A luminous, tender memoir about illness and disability, despair and resilience, pain and joy - and a manifesto on how to live

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

"Inspiring ... How fragile we are, she notes, how fleeting our joys ... Describes a way of living now familiar to many of us" - New Statesman

"A moving account of living with a chronic illness" - Independent

"A profound redefinition of the very idea of vitality" - Financial Times

"Audacious, exuberant ... I can’t think of many books where the reader feels so passionately on the side of the narrator" - Guardian

"This book would always have found a loyal readership – its vivid prose and meticulous, kindly candour ensure it. But coming now, at a time when record numbers have been struggling with their own ill-health and when many more have been forced to slow down, it feels like a manifesto for recalibrating" - Daily Mail

"This memoir feels like the book we all need right now" - Good Housekeeping

"An exquisitely pitched memoir of disability and living with chronic pain, but also of finding joy and wonder" - Bookseller, Editor's Choice