A Still Life: A Memoir

Josie George's A Still Life is a profound redefinition of vitality, shortlisted for the Barbellion Prize 2021. It follows Josie, who lives with disabling chronic illness, as she tells the story of her still life over the course of a year. The book is full of kindness, joy, and hope, and will make readers a better person.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 400 pages
Publication date: 03 February 2022
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BARBELLION PRIZE 2021


A manifesto for recalibrating


DAILY MAIL


I can't think of many books where the reader feels so passionately on the side of the narrator.


GUARDIAN


A profound redefinition of the very idea of vitality.


FINANCIAL TIMES


Josie George lives in a tiny terraced house in the urban West Midlands with her son.


Since her early childhood, she has lived with the fluctuating and confusing challenge of disabling chronic illness.


But Josie's world is surprising, intricate, dynamic.


She has learned what to look for: the routines of her friends at the community centre; the neighbourhood birds in flight; the slow changes in the morning light, in her small garden, in her growing son, in herself.


In January 2018, Josie sets out to tell the story of her still life, over the course of a year.


As the seasons shift, and the tides of her body draw in and out, Josie begins to unfurl her history.


And against a world which values progress and productivity above all else, Josie sets out a quietly radical alternative: to value and treasure life for life itself, with all its great and small miracles.


Full of kindness, A Still Life will make you a better person


CLARE MACKINTOSH


A Still Life is joy-lit: vivid, lovestruck, hopeful and wise


MELISSA HARRISON


Josie George is the kind of writer I strive to be ... A tough, tender, beautiful book about existing in a body in the world


ELLA RISBRIDGER


Could not be more timely ... An immensely talented writer


LINDA GRANT

Weight: 274g
Dimension: 129 x 199 x 38 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781526612007