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The Story of a Heart

WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON FICTION 2025
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( 2,400 ratings, 421 reviews)
Brief Description
WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2025 SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024 BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE SPECTATOR, NEW STATESMAN, NEW SCIENTIST, AND PROSPECT 'What a book . . . The perfect book' Chris Evans on Virgin Radio 'Profoundly moving... Read More
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Rachel Clarke follows the journey of a human heart - and narrates one of the most miraculous developments in 20th century medicine - as she describes the saving of a nine-year-old boy

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WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2025

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024

BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE SPECTATOR, NEW STATESMAN, NEW SCIENTIST, AND PROSPECT

'What a book . . . The perfect book' Chris Evans on Virgin Radio

'Profoundly moving and at the same time wildly inspiring' Rob Delaney

'Rachel Clarke's finest book yet' Financial Times

'The best narrative non-fiction I've read in years. Rachel Clarke has written a profound piece of investigative journalism and wrapped it up in poetry' Christie Watson

'This is THE MOST BEAUTIFUL and riveting book: written with such humanity, empathy and knowledge, such tact and drama and eloquence. Vital reading, lifelong revelation' Laura Cumming

This is the unforgettable story of how one family's grief transformed into a lifesaving gift. With tremendous compassion and clarity, Dr Rachel Clarke relates the urgent journey of a young girl's heart and explores a history of remarkable medical innovations, stretching back over a century and involving the knowledge and dedication not just of surgeons but of countless physicians, immunologists, nurses, and scientists.

FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER DEAR LIFE AND BREATHTAKING, A MAJOR TV DRAMA

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780349145617

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 05 June 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Abacus

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 24.0mm

Width: 126.0mm

Height: 196.0mm

Weight: 231g

Pages: 288

About the Author

Dr Rachel Clarke is an NHS palliative care doctor and the author of three Sunday Times bestselling non-fiction books. The most recent of these, Breathtaking (2021), was adapted into an acclaimed television series, broadcast on ITV in 2024. It reveals how she and her colleagues confronted the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Dear Life (2020), depicting her work in an NHS hospice, was shortlisted for the 2020 Costa Biography Award and long-listed for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize. Your Life in My Hands (2017) documents life as a junior doctor. Before going to medical school, Rachel was a broadcast journalist. She produced and directed current affairs documentaries focusing on subjects such as Al Qaeda, the Iraq War and the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She continues to write regularly for the Guardian, Sunday Times, New Statesman and Lancet among others, and appears regularly on television and radio. Inspired by a visit to Ukraine during the conflict in late 2022, Rachel founded a UK-registered charity, Hospice Ukraine, which supports the work of local palliative care teams in Ukraine.

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