For Dying Matters Awareness Week in May and as part of BrumYODO’s A Matter of Life and Death Festival, The Heath Bookshop, The Mary Stevens Hospice and No Barriers Here are hosting an event with one of our favourite non-fiction authors, Kathryn Mannix. The Heath bookshop have pressed Kathryn’s books into the hands of friends and family as well as customers in the shop as they think they’re essential reading for everyone!

Kathryn will be in conversation with Claire, the CEO of The Mary Stevens Hospice, Gemma, the Inclusion and Partnerships Lead at The Mary Stevens Hospice and Co-Founder of No Barriers Here, and Jed Jerwood, Research Lead and Co-founder No Barriers Here.

Kathryn will be in conversation for around an hour. There will be a book signing afterwards.

Kathryn Mannix is a former palliative care consultant with over two decades of experience leading hospice services and NHS palliative care programmes. An expert in end-of-life care and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), she developed innovative training programmes to equip healthcare professionals with practical CBT skills, earning national recognition and grants. Since retiring from clinical practice, she has become a best-selling author, speaker, and campaigner for better public understanding of dying, with her books With the End in Mind and Listen gaining international acclaim. Kathryn regularly contributes to media discussions, promotes compassionate end-of-life care, and champions the de-medicalisation of dying. Kathryn lives in the Northumbrian countryside with her husband and a small flock of hens.

With The End In Mind:

What if everything you thought you knew about death was wrong?

How should we prepare for the facts of dying and saying our goodbyes?

And what if understanding death improved your life?

By turns touching and tragic, funny and wise, With the End in Mind brings together Kathryn Mannix ’ s lifetime of medical experience to tell powerful stories of life and death.

‘It is incredibly moving, of course, but what it isn’t is miserable. Yes this is a book about death, but it is also a book about joy. There aren’t all that many books that change the way you see the world. This book really might. It will make you want to do a better job of loving and living. It will make you want to be kinder. And it will make you want to cherish every precious moment of your precious life.’  Sunday Times

Listen:

Most of us have a conversation we’re avoiding.

From the bestselling author of With the End in Mind, this is a book about the conversations that matter and how to have them better – more honestly, more confidently and without regret.

A child coming out to their parent. A family losing someone to terminal illness. A friend noticing the first signs of someone’s dementia. A careers advisor and a teenager with radically different perspectives.

There are moments when we must talk, listen and be there for one another. Why do we so often come away from those times feeling like we could have done more, or should have been braver in the face of discomfort? Why do we skirt the conversations that might matter most?

By bringing together stories with a lifetime’s experience working in medicine and the newest psychology, Mannix offers lessons for how we can better speak our mind and help when others need to.