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All The Young Men
December 1 marks World AIDS Day. It’s an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, to show support for people living with HIV, and to commemorate those who have died from an AIDS-related illness. Founded in 1988, World AIDS Day was the first ever global health day. The covid-pandemic has shown…
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Love is the gift
It is Children’s Grief Awareness Week. This week aims to highlight the experiences of young people and children who have experienced a bereavement, to raise awareness of the organisations that can help when children experience loss, and what the wider public can do to support them. The theme this year is: What helps? And obviously…
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Good Mourning: a memoir
In Good Mourning, Elizabeth Meyer takes us to the world of funerals of the rich and famous on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It does not matter how wealthy you are: no one can escape death. It must be said that a book that has a pun in the title always sparks joy, and…
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The Day I Die: the untold story of assisted dying in America
Assisted dying is a topic that has always fascinated me, for various reasons. Firstly, the language used and the phrases to describe ‘assisted’ deaths reveal a lot of moral assumptions: euthanasia, assisted dying, assisted suicide, death with dignity are but a few. None of these are neutral terms. The term I use myself, euthanasia, betrays…
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Wave
I have always found the seaside to be very peaceful. Summer days spent at the beach, reading books and going for a dip every now and again. One of my last holidays pre-pandemic was to the island of Madeira, and staring into the water, watching the seemingly never-ending ocean was really soothing, and something I…
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Absolutely Delicious
One of the things I have absolutely enjoyed since starting this blog is the messages I received from authors, kindly offering their books. Alison Jean Lester is one of those authors, and I had the pleasure of meeting her for a coffee in Helsinki this summer, as she was making her way back from a…