Our librarians are continually updating the library in our Drop-in Centre with new books to ensure the collection covers a variety of subjects and are up to date. When a new book is added to the library collection the librarians will provide an update with the book information here and in our newsletters. If there is a particular book you are looking for, don’t hesitate to contact the librarians at library@cancersupport.ch. As well some of our books have been reviewed by members. Please explore our book review section below.
When the Body says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress
By Dr Gabor Maté
Is there such a thing as a “cancer personality”. It is a sensitive matter to raise the possibility that the way people have been conditioned to live their lives may contribute to their illness. Mind and body have to be seen not only for our understanding of illness but also for our understanding of health. Dr Gabor Maté provides the answers to critical questions about the mind-body link and the role that stress and emotional make-up play in an array of common diseases such as arthritis, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, irritable bowel syndrome and multiple sclerosis. Based on dozens of case studies including those of Lou Gehrig, Betty Ford, Lance Armstrong, the author reveals the “Seven A’s of Healing”: acceptance; awareness; anger; autonomy; attachment; assertions; affirmation.
7 MAT
Living with Cancer: With Hope amid the Uncertainty
By Paul D’Alton
It is recognized that cancer is not only a physical illness. It has an emotional and psychological impact on the individual and the family of those diagnosed. There is an abundance of information. This book aims to address this information overload: leading psychologists, academics and medical experts unite to provide a non-jargon, peer-reviewed one-stop information for people living with cancer. It covers a wide range of subjects such as typical emotional reactions to a cancer diagnosis, getting ready to talk to your doctor, anxiety, depression, talking to children about cancer, survivorship, and living with incurable cancer. It should be read also by healthcare professionals dealing with cancer patients.
2 DAL
Prostate Cancer and the Man You Love
By Anne Katz
Prostate Cancer and the Man You Love has been fully updated for the women and men who love and support a man with prostate cancer. Written by an expert in supporting men with prostate cancer and their partners, this book describes the experiences of 12 couples dealing with prostate cancer, from diagnosis through survivorship. Covering the basics of prostate cancer, its treatments and supportive care, and advice about communication between the patient and his partner, the book offers stories of real couples in every chapter. Katz offers evidence-based guidance for the partner, who is challenged in different ways to support the man as he moves from diagnosis to treatment decision-making and beyond. She carefully describes the treatment options along with the side effects that affect the quality of life and couple satisfaction. Additional topics include cancer recurrence and end-of-life care.
This is an extraordinary book detailing up-to-date research through poignant personal stories that will resonate with anyone affected by prostate cancer. Anne Katz skilfully and compassionately weaves critical information, resources and effective tools to empower patients and their partners in shared decision-making processes.
2P KAT Prostate Cancer
Living with Breast Cancer: The Step-by-Step Guide to Minimizing Side Effects and Maximizing Quality of Life
By
At the time of diagnosis, breast cancer patients are faced with many overwhelming decisions about possible treatments. Living with Breast Cancer provides you with an overview of what to expect from testing and treatment, which cancer specialists you may need to see, and common terms to use to help communicate your needs to your team. This empathetic resource full of relatable stories teaches patients and caregivers how to ask the right questions to get the best possible care. The authors explain how to minimize the symptoms and side effects of treatment and outline coping strategies to deal with the stress of breast cancer treatment, including the changes in your body from cancer and its therapies. The book helps readers
• make sense of their diagnosis
• set goals and prepare for treatment
• understand the different types of therapies, tests, and scans
• manage the symptoms and side effects of treatment, such as nausea, fatigue, shortness of breath, weight fluctuations, and depression
• learn what medications and lifestyle modifications can help with symptoms
• live and cope with progressive cancer
Living with Breast Cancer is your definitive resource for handling the physical and emotional effects of breast cancer and treatment.
2b SHI Breast Cancer
The Widower’s Journey. Helping Men Rebuild After Their Loss
By Herb knoll
There is little literature available to help men to deal with the emotional and practical challenges of being a widower. Written with the help of forty widowers and team of experts “The Widower’s Journey” helps men travel through a variety of challenges, including grief, loneliness, mental and physical illness, financial, and legal issues, spirituality, parenting, dating, marriage and sex. There is no one way to grieve after the loss of a spouse. Widowers need to face that grief, find strategies that work best for them, find people who can help them with emotional support and counsel. This guidebook delves into the lives of men who found a way not just to survive but to thrive. This book is also helping to create supportive communities for grieving men with the Widowers Support Network (www.WidowersSupportNetwork.com).
8 KNO
The Song of the Cell. An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human
By Siddhartha Mukherjee
The oncologist/author of the bestseller “The Emperor of Maladies” written to find cure for cancer or to prevent it, is taking the reader on a different journey with “Song of the Cell”: to understand life in terms of its simplest unit, the cell – It is rich with stories of scientists, doctors and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work. The medical quest is to seek cellular therapies, to use building blocks of humans to rebuild and repair humans. This book is not about hunting for a cure or deciphering a code. Its protagonists want to comprehend life by understanding a cell’s anatomy, physiology, behavior, and its interaction with surrounding cells. Each part illustrates a fundamental property of life which reposes in a particular system of cell. It contains the birth of new cellular technology: bone marrow transplantation, in vitro fertilization, gene therapy, immunotherapy.
2 MUK
New Books in 2022
Parenting through Cancer : An Evidence-Based Guide for Healthcare Professional Supporting Families
By Leonor Rodriguez
thy Steligo, Sue Friedman, Allison Kurian
Experiencing cancer as a parent or a guardian is extremely difficult for children, adolescents, with healthcare professionals and cancer support centres often lacking the specialized knowledge to support these individuals. This book includes eight chapters that provide knowledge and skills to health care practitioners (mainly) that are in contact or working directly with children, young people and families through an experience of parental cancer: impact of parental cancer; illness stages; parenting culture and family dynamics; the international and cultural context of cancer, supporting children and young people through parental cancer; evidence-based cancer interventions; terminal cancer and bereavement; self-care for practitioners. Each chapter begins with an introduction, of the content. Additionally, a summary of important topics is included in the “Chapter Highlights” section. This book covers a wide range of specialties: clinical psychology, counselling, nursing, oncology, palliative care, and social work.
6 ROD
Living with Hereditary Cancer Risk. What You and Your Family Need to Know
By Kathy Steligo, Sue Friedman, Allison Kurian
Written by three patients advocates, this book is a compilation of the trusted information provided for more than two decades by “Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered” (FORCE), the voice of the hereditary cancer community.
The Upside to Everything, even breast cancer
By Theresa Drescher
The author combines a very wide range of medical and practical information about the comprehensive issues of breast cancer from her fifteen years of experience on a breast cancer helpline and lecturing. She breaks down the cancer journey into bite size pieces and makes it manageable.
Talking to my TATAS : All You Need to Know from a Breast Cancer Researcher and Survivor
By Dana Brantley-Sieders, PhD
This book is written from the perspective of an expert biomedical breast cancer researcher, investigating molecular mechanisms that regulate breast cancer growth and metastasis. It is also the story of the journey of the author facing her own diagnosis of breast cancer. From surgery to, tumor genomic testing, cutting edge therapies to mental health, sexual health, avoiding pseudoscience scams, the author’s approach is to use humour to give hope. Sexism, gender equality, racism is also discussed within the context of cancer research, cancer treatment. She gives practical recommendations on how to spot scams from what is legitimate scientific medical information. A chapter deals with the top ten things you can say or do when a friend or loved one is going through cancer, and what you should never say or do. This book is interesting as it combines sound detailed scientific information with the more subjective aspects of a cancer diagnosis.
2b BRA
The Caregiver’s Guide to Cancer : Compassionate Advice for Caring for You and Your Loved One
Victoria Landes
A cancer diagnosis can be one of the greatest challenges that humans face. Caregivers must adapt to the variety of changes that accompany a diagnosis. This book is intended to serve as an expansive resource for caregivers as they learn both for their loved ones and for themselves. Providing care can bring fulfillment, and closeness, but also emotional, psychological and physical exhaustion. This book also serves as a guide to understanding and navigating the health care system, treatments and side effects, communicating effectively with your love ones and their care team; managing difficult emotions. Practical advice on what to say, what to do, and what to ask is highlighted. Caregiving is a complex experience and many factors affect a caregiver’s ability to balance the demands of the role.
6 LAN
Standing at Water’s Edge : a cancer nurse, her four-year-old son and the shifting tides of leukemia
Janice Post-White
The author was an oncology nurse and a PhD researcher in cancer when her four-year-old son, at the time was diagnosed with leukemia, over 20 years previously. While he drew pictures to process his emotions, she buried her feelings and threw herself into managing a dual role as a medical professional and mother caring for her sick son and his younger brother. Her memoir shares her son’s perspective as a young cancer patient and teen survivor and explores her own personal and professional insights on survivorship, resilience, healing and what facing death can teach us about living. She is constantly battling between both roles. The book ends at the time of his graduation from high school after those tumultuous years.
6 POS
How to Live When you Could be Dead
Deborah James
There can be few people who have any connection with cancer as a patient, family member, care-giver, supporter or medical professional, who have not been aware of the “rebellious hope” with which Deborah James, aka Bowel Babe, confronted her Stage 4 bowel cancer diagnosis five years ago, and more recently, her doctors’ verdict, that no more treatment was possible.
Deborah died at the end of June, but her legacy lives on in her first book: F*** You Cancer, followed by this book, How to Live When You Could be Dead, completed during the weeks when she was receiving palliative care at her parents’ home, surrounded by her family.
Treating Cancer with Immunotherapy and Targerted Therapy
David A. Olle
Newer methods of cancer treatment, namely targeted therapy and immunotherapy, hold promise for patients who otherwise may have fewer options. This book provides questions and answers about the characteristics of cancer diagnosis, classifications, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, targeted therapy, adoptive cell therapy, and more. It has an easy to follow question-and-answer-format which includes information on Up-to-date treatments drug information. In an engaging and stimulating manner, it describes the essential features of cancer treatments available to the general public using illustrations, tables, charts and boxes to highlight definitions, facts, and websites links providing more detailed information.
2 OLL
Love is the strongest medicine: notes from a cancer doctor on connection, creativity and compassion
Steven Eisenberg
I found Love is the Strongest Medicine to be a touching and inspiring journey into the world of those who hear from their doctor that they have cancer. Not many books are written by the oncologists themselves about delivering such news and Dr. Eisenberg reveals much of himself, his own struggles as a doctor, and his growing depths of understanding and empathy. He has an innate understanding of what is required from the doctor when one receives such a diagnosis. His level of compassion in such a role is compounded by his intense love of music and his ability to share this with his patients. He even writes songs and plays his guitar for them as he joins them on their journeys back to health or helps them to let go as the end approaches. As a cancer sufferer or one who is touched by such an illness one would wish be treated by such a doctor with gratitude and great appreciation.
6 EIS
Caring for a Young Person with Cancer
Anne Katz
This book provides an accessible, sensitive and evidence-based resource for partners, parents and family members who are caring for adolescents and young adults with cancer.
Life Blood: lessons from one woman who survived serious illness against the odds
Cathy Koning
The author said she decided “to call her cancer the little c rather than the Big C. She wasn’t giving it that much power over her life”
The Mother of all Fights
Erin Soto
Erin Soto was living the life of an ordinary wife and mother, when, unable to ignore the warning signs that something did not feel right physically, she sought medical advice. At the age of 37, this young mother of 4 children, received a shocking and life-changing diagnosis of Stage 3 Colon Cancer.
The cancer diet cookbook: Comforting Recipes for Treatment and Recovery
Dionne Detraz
“Dionne Detraz is an Integrative Dietician with more than 10 years’ experience of supporting people through their cancer journeys, helping both patients and caregivers to explore the relationship between cancer and nutrition, as well as the crucial roles that compassion and self-care play in their lives.
The Breast Cancer Book: a trusted guide for you and your loved ones
K.D. Miller and M. Camp
Being diagnosed with breast cancer can be scary and confusing. There are medical terms to learn, options to consider, and important decisions to make, all while trying to carry on with work, family, and life. The Breast Cancer Book can’t reverse a diagnosis or make breast cancer disappear, but every page can inform and empower you or your loved ones, no matter where you are in the breast cancer experience.
Invasion of the Prostate Snatchers
An Essential Guide in Managing Prostate Cancer for Patients and their Families.
Mark Scholtz and Ralph Blum
“A provocative and frank look at the bewildering world of prostate cancer, from the current state of the multibillion-dollar industry to the range of available treatments…Prostate cancer is a dark and mysterious country, and Mr. Blum and Dr. Scholz are good, levelheaded guides through these thickets. In telling men to slow up and take a deep breath after they learn they have prostate cancer, they provide an invaluable service.” —New York Times
The Madness of Grief
A Memoir of Love and Loss
Reverend Richard Coles
Whether it is pastoral care for the bereaved, or being called out to perform the last rites, death is an integral part of the Reverend Richard Coles’s normal routine. However, when his husband died unexpectedly, many aspects of death took Richard by surprise, not least the amount of “sadmin” involved.
Get your Oomph back: a guide to exercise after a cancer diagnosis
Carolyn Garritt
As the author, a specialist exercise specialist says at the beginning of the book “It can be really difficult to motivate yourself to exercise when you’re drained, even though it’ll usually make you feel better. The trick is to start with little and often and not let the need to exercise become overwhelming ”People often report a greater mood boost from going outdoors and feel a sense of invigoration. The impact on our mental and emotional health is also extremely positive. The second part of the book is the practical section and explains in detail and with photos what exercises to do when.
5 GAR
Rebel Cell: cancer, evolution and the science of life
Kat Arney
Kat Arney is a British science writer, and was science communications manager for Cancer Research UK, and broadcaster who has written this very accessible book on the biological basis of cancer and why treatments remain elusive. It puts cancer and cancer treatment in a whole new light. Very well written and engaging with the science and research behind the topic presented clearly and intelligently for the layperson.
She writes with clarity in a chatty style while sharing fascinating information on the themes of her title of her book. Highly recommended.
2 ARN
Children’s Books
The collection of children’s books in the ESCA CS library was started a few years ago at the instigation and financial support of a client, a mother with young children who needed suitable books to show and share with her children to help explain to them her own health situation. Some take them through the grieving process; others answer simple questions such as Can I catch cancer?
The goal of these books is indeed to help children understand how cancer affects their loved ones. Often this material is intended for both parents and children so they can discuss together the implications of the difficult circumstances facing the family.
I have a question about cancer: clear answers for all kids, including children with autism spectrum disorder or other special needs
Arlen Grad Gaines
Cancer is a difficult topic for any parent, caregiver or educator to explain to a child. This book is designed to help kids, including children with autism spectrum disorder or other additional needs, to understand what it means when someone in their life has cancer.
C
Kindness
Phoebe McNelis
Phoebe McNelis, a pupil at Corsham Primary School Broadwood, wrote Kindness, a story reflecting the love and support that she received from friends and family during the incredibly difficult time when her mum Charly underwent cancer treatment in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. She entered it into a competition organised by children’s author Helen Brian and was crowned the winner. C
The Truth about cancer 2nd ed.
Kelly Strenge
Kelly Strenge has been explaining cancer to children for more than a decade. The Truth About Cancer, Second Edition educates children about cancer in a very honest, light-hearted, and inspiring way.
The Truth About Cancer Second Edition is a wonderfully versatile nonfiction book that is beneficial to children ages 2-12. This book works perfectly whether it is a child that was diagnosed or someone they love.
C
Prostate Cancer
In order to assist the members of the newly formed ESCA prostate cancer support group the library is adding the following new books on the subject to its collection. They will all be found in section 2 P (Prostate cancer)
The Magic in the Tin
Paul Ferris
This book tells a powerful tale of grit and resilience, told with great humour, openness and profound bravery.
100 questions and answers about prostate cancer
Pamela Ellsworth
2P Ell (2 copies)
Fast facts: prostate cancer: if, when and how to intervene
By Roger Kirby
2P Kir
Healthy Eating for Prostate Care
By Margaret Rayman, Kay Dilley and Kay Gibbons
2P RAY
Facing the tiger: a survivorship guide for men with prostate cancer and their partners
Suzanne Chambers
2P Cha
Prostate cancer– why it is different
Peter Whelan
2P Whe
New Books in 2021
Hope is never lost: our journey through childhood cancer
Jaimi V. Aburto
The author’s son is diagnosed at the age of 3 with leukemia and her emotional book recounts the life of the family for the next year with its highs and lows for everyone and the strength of her son during that time when Covid had hit them as well. Certainly of interest to those in similar situations.
2 c ABU
Just diagnosed Breast Cancer : what to expect, what to know, what to do next
Arlene M.Karole
How many of us find ourselves in this situation ? having no idea where to start and what to do next. As an American Certified Healthcare Professional the author was a newly diagnosed victim of breast cancer with a background in health information. She is now a volunteer for an American Breast Cancer Helpline, similar to ESCA Cancer Support.
Glittering a Turd
Kris Hallenga
“Kris was living a totally normal life as a twenty-three-year-old: travelling the world, falling in love, making plans.
Stronger than Before
Take Control of Your Healing to Survive and Thrive with Breast Cancer
Alison Porter
Stronger Than Before is the book Alison Porter went looking for when she first learned she had breast cancer. It’s a practical handbook to guide you – and your friends and family – through every stage of the illness, from early diagnosis to treatment choices, and ultimately to a life beyond cancer.
The Cancer Ladies’ Running Club
Josie Lloyd
In Josie Lloyd’s novel, when Keira first receives her breast cancer diagnosis, she doesn’t want to have to tell her family, or step back from work. She doesn’t want to sit in a hospital, or be part of a group of fellow cancer patients. Cancer is not her club.
Between Two Kingdoms: What almost dying taught me about living
Suleika Jaouad
The summer after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad was preparing to enter “the real world.” She had fallen in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent. The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone. It started with an itch, like a thousand invisible mosquito bites. Next came the exhaustion, and the six-hour naps that only deepened her fatigue.
The Mahogany Pod: a memoir of ends and beginnings
Jill Hopper
This is a powerful and beautifully written account of the author’s growing relationship with a young man who only had a few months to live. When they first met he had already had Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and was in remission but it soon returned so their love blossomed under the cloud of Arif’s impending death. He had found the mahogany pod of the title on a holiday in Africa before he met Jill but it became a symbol of their love still some 25 years later.
9 HOP
Its time you knew: the power of your choice to prevent women’s cancer
Valena Wright
The approach taken in this book to women’s cancer is original and powerful and provides a lesson to us all. It is written by a gynaecologic cancer surgeon and comprises the case studies of some 30 women she has treated. Her bottom line is – don’t deny your symptoms (get them checked out straight away as symptoms are your body’s nudge to pay attention) and – don’t tolerate your pain (be your best advocate when something hurts. Learn to communicate with your doctor to get the best health care possible) So the two most important actions you can focus on are addressing your symptoms as soon as they show up and speaking up for yourself in the world of doctors and medicine to receive the care you deserve.
The Cancer Misfit: A guide to navigating life after treatment
Saskia Lightstar
It is not difficult to find helpful advice about dealing with a cancer diagnosis and the subsequent treatment. It is less easy to get support when treatment is over and one is supposed to just get back to normal, whatever that means….
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
Charlie Mackesy
Charlie Mackesy’s book has sold well over 1,000,000 copies. Images from the book appear on walls in schools and hospitals, hang from lampposts in places as far-flung as Los Angeles and Delhi, and are regularly posted on social media sites. The conversations between the boy and his animal friends speak so poignantly about the human condition, particularly during the ongoing Covid Pandemic, although curiously the book was first published in the autumn of 2019, when no-one knew what was coming.
A matter of death and life: love, loss and what matters in the end
Irvin D. Yalom and Marilyn Yalom
Internationally renowned psychiatrist Irvin Yalom had devoted his career to helping patients with their anxiety, grief and depression. Now in his mid-80s he has to face these same emotions when his wife, a feminist author, is diagnosed with cancer. After a long fulfilling marriage, with a loving family and a large circle of friends they face Marilyn’s approaching death together. In fact they wrote this book together alternating chapters and in the preface wrote “together we will write this journal of what lies ahead in the hope that our experiences and observations will provide meaning and succo(u)r not only for us but for our readers.
Older Survivors of cancer:
feeling understood by sharing experiences
Alice B. Kornblith
This book is a collection of narratives by older cancer patients and survivors of four different types of cancer and describes what they have been through physically and emotionally since their diagnosis. Improved cancer treatment has lead to a growing number of older cancer survivors and here we learn how cancer affected their lives in so many different ways, each person replying to questions such as treatment and treatment side effects, overall impact of having had cancer, relationships with family, friends and acquaintance, religion/spirituality, coping needs which were unmet etc. There is a noteworthy overall similarity in the shared reactions to the experiences. It was obvious that until you, yourself have had cancer you can’t understand what the person is going through. Many talk of the positive aspects of how American organisations equivalent to ESCA (the author is American) can make all the difference. It is the sharing of experiences which permit survivors to overcome loneliness.
Cross Everything
A personal journey into the evolution of cancer
Henry Scowcroft
Henry Scowcroft has worked as a writer for the charity Cancer Research UK since 2003. He says it was “his first proper job”, after completing a postgraduate degree in Science Communication. His interest in writing for Cancer Research UK has largely focussed on the scientific aspects of cancer and cancer treatment and making the information accessible for newly diagnosed patients and family members. A link to his blog can be found on the Cancer Research UK website.
Doctors get Cancer too: A doctor’s diary of life and recovery from cancer
Philippa Kaye
Dr Philippa Kaye is a GP with a particular interest in children’s, women’s and sexual health. She has written multiple books on topics ranging from pregnancy and fertility to child health and child development, and she has a weekly column in Woman magazine as well as contributing to other magazines and newspapers. She has regularly been seen broadcasting on radio and television in programmes such as This Morning and The Victoria Derbyshire Show.
Good Grief: Embracing life at a time of death
Catherine Mayer and Anne Mayer Bird
Mother and daughter Anne Mayer Bird and Catherine Mayer were widowed within 41 days of each other on the eve of the pandemic, then locked down alone. Their profound isolation was broken just once a week, when Catherine visited Anne to care for her, at distance and in a mask. Together they found ways to navigate their loss and the startling questions and challenges that confronted them.
Lung cancer and diseases: the lung pathology and solution guide
Sam Peller
This slim volume is a basic introduction to the subject. It covers causes, symptoms, treatment, malignancy, etc and would be a useful read for people with very little prior knowledge of cancer at all.
2 lun PEL (specific cancers)
Beating osteoporosis: the facts, the treatments, the exercises
Diana Moran
As there can be a link between cancer and/or chemotherapy and osteoporosis this book will help you understand what osteoporosis (and its predecessor osteopenia) is, what causes it and how we can prevent it getting worse. A healthy diet including calcium and vitamin D (which can be given as supplements) is all important, as well as easy exercises for stamina, strength and suppleness. Very well written and easy to understand, the author works with the Royal Osteoporosis Society.
1 MOR (general health)
New Books in 2020
Ticking Off Breast Cancer
Susan Liyanage
The author is a busy and well-organised wife, mother and part-time lawyer. Describing her life from the moment of diagnosis through treatment and further, her book is full of thoughtful and helpful advice every step of the way and packed with helpful to-do-checklists at the end of each chapter.
9 LIY (Life Journeys)
The First Cell
Azra Raza
This excellent book by a leading oncologist in the USA, makes the argument that trying to search for the last cancer cell in the body and eliminating it has not resulted in much progress since the “war on cancer” was declared in the early 1970s….. The author believes that more research funds should be directed towards developing strategies for early detection of cancer.
2 RAZ (General Cancer)
Dear Life
Rachel Clarke
This is an honest and thought provoking book by a compassionate young doctor who, already in training, questioned what she saw as the lack of empathy for the patient by some medical and teaching staff in the overworked environment of the NHS. She queried whether the overriding principle to save lives with sometimes painful and lengthy treatments is always appropriate. That she decided to specialise in palliative medicine and work in a hospice was not surprising.
8 CLA (Grieving, Bereavement, Death)
The State of Disbelief
Juliet Rosenfeld
When Juliet Rosenfeld’s husband dies of lung cancer only seven months into their marriage, everything she has learnt about death as a psychotherapist is turned on its head.
As she attempts to navigate her way through her own devastating experience of loss, Rosenfeld turns to her battered copy of Freud’s seminal essay ‘Mourning and Melancholia’. Inspired by the distinction Freud draws between the savage trauma of loss that occurs at the moment of death – grief – and the longer, unpredictable evolution of that loss into something that we call mourning, Rosenfeld finds herself dramatically rethinking the commonly held therapeutic idea of ‘working through stages of grief’.
8 ROS Grieving, Bereavement, Death
Living With the Long-Term Effects of Cancer
Cordelia Galgut
In this book, Galgut includes discussion on relationships, work, trauma, fear of recurrence and the role of therapy. Giving an unflinchingly honest perspective, “Living with the Long-Term Effects of Cancer: sheds light on these struggles, in the belief that bringing this conversation to the forefront is key to improving life for those who are affected by cancer and who suffer longer term from its effects.
2 GAL General Cancer
The Book of Awakening
Mark Nepo
This book was recommended to the peer supporters by Antonia.
Philosopher-poet and cancer survivor, Mark Nepo’s spiritual daybook is a summons to reclaim aliveness, liberate the self, take each day one at a time, and to savor the beauty offered by life’s unfolding. Reading his poetic prose is like being given second sight, exposing the reader to life’s multiple dimensions, each one drawn with awe and affection. The Book of Awakening is the result of his journey of the soul and will inspire others to embark on their own. Nepo speaks of spirit and friendship, urging readers to stay vital and in love with this life, no matter the hardships. Encompassing many traditions and voices, Nepo’s words offer insight on pain, wonder, and love.
5 NEP (Self Help)
Levels of Life
Julian Barnes
It is a slim volume of only three chapters, “part history, part fiction, part memoir….. it is about ballooning, photography, love and grief, about putting two things, and two people, together, and tearing them apart.
Chapter 3: The Loss of Depth, brings a message both haunting and strengthening, a sharing of one of the most fundamental experiences each of us will be called upon to endure.
8 BAR (Grieving, Bereavement, Death)
my wife said you may want to marry me
Jacob B. Rosenthal
My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me is the poignant, unreserved, and inspiring story of a great love, the aftermath of a marriage ended too soon, and how a surviving partner eventually found a new perspective on life’s joys in the wake of tremendous loss.
Surveying his life before, with, and after his wife Amy, Jason ruminates on love, the pain of watching a loved one suffer, and what it means to heal—how he and their three children, despite their profound sorrow, went on.
9 ROS (Life Stories)
This Too Shall Pass
Julia Samuel
At a time when even the most certain things feel disrupted, acclaimed psychotherapist Julia Samuel provides an antidote to the chaos we are all feeling. In this Sunday Times bestseller, Julia draws on hours of conversations with her patients to show how we can learn to adapt and even thrive during our most difficult and transformative experiences.
From a new mother struggling with the decision to return to work, to a father handling a serious medical diagnosis, and a woman deciding whether to leave her husband for a younger lover, this book unflinchingly deals with the hard times in family, love, work, health and identity.
5 SAM (Self Help)
The Breath of Sadness
Ian Ridley
Ian Ridley is a British sports writer and journalist. When his wife, the trailblazing sports reporter Vikki Orvice, died of cancer at the age of 56, he found himself plunged deep into a sadness that he expected and a world of madness that he did not.” Writing this book was one of the ways he sought to come to terms with his bereavement.
The Breath of Sadness is an unflinching account of how we carry on when we are left behind, and a poignant, tender and candid exploration of love and loss.
9 RID (Life Stories)
Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes
William Bridges
First published in 1980, Transitions was the first book to explore the underlying and universal pattern of transition. Named one of the fifty most important self-help books of all time, Transitions remains the essential guide for coping with the inevitable changes in life.
Transitions takes readers step-by-step through the three perilous stages of any transition, explaining how each stage can be understood and embraced. The book offers an elegant, simple, yet profoundly insightful road map to navigate change and move into a hopeful future.
5 BRI (Self Help)
Managing Cancer Symptoms
Cheryl Rezek
This excellent little book on mindfulness is a practical guide to coping with cancer symptoms both physical and psychological. It takes you step by step through a number of different practices and guided meditations. It is intended to help you to stay focused on the present moment, overcoming stress, worry and anxiety and giving you advice on sleep patterns, exercise and self-care in general.
5 REZ (Self Help)
I Used to Have Cancer
James Templeton
Over 30 years ago, at the age of 32 when the author was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma he was given an experimental hyperthermia treatment with chemotherapy – a proposed 80 treatments in all. At the same time he started looking into a change of diet. When the doctors admitted that their treatment wasn’t working well the author skipped hospital and decided to fight his cancer with a total lifestyle change. He studied various natural approaches to continue his battle with cancer – with a macrobiotic diet, supplements, meditation and generally living a healthy lifestyle. In fact this book is a valuable resource also for preventing cancer in the first place and well written with courage and determination.
4 TEM (Holistic and Complementary Therapies)
Life Kitchen
Ryan Riley
Ryan Riley was just eighteen years old when his mum, Krista, was diagnosed with cancer. He saw first-hand the effect of her treatment, but one of the most difficult things he experienced was seeing her lose her ability to enjoy food.
In a bid to discover whether there was a way to bring back the pleasure of food, Ryan created Life Kitchen in his mum’s memory. In Life Kitchen, Ryan shares recipes for dishes that are quick, easy, and unbelievably delicious, whether you are going through cancer treatment or not. With ingenious combinations of ingredients, often using the fifth taste, umami, to heighten and amplify the flavours, this book is bursting with recipes that will reignite the joy of taste and flavour.
3 RIL (Food and Nutrition)
That Good Night
Sunita Puri
Born and brought up in America, the daughter of immigrants, whose mother was an anaesthetist, Sunita Puri felt the tension between medicine’s impulse to prolong life at all costs and the impact of spirituality on the experience of dying patients. As a medical student, she was more and more drawn to palliative medicine, a specialty which focusses on maintaining quality of life during a terminal illness, rather than prolonging life no matter what.
8 PUR (Grieving, Bereavement, Death)
Radical Acts of Love
Janie Brown
In Radical Acts of Love, Janie Brown, oncology nurse of thirty years and counsellor of cancer patients with terminal diagnoses, recounts twenty conversations she has had with the dying; including those personally close to her. Each conversation uncovers a different perspective and experience of death, while at the same time exploring its universalities.
As well as offering an extremely sensitive and wise insight into our final moments, Brown offers practical ways to facilitate the shift from feeling helpless about death to feeling hopeful; from fear to acceptance; from feeling disconnected and alone, to becoming part of the wider, collective story of our mortality.
8 BRO (Grieving, Bereavement, Death)
The Bowel Recovery Toolkit
Sarah Russell
The author, who is a clinical exercise specialist reminds us that fitness is individual – it is relative to you as a person but also where you are in relation to your cancer journey. This recovery programme is full of encouraging advice for any cancer patient and includes healthy eating as well. These are great practical guidelines for a full recovery.
5 RUS (Self-help)
A Beginner’s Guide to the End
BJ Miller and Shoshana Berger
This is a practical book which provides a wealth of useful, thoughtfully presented information for patients, family members, caregivers and friends. It is easy to navigate, both through the quirky illustrations and the thought-provoking titles, headings and subheadings of each chapter, which help readers to locate the answers to their burning questions.
8 MIL (Grieving, Bereavement, Death)
ESCA CancerSupport
Château du Grand-Saconnex
(ground floor)
Chemin Auguste-Vilbert 14
1218 Le Grand-Saconnex