Recovery

Wise and thoughtful ... this book is a practical guide to recovery from illness as well as a meditation on the practice of medicine ... I cannot think of anybody - patient or doctor - who will not be helped by reading this short and profound book -- Henry Marsh * New Statesman * A lovely little book -- Michael Rosen * Front Row * Wonderful -- Anil Seth, author * Being You * Massively healing -- Sara Sheridan * Scottish Field * Such a wise, gentle, quietly hopeful book. Exactly what I needed -- Rachel Clarke, author of Breathtaking and Your Life In My Hands Francis offers hope and a rare and precious quiet form of consolation -- Emily Mayhew * Observer * Heartfelt and persuasively argued ... Filled with compassion and warmth, the book provides both insight and succour -- Ian Critchley * Sunday Times * Excellent ... could not be more timely ... even if you are not at present ill, it is worth reading this book because the gentle guidance it gives is actually applicable to being healthy. There are things we can do that make life, even a life without pain or fatigue or anxiety, richer -- Stuart Kelly * Scotsman * Humane and thoughtful. Combining personal reminiscence, hard science and history, it explores the architecture of convalescence, rest, treatments and placebos, the healing power of nature and the transformative impact a sick note can have -- Emma Beddington * Observer * Sparkling ... uplifting * Independent * A concise and deeply felt treatise on how, faced with inevitable illness and finitude, we might better live and how medicine might help others better life * The Lancet * The book really shines ... it is worth reading this book because the gentle guidance it gives is actually applicable to being healthy * Yorkshire Post * Short but sagacious ... never has the publication of a book been more timely and welcome * On-Magazine *

Gavin Francis has worked across four continents as a surgeon, emergency physician, medical officer with the British Antarctic Survey and latterly as a GP; he has described the pandemic response of 2020 as the most intense period of his twenty-year career in medicine. He's the author of the Sunday Times bestseller Adventures in Human Being, Shapeshifters, and Intensive Care. He also writes for the Guardian, The Times, the London Review of Books and Granta.