What Dementia Teaches Us About Love

De: Nicci Gerrard

Narrado por: Nicci Gerrard

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of What Dementia Teaches Us About Love written and read by Nicci Gerrard.

Dementia is an unmaking, a de-creation - an apocalypse of meaning. Since my father's slow-motion dying, and his actual death in November 2014, I have been much preoccupied with dementia: by those who have it, by those who look after them, by the hospital wards whose beds are occupied by those in advanced stages of this self-loss, by the way society denies it, by the science of it, the art and literature about it, the philosophy, by what it means to be human, to have an identity. What is it to be oneself, and what is it to lose one's self. Who are we when we are not ourselves, and where do we go?

This is a book about dementia - not a personal account, but an exploration, structured around this radically-slowed death. Full of people's stories, both sad and optimistic, it is a journey into the dusk and then the darkness - and then out on to the other side, where, once someone is dead, a life can be seen whole again.

Reseñas de la Crítica

Immensely powerful . . . an incisive and compelling read. Gerrard, a crime novelist and former journalist, visits the "fresh hell" of hospitals across the UK, and interviews sufferers and those whose lives have been indelibly shaped by the diagnosis of a loved one . . . As well as being part-memoir and part-reportage, What Dementia Teaches Us About Love is also a great part philosophical inquiry into the nature of self and what it is to be human.

Essential reading about love, life and care (Kate Mosse)

An extraordinarily luminous book, at once terribly sad and frightening but also somehow hopeful and energising. (Nick Duerden)

Nobody has written on dementia as well as Nicci Gerrard in this new book. Kind, knowing and infinitely useful (Andrew Marr)

Gerrard ranges widely and wisely, raising questions about what it is to be human and facing truths too deep for tears

This is a tender, lyrical, profound, urgent book . . . Gerrard has penned a treatise on what it is to be human (Yasmin Alibhai-Brown)

Evocative and powerful, shining a light on a world which is often hidden and misunderstood

Gerrard writes beautifully, encyclopaedically and with humanity (Nicholas Timmins)

Nicci Gerrard exudes understanding of the breadth, scale and complexity of the dementias and the challenges they pose for society. Yet she communicates simply, personally and practically as if speaking individually to each of us (Sebastian Crutch)

Nicci Gerrard writes with power, insight, empathy and extraordinary beauty about the world of dementia . . . and demonstrates how we can address the fear, despair and ignorance that has accompanied its spread (Paul Webster)

Outstanding book

It is a book that touches on so many things that are important. And it is so beautifully written. I read it when it first came out and now I have listened to the author read it.