48-51 Broad Street
Oxford
OX1 3BQ
Blackwell’s are delighted to welcome to the shop Joanna Cannon who will be in conversation with Lucy Atkins on her new memoir Breaking and Mending: A junior doctor’s stories of compassion and burnout.
The unforgettable memoir from the bestselling author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep and Three Things About Elsie
‘A few years ago, I found myself in A&E. I had never felt so ill. I was mentally and physically broken. So fractured, I hadn’t eaten properly or slept well, or even changed my expression for months. I sat in a cubicle, behind paper-thin curtains and I shook with the effort of not crying. I was an inch away from defeat… but I knew I had to carry on. Because I wasn’t the patient. I was the doctor.’
No sleep, skeleton support, a head full of anatomy lectures and idealism: this is life for our junior doctors in their first few years on the wards. Here, Joanna Cannon tells her own story in visceral, heart-rending snapshots. We walk with her, facing extraordinary and daunting moments and meeting her patients: from attending her first post-mortem, learning the overwhelming power of a well or badly chosen word, sitting with a young woman in her final hours, to small sustaining acts of kindness and connection.
These moments teach her that emotional care can be just as critical as restoring a heartbeat – and eventually lead her to her true home in psychiatry. Deeply moving, warm, compassionate and beautifully written, Breaking & Mending shows us why we need to better care for mental health – and for those who care for us.
Joanna Cannon worked as a psychiatrist and wrote her bestselling debut novel, The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, in NHS hospital carparks during her lunchbreaks. In 2017, she delivered the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ President’s Lecture. Though she returns to the wards as a volunteer with the NHS Arts for Health programme, Joanna is now a full-time writer and in 2018 her second novel, Three Things about Elsie, also became a bestseller and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Lucy Atkins is the award winning author of The Night Visitor, The Missing One and The Other Child. She has also written widely on health issues, including The Cancer Survivor’s Companion and How to Feel Better. Lucy is a critic and journalist and is based in Oxford.
Tickets for this event are £5. Doors will open at 6.45pm when there will be a small bar available to purchase drinks. For more information, please contact our Customer Service Desk on 01865 333 623 or email [email protected]