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The Art of Not Falling Apart

The Art of Not Falling Apart

Current price: $16.95
Publication Date: April 3rd, 2019
Publisher:
Atlantic Books
ISBN:
9781786492760
Pages:
352

Description

We plan, as the old proverb says, and God laughs. But most of us don't find it all that funny when things go wrong. Most of us want love, a nice home, good work, and happy children. Many of us grew up with parents who made these things look relatively easy and assumed we would get them, too. So what do you do if you don't? What do you do when you feel you've messed it all up and your friends seem to be doing just fine? For Christina Patterson, it was her job as a journalist that kept her going through the ups and downs of life. And then she lost that, too. Dreaming of revenge and irritated by self-help books, she decided to do the kind of interviews she had never done before. The resulting conversations are surprising, touching and often funny. There's Ken, the first person to be publicly fired from a FTSE-100 board. There's Winston, who fell through a ceiling onto a purple coffin. There's Louise, whose baby was seriously ill, but who still worried about being fat. And through it all, there's Christina, eating far too many crisps as she tries to pick up the pieces of her life. The Art of Not Falling Apart is a joyous, moving, and sometimes shockingly honest celebration of life as an adventure, one where you ditch your expectations, raise a glass, and prepare for a rocky ride.

About the Author

Christina Patterson is a journalist and broadcaster. A former columnist at the Independent and Director of the Poetry Society, she now writes for the Sunday Times and Guardian about society, culture, politics, books, and the arts and is a regular commentator on radio and TV news programs. She was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2013 for her campaigning work to raise standards in nursing and has contributed to books on poetry, literature, and health.

Praise for The Art of Not Falling Apart

"A beautifully written and uplifting memoir about love and loss - and finding the resolve to carry on." —Times

"If you're 50 and feeling a failure, you must read The Art of Not Falling Apart, by Christina Patterson." —Mail on Sunday

"A very different kind of self-help book: witty, wise and wonderfully relatable." —the i

"One of the best columnists around." —Andrew Motion

"A clear and important voice in British journalism." —Carol Ann Duffy

"A tender, beautiful exploration of how we survive pressure, from a tender, beautiful writer." —Johann Hari, author, Chasing The Scream

"A wonderful, gutsy writer." —Clive James

"Brilliant, poignant and also very funny." —Bookseller

"A page turner! Insightful, sad, funny and so well written." —Kirsty Wark

"I thoroughly enjoyed it - a kind of war reporter's dispatches from the barricades of modern life." —Robert Harris