Notre Dame

 

 

Notre-Dame:

The Soul of France

By Agnes Poirier

Oneworld Publications, 2020  

Do you remember where you were when the news about the dreadful fire at Notre-Dame de Paris broke? I do. I watched the television coverage in tears, following the breaking news on the ground via Twitter, contacting family and friends on social media to alert them, those of us who have visited this glorious cathedral in tears, consoling each other in whatever way possible.

This wonderful, wonderful book gives us so much: it tells the on-the-ground story of that fateful day and its aftermath, how it affected the residents of Paris, the residents of France and people from all around the world. How firefighters and many other people showed enormous yet quiet bravery, putting themselves at risk to ensure the safety of the surrounding areas, attempting to prevent the total destruction of this magnificent and utterly iconic cathedral renowned across the world, and to save  as much of the precious contents as possible - the Blessed Sacrament was saved from the Tabernacle as the fire took hold and the great relics such as the Crown of Thorns taken to places of safety.

The aftermath and aftershock was immense; the scale and cost of restoration was deemed enormous but necessary and work began as soon as it was possible and safe to do so. But why has Notre-Dame de Paris had such a huge hold on the imaginations and hearts of so many people across the world, Catholics and non-Catholics alike?  It features in art, history, architecture and so much popular culture, from books and movies to documentaries and even cartoons which use the Cathedral as a backdrop. Despite its relatively recent history of revolution and secularism, France has a long and venerable history as the Eldest Daughter of the Catholic Church, and many people were moved to tears and prayer as they gathered in horror to witness the fire.

Agnes Poirier gives us as close to a moment-by-moment account as possible, to bring us right into the middle of the intensity and sorrow of those closest to the life and work of the Cathedral and those who see and love the building every day as they go about their lives and work. She also gives us a wonderful account of the history and personalities connected to the Cathedral as she explores the historic and enduring importance of Notre-Dame to the people of Paris, France and the civilised world. 

Essential reading for anyone who loves this remarkable Cathedral!

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for giving me a digital copy of the book to read in return for my honest review.

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My Pinewood Kitchen

 

My Pinewood Kitchen:

A Southern Culinary Cure

By Mee McCormick

Published by Health Communications, Inc, April 2020

Mee McCormick has had an adventurous life, travelling widely and ending up farming at the tiny community of Pinewood, near Nashville, Tennessee. 

Multiple health problems (including Hashimotos's disease, Crohn's disease and Rheumatoid Arthritis) led her to investigate dietary methods of reducing inflammation and managing her health problems more effectively. Learning to improve the gut microbiome and its impact of disease processes made a huge difference to her life, and she passes on this knowledge in the book. 

Cooking and creating interesting and tasty meals for herself, her family and friends led to the almost inevitable start of her running a farm-to-table restaurant when her husband purchased the local Pinewood Store, and so the adventures continued.
Determined to provide a restaurant where people with food allergies and specific dietary requirements could eat safely and comfortably, without feeling awkward or being singled out, Mee had to learn to combine the quite different problems of running a cost-effective yet affordable restaurant capable of producing healthy, nutritious food which still appealed to a huge range of customers.

This book is the happy result. Wonderful, tasty and healthy recipes based on popular and traditional Southern dishes and given interesting new twists. Burgers,  Kentucky Caramel Chicken, Grilled Peach Salad with Chicken, Black Bean Chicken Chili, Pressure Cooked Short Ribs and variants of Sloppy Joes are just some of the delights of this book, not to mention the desserts......... 

Crispy Spiced Chickpea Salad with Honey Mustard Vinaigrette is on my menu for tonight.

Whether you need Gluten-Free recipes, Paleo recipes, Vegetarian & Vegan recipes, Low Histamine recipes or other variants, Mee gives tips for adapting her recipes to suit individual needs.  There is much in this book that will be easily suited for those following Keto or Low Carb eating too. This beautifully illustrated book has gone straight on my To Buy List!

Many thanks to the Publisher and NetGalley for giving me a digital copy of the book in return for my honest review.

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The Doctor Will See You Now

                                                         The Doctor Will See You Now:

The highs and lows of my life as an NHS GP

By Amir Khan

Published by Ebury Press, 20th August 2020

Dr Amir Khan is a well-known doctor who has regularly appeared on the TV show GPs Behind Closed Doors and has a large following on Twitter. Characterised by his passion for medicine, in particular the work of a GP, his Twitter feed is also full of photos of his wonderful wildlife garden, conservation information and anecdotes about his beloved mother, Mama Khan. It was, therefore, a  delight to find out about his new book and I read it from cover to cover  with great enjoyment and respect for him and his fellow GPs.

He writes of his patients with compassion, respect and in many cases, deep affection. Although names and circumstances have had to be changed to protect confidentiality, it is obvious from the stories he tells that his surgery takes enormous pains to provide as much continuity of care as possible, especially for patients of all ages with very complex and long-lasting or terminal conditions. 

The never-ending bureaucracy that swamps the NHS has had a major impact on GP workloads and paperwork takes huge amounts of time away from direct patient contact, causing frustration for patients and doctors alike.  One never to be forgotten anecdote was when he was approached in a garden centre by someone with an irritating personal rash who recognised him from TV, dropped his trousers and showed poor Dr Khan his rash in full view of other shoppers, citing his inability to get an appointment with his own GP as the reason. I needed brain bleach after reading that, and Dr Khan now goes to a different garden centre...

No matter how well you think you know the work of a GP, this book will really make you stop and think, and have a better appreciation for their work and the pressures they are under every day. This year has been especially challenging; Dr Khan's surgery was quickly directly involved on a rota system in the care of patients presenting with coronavirus symptoms at their area's Red Zone surgery and he writes movingly of his and his colleagues' anxieties and treating affected elderly patients in nursing homes, many of whom subsequently died from Covid-19. 

A remarkable and enjoyable book - moving, sad and extremely amusing in places.

Many thanks to the publishers and Net Galley for allowing me to read and review this book.

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A Tomb With A View

 

A Tomb With A View:

The Stories and Glories of Graveyards

By Peter Ross

Published by Headline on 3 September 2020

I love graveyards and churchyards and have done ever since I can remember. I always stop and visit whenever I can, and I am lucky to live five minutes away from a beautiful Norman foundation stone-built church, with a very full churchyard. All of life and death is there, from deaths in infancy to deaths in extreme old age, deaths from accidents, illness, tragedy or war, and the same is true for most burial places.

Peter Ross has produced an absorbing book based on his own extensive experiences of visiting burial places across Britain and Ireland, telling the stories of those buried there, those who study them, those who continue to visit the graveyards and why they do so.  I found huge amounts in these pages to interest me.

One would think there is a certain equality in death, but that is definitely not the case. The poor were usually buried without memorials or only very modest ones, whereas the rich could afford opulent, exotic and extremely costly burials in prestigious London cemeteries with equally expensive memorials erected in due course.  

Whether your interests lie in the Goth culture at Whitby, Commonwealth War Grave Commission's invaluable work,  burials in tiny parish churches, town cemeteries or huge war cemeteries, the burials of the famous and the infamous, the barely-remembered or the never to be forgotten characters of history or stardom, the odds are that Peter Ross has already thought of it and covered it in this remarkable book.

  I particularly liked the story of the gentleman who practised his bagpipes in his local graveyard as there was nowhere else suitable to go during the Coronavirus lock-down, but found myself perturbed by those who thought practising golf in a graveyard was acceptable, safe or in any way a good idea.  The  Rothwell Charnel Chapel was one of my favourites, as was the section about Arnos Vale cemetery in Bristol, where couples choose to get married in the chapel.....

Fascinating stuff!

Many thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for allowing me to read the book in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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The Courage To Care

The Courage To Care: A Call For Compassion

By Christie Watson

Published by Chatto & Windus, 17th September 2020

Ironically, just after I started reading this, I ended up having totally unexpected emergency surgery and a four day stay in the Intensive Care Unit of my local hospital...

I had lots of time to talk to the nursing and the medical staff about what their work was like and how difficult it had been caring for large numbers of very unwell Covid 19 patients and dealing with their families.

This book rings so very true with all that was said to me, and I am full of respect and admiration for those nurses who every day step outside their comfort zones to provide not just nursing care, but also render emotional and mental health care for patients and their families.

We tend to think of nurses as primarily working in hospitals, GP surgeries/clinics and as community nurses, but this book explores the much wider range of work that nurses do, in our prisons, in the armed forces, in schools, in parishes and communities, in specific organisations dealing with disabilities, diseases and illnesses, palliative care, bereavement support and so much more. Christie's own career as a Paediatric Intensive Care nurse means she has seen things most of us never have and never will, thankfully, and had a considerable impact on how she initially worried about her own newborn daughter before settling into an equilibrium where she knew what really, really sick was from her work and when her children were or were not truly ill. 

 Motherhood and the later lengthy adoption process of her son allow us to see her worries about raising mixed-race children and the spectre of racism which exists even in 21st century Britain. Would you have thought that black women are far more likely to die in pregnancy and childbirth than white women in this day and age in the UK?

This is a wonderful and thought-provoking book, which I enjoyed even more than her previous book, The Language Of Kindness.

#TheCouragetoCare

#NetGalley

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Keto Simple

Keto Simple:

Over 100 Delicious Low-Carb Meals That Are

Easy on Time, Budget, and Effort


By Martina Slajerova


Published in UK by Fair Winds Press,  

February 4th, 2020




I have several of Martina's previous Keto cookery books and was initially a little hesitant about requesting to review this one. I use my other two books by her reasonably regularly, but was delighted to find that this one is absolutely chockablock full of recipes that I know I will actually make, rather than just think about making 'one day'!

She is a fan of a hearty breakfast, although there are quite a few recipes in this section I would be more likely to use for Brunch or a light evening meal dish. There are still loads left to try, including a delectable  recipe for Chocolate Pancakes...

My favourite recipe? Undoubtedly the Reuben Hot Pockets. If you are familiar with making and using fathead dough or any of the variants thereof, this recipe is simplicity itself and a great substitute for a toasted sandwich when the dreaded 'bread munchies' strike.  For those who like a variety of keto breads, she provides no fewer than three variants of her famous 3 Minute Keto breads, including one made with coconut flour for those who cannot use almonds.

I have found loads of recipes I am keen to try and know that the rest of my family will also eat. To my mind, this is her best book yet. 

Many thanks to the publisher for allowing me a digital copy to read and review via NetGalley.

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Dear Life

Dear Life: a doctor's story of love and loss

By Rachel Clarke

Published in UK Jan 30th 2020 by Little, Brown

 Rachel Clarke had led a fascinating professional life as a journalist before finally becoming a doctor. From her  first introduction to death via tv shows, her father's medical anecdotes and then her own very real brushes with death by an almost fatal car accident and being present during a bombing in London, death has very much been a part of her life.

 However, for me, her work as a specialist palliative care doctor is even more gripping and fascinating to read than her life as a journalist. She brings such incredible compassion to her work, to the people she considers it a privilege to treat and help, and she argues cogently and convincingly that palliative care deserves more airtime, more funding, more public awareness and constant improvements. After all, it is a certainty that we are all going to die. How we make the most of our last days, weeks and months when given a terminal diagnosis can most definitely be improved upon by making hospice care less of a postcode/funding lottery and more of a guaranteed standard of care within the NHS.

She writes movingly of making incredibly fast wedding arrangements for people in hospices, of birthday parties, enabling very unwell people to take part in special occasions which have immense meaning for them and the over-arching importance of providing honest communication on whatever level or depth in which the terminally ill person wishes to engage with the palliative care staff.

Interspersed with her own life and work are wonderful vignettes of her GP father and her interactions with him. They are very different characters in many ways, with different views of life and politics, but their absolute respect and love for each other shines through the entire book.

How she deals with her beloved father's terminal illness and death is influenced by her own work and her work is in turn influenced by his death. He sounds a remarkable man, someone I would have loved to have met in real life, and thanks to Rachel's book, I feel as though I have.

This is a truly wonderful book, and definitely one which I will be re-reading several times.

Many thanks to the publisher for allowing me an Advance Reading Copy via NetGalley in return for my honest opinion.

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