The Language of Kindness: A Nurse’s Story

★★★★

Christie Watson, Chatto & Windus, R320

Christie Watson spent 20 years as a nurse in the UK’s national health service. Her memoir walks readers through the halls of hospitals, where she deals with critically ill children, mental health patients and the elderly that society forgets. It opens with a clinical tone, gradually warming, until, by the final quarter, it is nearly impossible to read without the sting of tears. A tale that will make readers champions of nurses, while wondering why access to quality healthcare is too often reserved for the privileged.

L