Quilt on Fire

Read Costa Award-winning author Christie Watson's incredible No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling memoir of nursing today.<BR> <BR> 'It made me cry. It made me think. It made me laugh' Adam Kay, author of This is Going to Hurt and Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas<BR><BR> Christie Watson was a nurse for twenty years. Taking us from birth to death and from A&E to the mortuary, The Language of Kindness is an astounding account of a profession defined by acts of care, compassion and kindness.<BR><BR> We watch Christie as she nurses a premature baby who has miraculously made it through the night, we stand by her side during her patient's agonising heart-lung transplant, and we hold our breath as she washes the hair of a child fatally injured in a fire, attempting to remove the toxic smell of smoke before the grieving family arrive.<BR><BR> In our most extreme moments, when life is lived most intensely, Christie is with us. She is a guide, mentor and friend. And in these dark days of division and isolationism, she encourages us all to stretch out a hand.<BR><BR>'A powerful insight into the life of nurses' The Times, Books of the Year<BR><BR>'A remarkable book about life and death and so brilliantly written it makes you hold your breath' Ruby Wax

'A wildly entertaining and necessary book' Elizabeth Day, author of Magpie <BR><BR>An honest conversation about Christie Watson's journey through midlife and how to navigate new challenges of a changing body. <BR><BR>In her early twenties, Christie Watson was convinced she'd found her soulmate, in a glowing flash of light that turned out to be a tealight setting her quilt on fire. Twenty years later, her bed is burning once again... as she wakes in a perimenopausal sweat, night after night.<BR><BR>This is the story of her journey through midlife: of the joy of letting go and the pain of the morning after, of the unstoppable power of female friendship and the struggle to raise teenagers as a single parent. It lays bare the exhilaration, agony, wonder and fears of being a middle-aged woman with a wild heart, a changing body and a new set of challenges. And as her world takes on a different shape, there's something else she starts to feel: the hot flush of possibility...<BR><BR>'A must-read for every woman' Jacqueline Wilson, author of The Story of Tracy Beaker <BR><BR>'A laugh-out-loud, haunting and beautifully crafted manual' Dreda Say Mitchell, author of Say Her Name <BR><BR>'Wickedly funny, deliciously candid and deeply moving' Rachel Clarke, author of Dear Life<BR><BR>'Give Quilt on Fire to your daughter, mother, sister, friends. A howlingly good midlife battle cry' Jess Kidd, author of Things in Jars<BR><BR>'Brilliant... Like having an honest conversation with a smart and funny friend' Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of Dear Reader