder scout in the Peak District. It was a real joy today to talk to Nicola Fisher about this book, what the book has meant to her, what Kinder Scout and the outdoors mean to her and how we could all do with considering these areas a lot more in our own lives.Follow Nicola on Twitter here https://twitter.com/NicolaFisherRN

Send us Fan MailIt's Valentine's Day this week and so what better way to celebrate than with a podcast that's all about sex! I'm delighted to be joined by Dr Naomi Sutton Consultant in Sexual Health and HIV at Rotherham, star of  series 1 and 2 of the E4’s ‘The Sex Clinic’ which “helps young people get their sex lives back on track” and ambassador for The Eve Appeal, a charity that raises awareness of the five gynaecological cancers, and for the FPA.  In her other other media roles, she has talked frankly about vulvas, sex in old age, HIV and other sexual health subjects, on C4’s ‘Steph’s Packed Lunch’.We are talking about Kate Lister's brilliant book A Curious History of Sex.Follow Naomi on Twitter  https://twitter.com/DrNaomiSuttonFind Kate Lister's brilliant twitter account "The Whores of Yore" here: https://twitter.com/whoresofyorewe also mentioned the brilliant bbc series "Men Up" https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001twgs

Send us Fan MailA warm welcome this week to plastic surgeon Sindhoo Rangarajan who suggested to me a fascinating book which I would absolutely not have ever come across without her recommendation.https://www.elle.com/culture/books/a37976150/exclusive-excerpt-zara-stone-killer-looks/ Sindhoo's hero/role model was Dr Elsie Inglis who is someone I think we could all do with knowing more about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsie_Inglisand we briefly mentioned the fabulous book Endell Street https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/17/endell-street-by-wendy-moore-review-the-suffragette-surgeons and also mentioned Chris Atkins' second bookhttps://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/time-after-time-repeat-offenders-the-inside-stories-chris-atkins/7522206?ean=9781838954666We talk about lookism, vulnerable patients, judgement and the line between cosmetic and plastic surgery.

Send us Fan MailWhat a treat to welcome Maddy Hover (aka the best read zombie fiction fan known to facebook) to Bedside Reading at long last.We are talking about The Good People by Hannah Kent and the challenges of raising children with a difference, the effects of poverty and judgement and why we want society to be so much better, kinder, less harsh than 1830s Ireland and how we fear this is not always the case.Kent took as inspiration for her novel the story of the death of Michael Leahy and the trial of Anne Roche who  advised for him to be bathed in the river Flesk every morning to drive out the fairies who had replaced him with a changling, sadly he died by drowning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Michael_Leahy#:~:text=Ann%20Roche%20was%20indicted%20for,the%20river%20Flesk%20every%20morning.Follow Maddy on twitter here: https://twitter.com/I_am_spottacus

Send us Fan MailDr Jen Gunter OBGYN has got to be one of my favourite social media doctors. Straight talking, easy to understand and full of wisdom and evidence based advice.  Her book The Vagina Bible had been recommended repeatedly and it was great to have the push to read it when Catie Nagel contacted me to suggest we discussed it today.Catie is a GP with a medical education research interest in Persistent Physical Symptoms. We had a great conversation about why we should not be using the phrase Medically Unexplained Symptoms, about anatomy, having good conversations, shame, explanations for patients and much more.  The whole book is brilliant though Catie and I particularly enjoyed the sections on vulvodynia and vaginismus.Follow Jen Gunter on instagram https://www.instagram.com/drjengunter/?hl=en and on Twitter https://twitter.com/DrJenGunterFind Catie on linked in https://uk.linkedin.com/in/catie-nagel-58b18452

Send us Fan MailMy Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises by Fredrick Backman was, on first reading, my least favourite Backman novel.  Is that because the others I've read are so very brilliant indeed? Or because I was missing something?I'm delighted to welcome Sara from https://intensivegassingaboutbooksblog.wordpress.com/ to bedside reading to the podcast this week.   Sara is possibly the definition of a bookworm, reading 4-5 novels a week and blogging about the majority of them. She's also a intensivist and a parent - the bibliophile superwoman maybe......

Send us Fan MailHappy New Year and welcome to season 6 of Bedside Reading!!I so enjoyed meeting John Quin in 2022 at the DotMD festival. Our paths have crossed repeatedly on Twitter and then in person at Medicine Unboxed so it was a real treat to sit down together to record this episode about his memoir Medicine Man.  John is a retired endocrinologist with a second career as an arts writer. Find him on Twitter https://twitter.com/JDMQuinI loved talking about careers, changes, storytelling, opportunities and so much more.John also has a new book out in the Arts for Health Series which is called Video

Send us Fan MailA reflective look back over 2023 and some thoughts for 2024 as I'm joined by friends of the podcast to think about their tops reads of the year and their most anticipated reads for 2023.Huge thank you to Claire McKie, Dani Hall, Anna Baverstock, Nik Kendrew, Nicola Davis, Selina Flinders, Alan Coss, Fran Boffey, Charley Baker and Derek Ochiai and Ellie Hothersall