The Language of Kindness: the Costa-Award winning #1 Sunday Times Bestseller by Christie Watson

Read Costa Award-winning author Christie Watson's incredible No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling memoir of nursing today.

'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

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.

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.

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.

Review

"If it's taken a very long time to get a memoir written by a nurse, then it was certainly worth the wait. I have rarely read anything that has moved me as much or taken me by the hand so confidently into an unknown world, teeming with life and haunted by death... A remarkable book that I will be pressing on everyone I love" (Allison Pearson The Sunday Telegraph)

"A powerful insight into the life of nurses" (Robbie Millen The Times, **Books of the Year**)

"It made me cry. It made me think. It made me laugh. It encouraged me to appreciate this most underappreciated of professions more than ever ... A gently remarkable book… it’s a privilege to have Christie as our guide" (Adam Kay Guardian)

"Wonderful" (Sebastian Faulks)

"A deeply compassionate book… It will leave you weeping as well as hopeful" (Helen Davies Sunday Times, **Books of the Year**)

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; 4th edition (3 Jan. 2019)

Language ‏ : ‎ English

Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1784706884

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1784706883

Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.8 x 2.1 x 19.7 cm

Customer reviews: 4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars    3,799 ratings

About the Author

Christie Watson is an award-winning, bestselling writer. She has a special interest in nursing and mental health having spent twenty years working as a nurse, and holds an honorary Doctor of Letters for her contribution to nursing and the arts. She is Patron of the Royal College of Nursing Foundation.

Her first novel, Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away, won the Costa First Novel and Waverton Good Read Awards and her second novel, Where Women Are Kings, also achieved international critical acclaim. Her non-fiction The Language of Kindness, was published in 2018 and was a number one Sunday Times bestseller. It was a Book of the Year in the Evening Standard, New Statesman, The Times, The Guardian and The Sunday Times. It has been translated into twenty-three languages, and spent five months in the Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller lists. It is currently being adapted for theatre and television.