Some of Us Just Fall: On Nature and Not Getting Better

The award-winning lakeland author, teacher and bookseller has written a wonderful memoir – Some of Us Just Fall: On Nature and Not Getting Better – recounting her own struggle with illness and a lifetime of pain.

She plunges into the heart of nature from page one with her description of a daily swim in Grasmere, and the Lakeland scenery features strongly throughout this wonderfully descriptive and inspiring book.

Atkins’ prose is expertly-crafted with a beguiling, poetic turn of phrase (as you would expect of a prize-winning poet). And she rises to the challenge of describing her illness – and her lifelong search for a diagnosis – in terms that make for compelling reading.

But this gently conversational books ultimately brings you face-to-face with a stark truth. “All conversations about illness,” Atkins says, “seem to be about either recovery, or death: but most of us are stuck in the middle with chronic conditions we have to live with.”

And, as we know, there are ways of living well with that … thankfully!

Some of Us Just Fall: On Nature and Not Getting Better by Polly Atkins is published by Sceptre, an imprint of Hachette (ISBN-13: 9781399718011)