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The Cure for Sleep

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'Moving and inspiring, courageous and true: real art. Just reading her is pleasure' Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun

What happens when you realise that you must change your life?

When - after years of hiding in routine, shrinking from opportunity, and sleepwalking through your days - you know you want more.

How do you remake your life without breaking it?

The Cure for Sleep is the stunning memoir of a smalltown wife and mother who returns from sudden near-death determined to live her second life on a larger, braver scale - whatever it takes, or costs.

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Praise for The Cure for Sleep

  • Such a bold, brave, and beautiful story about birth, death, rebirth and building a larger life - Charlie Gilmour, author of FeatherhoodI love this book. Tanya's story is moving and inspiring. Her thoughts and writing are well considered, courageous & true: real art. Just reading her is pleasure - Amy Liptrot, author of The OutrunTanya is fearless in her integrity and honesty. In laying out her life, she has created a book with the capacity to change yours - Jenny Landreth, author of SwellThis is a book of women and words; homes and honesty; light and longing. A life laid bare, held to the morning light and given to us as reminder of what it means to choose to live. Shadrick weaves the raw beauty of the day to day with the magic of myth and fairy tale to offer us way through the darkest woods - Kerri ni Dochartaigh, author of Thin PlacesShe is fearless in her depiction of female desire - I think many women will find themselves in these pages - Katherine May, author of WinteringI finished this wonderful book with tears in my eyes. A book about daring to be, daring to head out, to encounter truths and to understand what place desire must have and must not have in a life. It is beautifully written, both careful and passionate, both slight and strong in its gestures like the best of art, and astonishingly, heartrendingly open. Intensity, beauty, subtlety, pain and courage - all are here - Adam Nicolson, author of Sea Room and The Mighty DeadSuch lovely observations on familial love and motherhood - and being alive - Kit de Waal, author of My Name is Leon

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Tanya Shadrick

Tanya Shadrick

Tanya Shadrick is a British writer and former hospice life-story scribe who explores the tension between restraint and risk: how we negotiate duty and desire. Her work includes the durational performance piece The Wild Patience Scrolls: a mile of writing composed pen on paper beside England's oldest outdoor pool which led to residencies at the Jan Michalski Foundation in Switzerland and Virginia Woolf's Monk's House. The Cure for Sleep is her debut book, a memoir that explores the limits of personal freedom within small-town life: what it takes and costs to expand the possible. It was a Waterstones and Evening Standard non-fiction book of the year.

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