Christie Watson. (2018). The Language of Kindness: A Nurse's Story. Crown.

Christie Watson. 2018. The Language of Kindness: A Nurse's Story. Crown.

Christie Watson, The Language of Kindness: A Nurse's Story. Crown, 2018.

Christie Watson. The Language of Kindness: A Nurse's Story. Crown, 2018.

OverDrive Product Record

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{ABBFF7EB-354C-4F03-8ECD-D74AE93B38BE}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{ABBFF7EB-354C-4F03-8ECD-D74AE93B38BE}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/ABB/FF7/EB/{ABBFF7EB-354C-4F03-8ECD-D74AE93B38BE}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/ABB/FF7/EB/{ABBFF7EB-354C-4F03-8ECD-D74AE93B38BE}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

formats

1. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781524761653
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 557756
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
2. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ASIN
        • value: B074YMCB54
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 557756
   • name: Kindle Book
   • id: ebook-kindle
3. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781524761653
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 557756
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • id: ebook-overdrive

mediaType

eBook

primaryCreator

• role: Author
• name: Christie Watson

title

The Language of Kindness

dateAdded

2018-05-11T13:02:00-04:00

contentDetails

1. • href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=3639999
   • type: text/html
   • account:
     • name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
     • id: 1151

sortTitle

Language of Kindness A Nurses Story

crossRefId

3639999

subtitle

A Nurse's Story

id

abbff7eb-354c-4f03-8ecd-d74ae93b38be

starRating

3.1

OverDrive MetaData

isPublicDomain

False

formats

1. • fileName: TheLanguageofKindnes_9781524761653_3639999
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 995094
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781524761653
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 557756
   • rights:
     1. • type: Copying
        • value: 0
     2. • type: Printing
        • value: 0
     3. • type: Lending
        • value: 0
     4. • type: ReadAloud
        • value: 0
     5. • type: ExpirationRights
        • value: 0
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
   • onSaleDate: 5/8/2018
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=abbff7eb-354c-4f03-8ecd-d74ae93b38be&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
2. • fileName: TheLanguageofKindnes_3639999
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 557756
     2. • type: ASIN
        • value: B074YMCB54
   • name: Kindle Book
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-kindle
   • onSaleDate: 5/8/2018
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=abbff7eb-354c-4f03-8ecd-d74ae93b38be&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
3. • fileName: TheLanguageofKindnes_9781524761653_3639999
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 880123
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781524761653
     2. • type: PublisherCatalogNumber
        • value: 557756
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-overdrive
   • onSaleDate: 5/8/2018
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=abbff7eb-354c-4f03-8ecd-d74ae93b38be&.epub-sample.overdrive.com

keywords

1. • value: Graduation
2. • value: health
3. • value: Hope
4. • value: medical books
5. • value: NICU
6. • value: Healing
7. • value: Healthcare
8. • value: Autobiography
9. • value: nurse
10. • value: Inspirational
11. • value: Medicine
12. • value: Emergency Medicine
13. • value: nursing
14. • value: Medical
15. • value: memoir
16. • value: Doctors
17. • value: health care
18. • value: inspirational books
19. • value: graduation gift
20. • value: graduation gifts
21. • value: nurse books
22. • value: nurse gifts
23. • value: gifts for nurses
24. • value: nursing graduation gifts
25. • value: nurse gift
26. • value: nurses gifts
27. • value: gifts for doctors
28. • value: nursing gifts
29. • value: nursing student gifts
30. • value: nurses week gifts
31. • value: rn nurse gifts
32. • value: nurse gifts for women
33. • value: nurse practitioner gifts
34. • value: nursing gifts for nurses
35. • value: nurse appreciation gifts

creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Watson, Christie
   • bioText: Christie Watson was a registered nurse for twenty years before writing full time. Her first novel, Tiny Sunbirds Far Away, won the Costa First Novel Award and her second novel, Where Women Are Kings, was also published to international critical acclaim. Her works have been translated to eighteen languages. She lives in London.
   • name: Christie Watson

imprint

Tim Duggan Books

publishDate

2018-05-08T00:00:00-04:00

isOwnedByCollections

True

title

The Language of Kindness

fullDescription

#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A moving, lyrical, beautifully-written portrait of a nurse and the lives she has touched
Christie Watson spent twenty years as a nurse, and in this intimate, poignant, and remarkably powerful book, she opens the doors of the hospital and shares its secrets. She takes us by her side down hospital corridors to visit the wards and meet her unforgettable patients. 
 
In the neonatal unit, premature babies fight for their lives, hovering at the very edge of survival, like tiny Emmanuel, wrapped up in a sandwich bag. On the cancer wards, the nurses administer chemotherapy and, long after the medicine stops working, something more important—which Watson learns to recognize when her own father is dying of cancer. In the pediatric intensive care unit, the nurses wash the hair of a little girl to remove the smell of smoke from the house fire. The emergency room is overcrowded as ever, with waves of alcohol and drug addicted patients as well as patients like Betty, a widow suffering chest pain, frail and alone. And the stories of the geriatric ward—Gladys and older patients like her—show the plight of the most vulnerable members of our society. 
Through the smallest of actions, nurses provide vital care and kindness. All of us will experience illness in our lifetime, and we will all depend on the support and dignity that nurses offer us; yet the women and men who form the vanguard of our health care remain unsung. In this age of fear, hate, and division, Christie Watson has written a book that reminds us of all that we share, and of the urgency of compassion.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: The New Yorker
   • content: "With grit and wisdom, this memoir of life as a nurse encompasses birth, death, and the unpredictable workings of minds and bodies in between. . . . Watson, who worked in British hospitals for twenty years before becoming a novelist, recounts the crises, triumphs, and uncertainties inherent in nursing others."
2. • premium: False
   • source: The Sunday Times
   • content: "I challenge anyone to get through all 336 pages without weeping. . . . Expect Watson's stories of patients like Tommy and Katie to linger with you many days after the final chapter."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Molly Case, The Observer
   • content: "Powerful. . . . An absorbing, all-seeing tour through the doors of the hospital."
4. • premium: False
   • source: The New York Times
   • content: "Christie Watson is a lovely writer--and, judging from this book, a gifted nurse."
5. • premium: False
   • source: The Daily Telegraph
   • content: "Tender and beautifully written. . . . A love letter to a profession whose values are threatened."
6. • premium: False
   • source: Emilia Clarke
   • content: "Christie Watson is an inspiration. This book is breath-taking."
7. • premium: False
   • source: The Irish Times
   • content: "This brilliant, life-changing book has to be experienced. . . . More than a memoir, The Language of Kindness exerts the power of a gripping novel."
8. • premium: False
   • source: Sarah Bakewell, author of At the Existentialist Café
   • content: "Moving, eloquent, funny, inspiring--an urgent book for our times."
9. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     March 1, 2018
     

     Helping others do things that they cannot do for themselves and being on hand to provide emotional support, two fundamental actions of nurses, are examples of kindness that can transcend speech. Watson (Tiny Sunbirds; Far Away) combines 20 years of experience with an accomplished writing ability to illustrate how nurses speak their own language of kindness. Her memoir is not a sentimental account of reflection. Instead, it is an engaging and authentic portrait of modern care. Having practiced both mental health nursing and children's nursing in her native England, the author has seen firsthand how members of her profession positively affect their patients' lives and withstand various obstacles in the process. Through Watson's inclusion of relevant statistics and historical facts, as well as her meticulous observation skills, readers will better understand the value of nurses. Similarly, Theresa Brown's memoir, The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients' Lives, gives readers a new appreciation for loyal hospital nurses. VERDICT Despite references to British health care, this book is highly recommended for an American audience. Nursing students and new practitioners should add this to their collections.--Chad Clark, San Jacinto Coll. Dist., Pasadena, TX

     Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

10. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      March 15, 2018
      A poignant journey through the "tragedies and joys of a remarkable career" in hospital patient care.Before becoming a successful novelist, Watson (Where Women Are Kings, 2015, etc.) spent 20 years as a nurse, and her vast experience informs this memoir. She escorts readers through the hospital wards she's been assigned to, attests to the work-related trauma that threatened her personal spirit, and celebrates the return on her investment in a nursing career. As a teenager in Britain, Watson stumbled onto nursing courses, found her niche, and never looked back. Her first year as a nursing student proved harrowing, and she describes her attempt to save the life of a newly discovered suicide victim on the floor of his room. This event prompts commentary on frustrating governmental cuts in health care that she believes are crippling critical mental health and social service programs. Written with warmth and a sense of empathy for her patients, the memoir flows through episodes early in her nursing career when she shadowed a midwife through labor and delivery, trained in a pediatric intensive care unit, soothed a child with aggressive brain cancer, and comforted an elderly widow complaining of chest pain but whose appearance and symptoms more directly pointed to a broken heart. Watson also sorrowfully chronicles her own father's death "in slow motion" in a cancer ward and the palliative nurse who made a lasting final impression on his life. As she notes, the author's nursing career also had its softer, kinder edges, but her graphic descriptions of operating room procedures and the eye-watering aromas hovering over a surgical nursing unit may leave more sensitive readers lightheaded. The author's passion for and true love of nursing are evident on every page, and this quality makes the book an absorbing read and a testament to the immense responsibility, diligent work, and compassionate spirit of medical caregivers.A beautiful homage to the dignified, unsung heroes of hospital care.

      COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

11. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      March 26, 2018
      Novelist Watson (Where Women Are Kings) portrays the constant chaos and deep sense of purpose she experienced while training to be and working as a nurse in England in the 1990s in this rewarding memoir. “Each hospital is a country, unique and separate, with an infrastructure and philosophy different from the next one,” yet she shows the “language of kindness” to be a universal one among nurses. In descriptions of working on the mental health ward for the first time, of first assisting at a birth, and of carefully extricating a premature infant “from his bed of wires” to cuddle with his mother, whom he stares at “for the longest time without blinking.” There’s not a linear personal story to this book. It zigzags through the different wards she works in and the types of nursing she does, touches on nursing theorists, and moves back and forth in time as she passes through different life phases. The result is less conventional memoir than appreciation of a profession. “Somewhere between science and art,” nursing “is all about the smallest details, and understanding how they make the biggest difference,” Watson observes. Her recollections of inhabiting this in-between space are revealing and will be especially resonant for people who work in health care.

12. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      April 1, 2018
      The dedication page simply says for nurses. It makes sense, given that Watson (Where Women Are Kings, 2015) spent 20 years working as an RN before becoming a full-time writer. But this book contains wisdom for everyone. As she says, We are all nursed at some point in our lives. We are all nurses. Watson laces her story with humor as she recounts her career thoughts as a teen (she had a rethink after she discovered that much of the work of a marine biologist involved studying plankton off the coast of Wales) and about the not-so-glamorous aspects of healthcare (she describes waste products as a color somewhere between straw and out-of-date mustard ). She admits that it can be tough to remain understanding and respectful when patients huff and curse or refuse the blood transfusions that could save their lives. But despite difficult conditions, good nurses (and Watson seems to be one of them) stay kind and compassionate. Though Watson's story takes place in Britain, its messages are universal.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

popularity

579

links

• self:
  • href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/abbff7eb-354c-4f03-8ecd-d74ae93b38be/metadata
  • type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json

id

abbff7eb-354c-4f03-8ecd-d74ae93b38be

starRating

3.4

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{ABBFF7EB-354C-4F03-8ECD-D74AE93B38BE}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{ABBFF7EB-354C-4F03-8ECD-D74AE93B38BE}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/ABB/FF7/EB/{ABBFF7EB-354C-4F03-8ECD-D74AE93B38BE}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/ABB/FF7/EB/{ABBFF7EB-354C-4F03-8ECD-D74AE93B38BE}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

isPublicPerformanceAllowed

False

languages

1. • code: en
   • name: English

subjects

1. • value: Biography & Autobiography
2. • value: Medical
3. • value: Nonfiction

publishDateText

05/08/2018

otherFormatIdentifiers

1. • type: ISBN
   • value: 9781524761639

mediaType

eBook

shortDescription

#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A moving, lyrical, beautifully-written portrait of a nurse and the lives she has touched
Christie Watson spent twenty years as a nurse, and in this intimate, poignant, and remarkably powerful book, she opens the doors of the hospital and shares its secrets. She takes us by her side down hospital corridors to visit the wards and meet her unforgettable patients. 
 
In the neonatal unit, premature babies fight for their lives, hovering at the very edge of survival, like tiny Emmanuel, wrapped up in a sandwich bag. On the cancer wards, the nurses administer chemotherapy and, long after the medicine stops working, something more important—which Watson learns to recognize when her own father is dying of cancer. In the pediatric intensive care unit, the nurses wash the hair of a little girl to remove the smell of smoke from the house fire. The emergency room is overcrowded as ever, with waves of alcohol and drug addicted...

sortTitle

Language of Kindness A Nurses Story

crossRefId

3639999

subtitle

A Nurse's Story

publisher

Crown

bisacCodes

1. • code: BIO017000
   • description: Biography & Autobiography / Medical
2. • code: MED011000
   • description: Medical / Caregiving
3. • code: MED058000
   • description: Medical / Nursing / General