• my year off

In My year off: Rediscovering life after a stroke, Robert McCrum, a journalist and publisher, writes about the stroke he suffered when he was 42 and his recovery during the subsequent year. He provides a florid chronological description of events and reflects on his emotions during his journey to recovery. In keeping with his literary background, he includes quotations from famous authors at the beginning of each chapter starting with Henry Thoreau: ‘Things do not change; we change.’ As a group, we felt this was a poignant introduction to the physical and mental effects of his stroke. We also noted the eloquent analogy that McCrum used to describe his stroke as ‘a biological car crash’ which has ‘blown a connection in nerve central’, and we reflected that this emotive description conveyed to the lay reader the devastating effects of a stroke.

The book is interspersed with diary passages, including some by …