THE BEST presents are often those you want to buy for yourself and part with only grudgingly. The Healing Arts (Oxford University Press, pp 334, 拢19.99) falls headlong into this class. The editor Robin Downie mixes poetry, prose and paintings with cartoons, snatches of dialogue and photographs to produce a fascinating blend of medicine and art. From birth to death via madness, childbirth, old age, research and nursing, Downie鈥檚 ambitious scope is matched with powerful poems 鈥� Ann Sexton on the stony grief of a woman after an abortion, Jenny Joseph鈥檚 plans for an unruly and enjoyable old age 鈥� and prose. It鈥檚 difficult to obey Fanny Burney, for example, and read the horrific account of her mastectomy 鈥渨ithout emotion鈥� as she instructs her sister. But against the bitter, you can balance the rush of entertaining words from Lawrence Sterne, the irony of Joseph Heller鈥檚 Yossarian. Definitely difficult to part with.
More from New 女生小视频
Explore the latest news, articles and features
Health
Personalised cancer vaccine expected to be approved next year
News
Technology
Brazil presidential election dogged by alleged bias by Meta AI tools
News
Health
Body temperature may drive the higher risk of autoimmune conditions in women
News
Comment
Emily St. John Mandel: ‘I don’t want to write something relentlessly bleak’
Culture
Popular articles
Trending New 女生小视频 articles