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A Still Life
- A Memoir
- Narrated by: Josie George
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Health & Wellness, Physical Illness & Disease
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Summary
Bloomsbury presents A Still Life by Josie George, read by Josie George.
An Evening Standard Book of 2021
Josie George lives in a tiny terraced house in the urban West Midlands with her son. Since her early childhood, she has lived with the fluctuating and confusing challenge of disabling chronic illness. Her days are watchful and solitary, lived out in the same hundred or so metres around her home.
But Josie’s world is surprising, intricate, dynamic. She has learned what to look for: the complex patterns of ice on a frozen puddle; the routines of her friends at the community centre; the neighbourhood birds in flight; the slow changes in the morning light, in her small garden, in her growing son, in herself.
In January 2018, Josie sets out to tell the story of her still life over the course of a year. As the seasons shift and the tides of her body draw in and out, Josie begins to unfurl her history: her childhood bright with promise but shadowed by confinement; her painful adolescence and her hopeful coming of age; the struggle of her marriage and the triumph of motherhood. And then a most unexpected thing happens in Josie’s quiet present: she falls in love.
A Still Life is a story of illness and pain that rarely sees the light: illness and pain with no end or resolution; illness and pain that we must meet with courage, joy, ingenuity and hope. Against a world which values ‘feel good’ progress and productivity above all else, Josie sets out a quietly radical alternative: to value and treasure life for life itself, with all its defeats and victories, with all its great and small miracles.
Critic reviews
"A beautiful memoir, A Still Life is joy-lit: vivid, lovestruck, hopeful and wise.... I've never come across a new writer with more to offer the world." (Melissa Harrison)
"Full of kindness, A Still Life will make you a better person." (Clare Mackintosh)
"Josie George is the kind of writer I strive to be.... A tough, tender, beautiful book about existing in a body in the world. I loved it." (Ella Risbridger)
What listeners say about A Still Life
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Charlene
- 22-03-21
Poetic and powerful
Hearing the writer read her own words in her slow & steady style brought the book to life. I slowed down and noticed more. I haven't read or heard anything like it.
4 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 27-04-21
Stunning
So honest, wise and beautifully different from any other book I’ve read. Grounded and real.
3 people found this helpful
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- valleywriter
- 10-03-21
Beautiful and inspiring
I love this book. It’s about the author’s experience of learning to live life (and love it) with the whole range of deep-felt feelings (including joy, awe and pain) even in the absence of many of the simple privileges many of us take for granted. It’s also quite gripping!
3 people found this helpful
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- Catsexyfeline
- 16-09-21
Not for me
Despite all the positive reviews of this story I really struggled to get into it at all and gave up after half a dozen chapters.
Whilst I have a great deal of empathy for the writer for finding hope in a life fraught with struggles, the parts of the book that I listened to were downbeat and impacted my mood detrimentally.
I also found the slow lumbering pace incredibly frustrating, thank goodness that audible let you speed a book up!
That said I would be open to reading or listening to fiction written by this author as I think she is a very capable writer.
2 people found this helpful
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- foxxx
- 27-04-22
Make a cup of tea and sit quietly
it's beautiful. Do not listen in a hurry, take your time, consider the words, breathe.
1 person found this helpful
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- Jones
- 15-08-21
Inspirational
So pleased I read this thought provoking book. Really mean thank you Josie George.
1 person found this helpful
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- angharad
- 12-05-21
wonderful!
i loved this - i listened to it in the car on daily journeys and looked forward to it each time. full of hope and wisdom. a lovely book about a lovely woman.
1 person found this helpful
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- Emily
- 11-01-22
A real joy to listen to
This is a beautiful book. I've been listening to the audiobook as I once again isolate indefinitely to keep myself safe and Josie George has been a wonderful companion through this time. There's so much love and joy in this book alongside the reality of living with chronic illness and appreciation of the little things in life. Thank you for helping me remember that I can live a good life with long covid.