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Some of Us Just Fall

Autor Polly Atkin
en Limba Engleză Hardback – 19 mar 2024
'It raises the standard of nature writing. This is both radical manifesto and activism in book form' Sally Huband, author of Sea Bean 'Defiant and dazzling' Freya Bromley, author of The Tidal Year
'Essential reading' Jessica J. Lee, author of Turning
'Long before I knew I was sick, I knew I was breakable . . .' After years of unexplained health problems, Polly Atkin's perception of her body was rendered fluid and disjointed. When she was finally diagnosed with two chronic conditions in her thirties, she began to piece together what had been happening to her - all the misdiagnoses, the fractures, the dislocations, the bone-crushing exhaustion, the not being believed.
Some of Us Just Fall combines memoir, pathography and nature writing to trace a fascinating journey through illness, a journey which led Polly to her current home in the Lake District, where outdoor swimming is purported to cure all, and where every day she turns to the natural world to help tame her illness. Polly delves into the history of her two genetic conditions, uncovering how these illnesses were managed (or not) in times gone by and exploring how best to plan for her own future.
From medical misogyny and gaslighting, to the illusion of 'the nature cure', this essential, beautiful and deeply personal book examines how we deal with bodies that diverge from the norm, and why this urgently needs to change.
This is not a book about getting better. This is a book about living better with illness.


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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9781961884007
ISBN-10: 1961884003
Pagini: 301
Dimensiuni: 142 x 218 x 36 mm
Greutate: 0.43 kg
Editura: Unnamed Press

Notă biografică

Polly Atkin is a multi-award-winning poet, essayist, nature writer and academic in the UK. She has taught both English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of London, Strathclyde University, Lancaster University and University of Cumbria. Her doctoral research focused on Romantic legacies and literary geographies of the Lake District, northwest England, in collaboration with the Wordsworth Trust. In 2022 she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She works as a freelancer from her home in Grasmere, in the English Lake District. Her first poetry collection Basic Nest Architecture (Seren: 2017) is followed by Much With Body (Seren, 2021), a PBS Winter 2021 recommendation and Laurel Prize 2022 longlistee. She has also published three poetry chapbooks: bone song (Aussteiger, 2008), Shadow Dispatches (Seren, 2013) and With Invisible Rain (New Walk: 2018). Her biography Recovering Dorothy: The Hidden Life of Dorothy Wordsworth (Saraband, 2021), is the first to focus on Dorothy's later life and illness. Her work is included in anthologies of nature writing, ecopoetry and walking literature, including the UK's first anthology of nature writing by disabled and chronically ill writers, Moving Mountains (Footnote, 2023).

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WINNER OF 2024 LAKELAND BOOK OF THE YEAR
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING


'It raises the standard of nature writing. This is both radical manifesto and activism in book form'

Sally Huband, author of Sea Bean

'Long before I knew I was sick, I knew I was breakable . . .'


After years of unexplained health problems, Polly Atkin's understanding of her body had become fluid and disjointed. When she was finally diagnosed with two chronic conditions in her thirties, she began to piece together her own history: the fractures and dislocations, the exhaustion and medical disregard.

A searing blend of memoir, nature writing and pathography, Some of Us Just Fall traces a remarkable journey through illness. From misdiagnoses to wild swimming in the Lake District, Polly examines her genetic inheritance, her place in the natural world and her future in her body.

'Defiant and dazzling' Freya Bromley, author of The Tidal Year

Recenzii

Polly Atkin, who had long suffered ill health, was diagnosed with two chronic conditions in her thirties. Some of Us Just Fall is her timely, lyrical and insightful exploration of the stories we tell about our bodies and how they influence our lives and sense of belonging. It made me yearn to revisit the Lake District and Grasmere, where Atkin lives, because her descriptions of her daily walks and swims were so beautiful. Perfect for fans of Sinéad Gleeson, Amy Liptrot and Olivia Laing
A lyrical swirl of memoir, nature writing and pathography
Polly Atkin's Some of Us Just Fall unpicks the body of the wild, alongside the disabled wilderness of Atkin's own body. It gives us an experience that is both timely and timeless: of medical gaslighting, a body in pain, and the search for coping strategies out in the natural world. With a poet's insight and a deep understanding of place, Atkin pulls us again and again to witness the fractured, the breathless, the untameable bodies that permeate her book. I was immersed
Some of Us Just Fall is a remarkable book that deepens our understanding of what it can mean to be human . . . an essential addition to writing on nature, it offers a much-needed counterpoint to ill-thinking notions of nature cure and, by seamlessly merging vivid personal experience with insights from literature and the natural world, raises the standard of nature writing. This is both radical manifesto and activism in book form
Polly Atkin has conjured magic in this story of a life touched harshly by illness and misunderstanding, demonstrating a deep connection to the natural world and the voices of the past. Beyond the mesmeric writing on nature and place, Some of Us Just Fall acts as a stark reminder of the implications of misdiagnosis. It is a reminder to remain curious, keep asking questions and open our mind to the possibility that everything is not as it seems
In Some of Us Just Fall Polly Atkin, in prose of extraordinary strength and inventiveness, takes her readers on a creative and intellectual adventure across the particularities of embodiment, the insidiousness of the idea of cure, on the body as a site for nature writing, and on living in a place that generates meaning and sustenance in the most unexpected ways. The result is a gift of a book

Polly Atkin writes with glorious and precise beauty. In Some of Us Just Fall we are asked to reimagine not just the stories we tell about the natural world, but about ourselves and how we live together. This is essential reading
This book participates in a really exciting new direction for nature writing - one that accommodates fatigue and illness as well as strong, striding bodies
A stunning book about chronic illness that will stay with you long after you finish reading . . . It's a rallying cry for society to stand up and advocate for those too bloody exhausted from struggling to be believed by the medical establishment. Some of Us Just Fall is a book that needs to be read, and I hope we hear more stories of living with illness in the future rather than astonishing recovery
I came away from this book with a firm understanding that mind, body and environment are three inseparable things
A powerful message surrounded by beautiful immersive nature

Some of Us Just Fall is defiant and dazzling! I was completely submerged in Atkin's life and its characters: the grey wagtail, her partner waiting in the shade of a tree, the nurses, the heron by the river. By sharing her relationship with water, Atkin has changed mine. Her prose is a beautiful gift
Polly Atkin has written a survival story for the rest of us - a book of depth, meaning and resilience in the face of overwhelming adversity - a cathartic read
Some of Us Just Fall is a breath of fresh air in the world of nature writing, a many-faceted mountain of experiential truths, a grounded patch of understanding to rest on. Her prose is both brutally honest and tender - she deftly brings the environment into the bodymind, and vice versa
Reading Some of Us Just Fall was for me a surprisingly visceral experience. I've never had such a bodily reaction to reading - as though my bones, muscles and nerve endings were being drawn into Polly's life and words, her very singular way of seeing the world. A fine, intricately crafted book that reveals itself slowly and thrillingly through a tracery of patterns, fractures and flows