The Wellcome Book Prize recognises books written and published exploring the role of medicine in our lives and literature and covers both fiction and non-fiction. It’s has some explosive winners, last year the prize went to Marion Coutts’ The Iceberg, a memoir by the widow of a man who died of a brain tumour, but the prize covers all aspect of medicine and human life.
There are six books in the shortlist, and while upon reading the description I didn’t think that this was a genre for me, it turns out I’d like to read them all. Here they are:
Amy Liptrot – The Outrun
The Outrun is a memoir about the author’s struggle with alcoholism and her eventually recovery on the island of Orkney.
Sarah Moss – Signs for Lost Children
Signs for Lost Children tells the story of a pioneering doctor who goes to work at Truro asylum while her husband got to Japan to build lighthouses. The novel bridges Japan and South West England in a novel of two parts.
Suzanne O’Sullivan – It’s all in Your Head
It’s all in Your Head looks at the true story of imaginary illness and the lack of understanding around psychosomatic illnesses.
Alex Pheby – Playthings
Playthings explores German judge, Daniel Paul Schreber and his descent into psychosis. The original account of his illness became one of the most studied books in psychiatric history, but here Alex Pheby images life for the man himself.
Cathy Rentzenbrink – The Last Act of Love
The Last Act of Love is the memoir of Cathy Rentzenbrink about the aftermath of an accident that would leave her brother in a coma for eight years.
Steve Silberman – NeuroTribes
NeuroTribes studies autism, the legacy of the condition and the evolution of our understanding into the cognitive difference.
So that’s the shortlist, all six books. The winner will be announced at the end of April and will collect the £30,000 prize money.
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