Harper Collins

With only a week to go, there’s just enough time to squeeze in two more books before the festival. In thanking to Harper Collins for sponsoring the festival, we’d like to highlight two of their books which will be featured in ‘The end of life’ session on Sunday.

Nikki Gemmell is the best-selling author of thirteen novels, four works of non-fiction and two series of books for children. Her latest book, After, recounts the event and the aftermath of her mother’s death.

In 2015, Nikki’s mother euthanised herself following an operation which left her in constant pain. After is a deeply intimate and eloquently honest exploration mothers and daughters, life and death, pain and healing, and the prickliness that can weave between them. This is not an easy book but it’s an honest and beautiful one.

If it seems impossible to imagine a joyful book about death, that’s because you haven’t read We’re all going to die by award-winning writer Dr Leah Kaminsky. Leah encounters death and dying on a daily basis in her work as a GP. Dying is the one certainty in life yet this book looks how to celebrate life rather than deny its ending. Our society tends to ignore death and hope this will make it somehow go away but Leah shares – and challenges – our fears of death and dying. She also takes joy in people whose response to their imminent death is to choose, instead, to consciously embrace life. In the words of Mary Roach, New York Times bestselling author ‘A beautiful, brave, inspiring work. Required reading for anyone who plans to die.’

Another big thank you to Harper Collins for their generous sponsorship of the Festival Reception Marquee.