On The Best Books To Give For People Who Are Unwell

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Twitter can sometimes cause surprises even with regard to this blog. I hadn't thought of anything to post when I was chatting to people in it about books.

The other people involved in this converstion were @AnnaCaig ,@Efrogwraig and @MacdocLeonard (all rights reserved etc,etc).

The chat moved from being able to praise an author directly online after having read their work, to my doubts Miguel De Cervantes that, even by ouja twitter, he could use just 140 characters, to the relative merits of  Don Quixote, Miss Read and Jane Austen.

But what intrigued me the most was when @Efrogwraig advised that not only was @AnnaCaig a journalist writing a book column in the Sheffield Telegraph (and incidentally has a book blog https://murderundergroundbrokethecamel.wordpress.com) but also gave her books when unwell. Which got me thinking? What is the perfect book to give for someone who's ill?

In some respects I'm not the perfect person to have asked this. In my life I've been fortunate that only twice have I been in hospital as a patient. The first time aged four to take my tonsils out, the second to have my wisdom teeth extracted in my late twenties/early forties. I can't remember my four year old reading habit but books second time around took a back seat from recovering from the anaesthetic and listening on hospital radio to West Ham losing in the quarter final of the F A cup against Luton Town.

I do however remember having the flu in junior school and picking up Black Beauty by Anna Sewell to read sitting in an armchair and going through it pausing when everything seemed to be swirling around me. Praised this book in the past and won't repeat myself here except to say that on reflection perhaps the episodic nature of the story as different issues befall the eponymous horse made it easy for an ill boy to digest it all.

The worst place to answer this question is probably at a hospital shop. The last time I went inside one (daughter's physiotherapy for her knee) around January did have a look at the books on offer. Certainly it was a different selection than when the shop was owned by W H Smith. Then it seemed to be current bestsellers,what were bestsellers and what they seemed to hope would be bestsellers. Lots of thrillers by James Patterson (and one other) and Clive Cussler (and one other) adorned the shelves. To think I'm so old I can remember when Clive Cussler wrote rubbish thrillers by himself.

Now the books seem to be bestsellers of decades earlier. SS GB by Len Deighton (before the TV series - Am not a fan which I'll explain if I ever get to read another book by him again. Let's just say this cemented my dislike) and The Dead Of Jericho by the late Colin Dexter (I've read this and a few other Morse novels and, and I'm sorry to say this, the TV series was much, much better) were the titles that sprang to mind. But though the selection was interesting it didn't really seem to hit the right note.

So perhaps the answer lay in the one and only time I gave books to a person whilst they were in hospital. Over a decade ago a friend of ours was struck by an infection which though she is much better now has changed her life forever. At that time she was staying in a hospital in Llandough (near Cardiff  and funnily enough one of the places we're looking to move to now) for a number of weeks as I recall, and possibly even a few months.

Before going to visit her for the first time I was in the Waterstones bookshop in Cardiff having decided that grapes/flowers didn't really cut it as gifts given  the circumstance so decided to get her a couple of books instead. But for reasons that seem inexplicable to me then, let alone now, I bought a couple of gritty dark crime novels by Patricia Cornwell.

What made this decision odd was not only that these books were dark crime thrillers, not just that they were from her medical examiner Kay Scarpetta series to be read by a woman stuck in hospital for (then) an unknown period of time but also that I'd never read a Patricia Cornwell novel before....and indeed since.

(A quick aside here. The reason I've not read Patricia Cornwell is simply because there are so many books but so little time and they've simply not come up on the pile of the great unread. As to how do I know therefore that her novels are dark and gritty? Simple. I've judged a book by it's cover)

And the reaction of our friend? She has moaned about it to me ever since. Complaining that she so loved the thrillers she's had to buy every other Patricia Cornwell book including getting a hardback copy before the paperback came out. Unwittingly I had created a superfan. Ms Cornwell you don't have to thank me.

And the point to be made? Unless the person's condition is terminal perhaps the best book to buy an unwell person is one where people have worst problems than the recipient of the gift is facing. Like say danger on the streets....or death.

Until the next time.