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I always enjoy talking to my guests about books. Sometimes I don't enjoy the book they've chosen. Often I am surprised by how much I have enjoyed something that I wasn't expecting to enjoy. Today, though, is different to all of that. It's a real joy to welcome Ripon Ahmed back to the podcast to talk about what must be one of my all-time favourite novels featuring a doctor: The Citadel by A.J. Cronin. It is undoubtedly the book that made me know that I needed to be a GP. And I will be forever grateful for having discovered it when I was a final year medical student. I've read it several times over the years and so much of it has stayed with me. So much of it seems really topical. And it has been such a pleasure to talk about it today with Ripon and explore the themes in the book, the storyline and how much of it is so very, very relevant to all of us working in health today.

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i've had the best fun setting up and recording today's podcast with Caryn Price and Georgina Benger. We are talking about a book that they have written together called Olive's Day. We also mentioned Willow's Day, which is the second in a series which we hope will be going to be. quite a big series of fabulous books written ostensibly for children but from which grown-ups can learn an awful lot.

Today's episode is all about adjustments, reasonable adjustments, pathological demand avoidance (or persistent drive for autonomy )and how we can support children and young people who have this neurotype in our encounters with them in healthcare care and beyond.

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I'm delighted to welcome Louise Persaud to Bedside Reading today to talk about a beautiful and very thought-provoking novel. Pearl by Sian Hughes. T

"After she left, I wondered, had I been spirited it away or had she? Was I still in the real world or was this some land of bad copy? What if my mother was looking everywhere for me, calling my name?

What if I could fall backwards out of this poor faded replica of reality and land in the middle of a bed of spurge? Look up and see my mother sitting under the apple tree threading her needle to sew my name onto school clothes I would never have to wear."


This is a book told in the first person about the life of a girl whose mother has disappeared. And we think about loss and grief, about mothering, about motherlessness. We talk about families, about imperfect heroes. There is so much to think about within this novel.