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The Reading Cure

How Books Restored My Appetite

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The Reading Cure

By: Laura Freeman
Narrated by: Laura Freeman
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About this listen

At the age of 14, Laura Freeman was diagnosed with anorexia. She had seized the one aspect of her life that she seemed able to control and struck different foods from her diet one by one until she was starving. But even at her lowest point, the one appetite she never lost was her love of reading.

As Laura battled her anorexia, she gradually rediscovered how to enjoy food - and life more broadly - through literature. Plum puddings and pottles of fruit in Dickens gave her courage to try new dishes; the wounded Robert Graves' appreciation of a pair of greengages changed the way she thought about plenty and choice; Virginia Woolf's painterly descriptions of bread, blackberries and biscuits were infinitely tempting. Book by book, meal by meal, Laura developed an appetite and discovered an entire library of reasons to live.

The Reading Cure is a beautiful, inspiring account of hunger and happiness, about addiction, obsession and recovery, and about the way literature and food can restore appetite and renew hope.

Read by Laura Freeman.

2018, The Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award, Short-listed

©2018 Laura Freeman (P)2018 Orion Publishing Group Biographies & Memoirs Eating Disorders Personal Development Mental Health
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Critic reviews

[A] beautifully written hybrid of memoir and literary criticism... This book is about the anguish of anorexia, written by a bookworm unfurling her wings as a writer of considerable power. (Cathy Rentzenbrink)
A miraculous memoir ... Anyone who has encountered anorexia, either first hand or in someone they love, will recognise this harrowing yet heartening portrait. The Reading Cure is a book for the bookish, for those hungry for self-knowledge, or for those who are just hungry. (Daniel Johnson)
In its subtle, undogmatic way, The Reading Cure is a tale of joy winning against piety, and the triumph of life over death... both a stimulating argument for the power of fiction as a force for personal change and a wise memoir of anorexia. Moreover, it is never pat, always intelligent, full of enthusiasm, and almost entirely free of self-pity. (Craig Brown)
Gentle in its tone and astute in its insights, the book is a treat... [and provides] sound evidence for the ability of literature to affect life. (Ada Coghen)
The most moving, most evocative book. (Sophia Money-Coutts)
You might not expect a book on anorexia to be a joy to read, yet somehow this is. Laura Freeman is unflinchingly honest about the loneliness and misery of suffering from an eating disorder: the desperate calculations over 'an inch of almond milk', the 'shivering hunger'. But her pleasure in the food of literature - from sweets in Harry Potter to roast goose in Charles Dickens - is infectious. The Reading Cure will speak to anyone who has ever felt pain and found solace in a book. There are no easy epiphanies here, but you are cheering Freeman on, page by page, as she slowly recovers her appetite, both for double-cheese toasties and for life. (Bee Wilson)
The Reading Cure is a painful exploration of anorexia but also a love letter to the healing power of books written with expert care, talent... and hope. (Francesca Brown)
Freeman's writing throughout is beautiful and bountiful; her descriptions of food are full of flavour and temptation; her journey to wellness an inspiring one. (Lucy Pearson)
[An] honest, beautifully written account. (Eithne Farry)
Warm and insightful, Freeman takes us on an exhilarating journey. (Bel Mooney)

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Profile Image for Lucy P

Whetted my appetite for the books!

This is a powerful memoir - it describes the isolation and crippling fear of social eating when anorexia has its hold. The author’s voice trembles in places, emphasising how harrowing her story is to re-live.

I was hugely impressed with part of the author’s summing up; every cookbook published nowadays has a different conflicting rule: avoid carbs, no dairy, turn courgette into pasta, no wheat, etc. This, I wholeheartedly agree is nonsense. We should stop it.

On to the books! Throughout the memoir, as expected, key books and their food related quotes are liberally sprinkled. What books! Almost every one of them I have ordered! Explained by the author, they sound intoxicating; Patrick Leigh-Fermor eating his way around Spain and Eastern Europe, American writer MFK Fisher and her adventures elegantly devouring legendary dishes, Edwardian cherry tarts at the village cricket before WW1 struck, French pastries painted lovingly by Monet. I couldn’t get enough!

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Beautiful Read

A beautiful moving read which had me tearing up listening at work. Her narration is heartwarming and raw.

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Profile Image for Laura Marcus

A truly magnificent memoir

I dissolved into tears at the end of this book as I feared I might. Well, not feared. What a listen! It truly is a magnificent book. And I happened upon it quite by chance. Because I read one of Laura's pieces in The Times and thought it very good. I thought I was, at times, an extreme dieter. But that is not what Anorexia is. Laura Freeman explains it so well. It is a mental illness that isn't so much about dieting as the mind breaking and the brain sending wrong messages. I’ve never read such an amazing description of mental illness and why it’s so hard to cure. Makes me want to seek out more of her work. Also makes me want to give her a hug.

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