Alive

An Alternative Anatomy

Gabriel Weston

$55

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Jonathan Cape Ltd
06 April 2025

Autobiography: science, technology & engineering; Medicine: general issues; Popular medicine & health

A profound and provocative journey through the human body from the award-winning writer, broadcaster and surgeon.

A profound and provocative journey through the human body from the award-winning writer, broadcaster and surgeon.

What does it mean to live in a body?

For Gabriel Weston, there was always something missing from the anatomy she was taught at medical school. Medicine teaches us how a body functions, but it doesn't help us navigate the reality of living in one. As she became a surgeon, a mother, and ultimately a patient herself, Weston found herself grappling with the gap between scientific knowledge and unfathomable complexity of human experience.

In this captivating exploration of the body, Weston dissolves the boundaries that usually divide surgeon and patient, pushing beyond the limit of what science has to tell us about who we are. Focusing on our individual organs, not just under the intense spotlight of the operating theatre, but in the central role they play in the stories of our lives, a fuller and more human picture of our bodies emerges- more fragile, frightening and miraculous than we could have imagined.

Intimate, penetrating and original, Alive is an anatomy like no other, about our bodies and bonds, the richness and brevity of existence, and the thread of mortality that connect us all.

By: Gabriel Weston
Imprint: Jonathan Cape Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 224mm, Width: 146mm, Spine: 29mm
Weight: 413g
ISBN: 9781787330603
ISBN 10: 1787330605
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 06 April 2025
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Gabriel Weston was born in 1970. She studied English at Edinburgh University before attending medical school in London and becoming a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 2003. Her Sunday Times bestselling debut, Direct Red, was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and won the PEN-Ackerley Award for Autobiography, while her novel Dirty Work won the McKitterick Prize. The presenter of several BBC TV series, including Trust Me I'm a Doctor and Incredible Medicine- Dr Weston's Casebook, she currently works as a part-time surgeon and lives in London with her husband and children.