A registered nurse for twenty years before becoming a writer and researcher, Christie Watson won the Costa First Novel Award for her debut, Tiny Sunbirds Far Away. In 2017 she published a memoir of her time as a nurse, The Language of Kindness which is currently being adapted for television.
Watson's new book is The Courage to Care: A Call for Compassion.
At the Guardian, she tagged five books that explore kindness and courage in the face of suffering, including:
The neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi was only 36 when he was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer, as he relates in his memoirRead about the other entries on the list.When Breath Becomes Air. Kalanithi explains why he gave up English literature to train in medicine, and charts the philosophical journey he took to embody the meaning and importance of compassion: “As a resident, my highest ideal was not saving lives – everyone dies eventually – but guiding a patient or family to an understanding of death or illness.” The book was published after his death, but Kalanithi lives on with his beautiful words.
--Marshal Zeringue
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