Friday, February 8, 2013

Call the Midwife - Jennifer Worth

Title: Call the Midwife: a true story of the East End in the 1950s
Author: Jennifer Worth
Pages: 376
Published: 2008 (first published 2002)
Genre: Non-fiction, Memoir, Biography
Challenges: Goodreads 2013 Reading Challenge
Edition: Paperback
Source: Library

Description: Life in London's docklands in the 1950s was tough. The brothels of Cable Street, the Kray brothers and gang warfare, the meths drinkers in the bombsites - this was the world that Jennifer Worth entered when she became a midwife at the age of twenty-two. Babies were born in slum conditions, often with no running water.

Jennifer Worth describes the romance and beauty of the great port of London, the bug-infested tenements, the spectre of disease, the sense of community and the incredible resilience of women who bore more than ten children. Funny, disturbing and moving, Call the Midwife brings to life a world that has now changed beyond measure. (via Goodreads.com)

Thoughts: I really quite enjoyed this book, although it took me quite a while to get going, but once I was able to get on a role with book, I didn't want to put the book down and I really didn't want it to end.  True I had watched the first season (series if you live across the pond) and was the initial reason as to why I picked up the book, but it was worth it.  The writing was really well done and the imagery of the neighbourhood in which Mrs. Worth worked in was amazing and made one feel as though you were going into those homes as she attended the births of these children, while they lived in what we would deem to be squalor, into families that wanted them and loved them.

Bottom line: I would recommend this book probably to most individuals, but especially those that are nurses and have interest in the subject of midwifery.  I would also recommend the book to those that have seen the show.

Rating:  4.725/5

Pages for 2013: 1944

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