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Nick Duerden
Writer, journalist
Nick Duerden is a writer and journalist whose work has appeared on both sides of the Atlantic. He has written widely on the arts, health and family. He is the author of several books, including
Exit Stage Left,
Dishing the Dirt, The Smallest Things: On the enduring power of family,
Get Well Soon and
A Life Less Lonely: What we can all do to lead more connected, kinder lives.
The Smallest Things
On the enduring power of family
Nick Duerden’s grandparents were always just . . . there. A mysterious yet unchanging presence, a source of dutiful visits, birthday cards and carefully preserved rituals: lunches, dinners and endless card games.
But, as he enters midlife, and his 98-year-old grandmother enters a care home, he realises that, like so many of us, he should perhaps have paid more attention to her true worth years before.
This is a memoir of the tiny dramas that fill all our lives, and a celebration of the special ties that can bind two intimately connected strangers. Tender and poignant, it captures the richness, and also the complexity, of family life.
'How strange that in our inter-connected modern lives one of the greatest threats to happiness is loneliness. Nick Duerden has approached this dreadful and isolating condition head on, and huge comfort is to be found in the pages of his exceptionally perceptive and sympathetic book. The practical advice given is gold dust not only for lonely people, but for those who long to help them.' Joanna Lumley
'An absorbing and inspirational book about our last big taboo. Through personal stories - often very moving ones - we discover how many initiatives are being set up to help combat the corrosive modern epidemic of loneliness and isolation. Nick Duerden's book should be essential reading, not just for professionals in the field, but for all of us.'
Deborah Moggach, author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
If you were diagnosed with a condition for which there was no known cure, what would you do? This is Nick Duerden's memoir about a long period of ill health, and how he was forced to plunge, like it or not, into the often bewildering but increasingly blossoming world of alternative therapy in pursuit of a cure.
Publication date: 8 February 2018
