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I'm taking a little break from recording podcasts over Easter, and I'm really excited that I'm actually going away for a few days.  I've got a lot on my to-read pile, which I'm going to be taking with me. Some electronically to avoid filling up my suitcase too full, and some fabulous hard copies of some novels that I am absolutely desperate to read. 

So what's coming up in season 12? There's an eclectic selection so far.  I've had some amazing emails from publishers and agents about books which are coming out over the next few months. And I am looking forward to reading a book called Six and a Half Days in the City by Isaac Grijalva. This looks to be a really exciting novel written by somebody who is a paramedic in the the USA based in the world of emergency care and I really love the idea and of thinking about a bisexual burnt out EMT called Cameron preparing for a much needed New York City trip, staying with his two best friends whilst exploring the city. His vacation is shadowed by unresolved trauma...  N
 I was also approached by a fabulous publicist and who often puts me in touch with some really, really cool authors. A big thank you to Ana for recommending to me a novel which comes out in May, which is called Waiting on a Friend by Natalie Adler. This is 1980s historical fiction looking at the AIDS crisis in 1980s New York and particularly thinking about the role that lesbians played in the crisis and that sort of unsung role of friends and carers. The final new book and author that I'm really, really excited about and is a work of nonfiction, which is called Born at the Gates of Hell by obstetrician Maria Milland, who spent nine months working in the Al-Hol refugee camp in Syria. Born at the Gates of Hell, is her book detailing that experience. It's just been published. and And I am really, really looking forward to reading it and talking to Maria.

Of course, I've got lots of non-author guests coming on.  I'm really delighted to be welcoming back some old friends and as well as some new people. So I really love Malcolm Gladwell and I was really excited when Sarah Marwick got in touch and asked me if I'd like to talk about The Revenge of the Tipping Point. So that's definitely coming up.

There are a couple of fabulous novels that people want to talk about.  Most particularly, I'm really looking forward to talking to Alice Deasy about Cutting for Stone by Abraham Vergese which I think must be one of the novels that's really stayed with me and one of the ones that I just assumed when I started the podcast that someone would want to come on and talk about. . I know i have talked about his amazing second novel, Covenant of Water, but it's really exciting to be able to be talking about Cutting for Stone with Alice.

We've got some nonfiction and the really fascinating book Sociopath by Patrick Gagne, which I very much enjoyed reading. And I'm really excited and to have psychiatrist Claudia Camden-Smith coming on to talk about that.

I'm also welcoming a couple of people who I feel that know through some online education work, much less through podcasting, and who are going to come on and talk about some books which I think sound fabulous. So I'm really looking forward to talking to Lee David about a book called Defy, which I think is really going to be something that is going to have a lot of themes in it and that are really going to work for us. And Lee has got her own podcast, which is called The Choice Space, which I have thoroughly enjoyed exploring. And so I'm really excited to get her to guest with me. I'm also really looking forward to talking to Michael Killshaw about Radical Candor. I know that Kim Scott'd book has really changed a lot of people's lives, par

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A warm welcome today to Ellen Basuk and Daniel Schoonover, the authors of Between Two Worlds, a wonderful mother-son memoir of Daniel's mental health difficulties and diagnosis at the age of 19, schizophrenia, and his mum, Ellen, a psychiatrist's approach to enabling Daniel to live a good life and get the support that he needed. It's a book which really made me think a lot about recovery-oriented care, about children who are seen to be different. about the confines of the school system and recognising that Ellen, a psychiatrist, fought and battled and did things her own way and eventually got elements of care that were going to work for her son. It really made me think about all of the other children growing up with challenges who are not well served by the terribly underfunded and rigid systems that we are currently expecting of people.

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I'm delighted to welcome Shannon Ivey to Bedside Reading today. We are talking about her wonderful memoir, Welcome to the Shit Show, her story of being diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer 10 years ago at the age of 42. It is brilliant to know that Shannon is still with us, still making people laugh, still full of energy and vitality.

I absolutely loved her book. It made me laugh. It made me cry. It made me think. I think most important is Shannon's message that rates of bowel cancer in young and middle-aged women are rising really, really fast.  The demographic that we expect to have bowel cancer is not the demographic that does have bowel cancer. Sadly, in the States, far too many women are dying from bowel cancer and are presenting very, very late.

It's been a real pleasure to meet Shannon and talk to her about her book and about some of the work that she is doing to try and change those statistics.

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Sunday 8th of March was International Women's Day and so today, Tuesday  10th is our special International Women's Day themed episode where I am talking to Charley Baker about the horrifying, eye-opening and thought-provoking book that is The New Age of Sexism by Laura Bates.

This is a book which has really changed me. It has opened my eyes to so many aspects of technology which worry me. It has made me think about systemic inequality and gender inequity,  society, the world of AI and technology in a way that I had never really considered before. It is an absolutely superb read and I have so enjoyed talking to Charley about it and unpicking some of my feelings about the topic.

Find Charley on X:  https://x.com/CharleyBaker1
and on instagram https://www.instagram.com/charleybakerthebookpusher/

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I think that there is sometimes a bit of snobbery around genres of books. The self-help market is huge. It's there for a reason but I think sometimes those of us who really enjoy self-help feel that perhaps we should be going to some kind of self-help books anonymous club where we can talk about our love of the genre unimpeded by the judgment of others!

Last year, Anna Baverstock reminded me that actually self-help books are "leadership and development" books, and that helped me to see them in a different light and be slightly less embarrassed about how much I enjoy them.

The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins is, I think, one of the best self-help or leadership and development books that I have ever read. I can really, truly put my hand on my heart and say that it has changed me and very definitely for the better. So it's been a real joy to discover that my guest today, Dr Emma Cunliffe, feels similarly changed by Mel.