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Heart: A History by Sandeep Jauhar

Can you mend a broken heart? It is a real pleasure to bring you my thoughts on Heart: A History by Sandeep Jauhar which has been shortlisted for the 2019 Wellcome Book Prize.

AUTHOR

For anyone who has as interest in this the most powerful of the organs in the human body yet many know and understand so little of the heart. For those of us who have experienced heart related problems and surgery you begin to take a closer interest on every beat in your chest. It is after all human nature.

For author Sandeep Jauhar he too has suffered as he tells his own story at the beginning of the book which led to a blockage in the main artery leading to the heart.

The heart is a very strong organ and it can withstand so much, as I found out reading Heart: A History it is the first organ to develop. Beginning to beat 3 weeks into life blood is not formed at this point. A remarkable fact that literally made me own heart skip at that thought. But when things do go wrong time is of the essence.

When Sandeep was young he knew of the problems related to the heart through his own family. It was as we learn when Sandeep was young did he take an interest in the heart and later decided he wanted to study Cardiology.

I became absorbed in the book as I learned more and more especially as Cardiology has been a fast paced part of medical study, it has advanced so fast in recent decades but yet there is still so much to learn and understand.

A few medical facts: The first coronary bypass operation I learned was in 1967 and the first coronary angioplasty was conducted as only in recent years back in 1977 yet this procedure seems to have been around for so much longer.

A fascinating and also moving book on the heart but one that is vital. A superb writer and Sandeep writes with such great prose. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

288 Pages.

Thank you to Charlotte Cooper from Midas PR for the review copy of Heart: History by Sandeep Jauhar

Heart: History by Sandeep Jauhar was published by Oneworld and was published on 27^th September 2018 and is available through Waterstones, Amazon and through your local independent bookshop.

The 2019 Wellcome Book Prize Shortlist:

Amateur: A reckoning with gender, identity and masculinity (Canongate Books) by Thomas Page
Heart: A history (Oneworld) by Sandeep Jauhar (India/USA) Non-fiction
Mind on Fire: A memoir of madness and recovery (Penguin Ireland) by Arnold Thomas Fanning (Ireland) Non-fiction
Murmur (CB Editions) by Will Eaves (UK) Fiction
My Year of Rest and Relaxation (Jonathan Cape) by Ottessa Moshfegh (USA) Fiction
The Trauma Cleaner: One woman’s extraordinary life in death, decay and disaster (The Text Publishing Company) by Sarah Krasnostein (Australia/USA) Non-fiction