Metamorphosis
A Life in Pieces
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst author
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Vintage Publishing
Published:22nd Feb '24
£10.99
This title is due to be published on 22nd February, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£18.99(9781787334250)

A darkly comic and moving reflection on what it means to be human in a world where nothing is certain, from the award-winning Oxford professor
We all have trapdoors in our lives. Sometimes we jump off just in time ... But sometimes we are unlucky. My own trapdoor was hidden in the consulting room of an Oxford neurologist.
When the trapdoor opened for Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, he plummeted into a world of MRI scans, a disobedient body and the crushing unpredictability of a multiple sclerosis diagnosis. But, like Alice tumbling into Wonderland, his fall did something else. It took him deep into his own mind: his hopes, his fears, his loves and losses, and the books that would sustain, inform and nourish him as his life began to transform in ways he could never have imagined.
From Kafka to Barbellion, this is a literary map of the journey from the kingdom of the well to the land of the sick, and forwards into a hopeful future. It's an ode to great writing, to storytelling, to science and to the power of the imagination.
'A pitch-perfect memoir: stylish, erudite, touchingly honest and darkly funny' Jacqueline Wilson
An outstanding feat of bravery and brio... a riveting account of the metamorphosis he has endured... a buoyantly written, piercingly perceptive book. * Sunday Times *
An account of living with multiple sclerosis that is both deeply literary and painfully honest as it charts his journey into ill health. * Financial Times, *Summer Reads of 2023* *
The writing is all elegance and wit. * The Times, *2023's Top 50 Non-Fiction Books* *
Heartening and unexpectedly gripping... an immensely powerful book... it persuasively builds the case for the ability of stories to offer hope and solace; to help us become ourselves, over and over, even in extremis. * Spectator *
Douglas-Fairhurst has written a memoir that is not miserable. It's funny and raw... Magical: pages speed by, fuelled by the author's formidable intellect. * Financial Times, *Book of the Week* *
ISBN: 9781529920796
Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 15mm
Weight: 200g
272 pages