Description

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2026

‘This book is extraordinary’ MIRANDA HART
‘Life-affirming’ VIV GROSKOP
‘Astonishing, important, and truly radical ‘ POLLY MORLAND

At the age of twenty-two, Grace Spence Green’s spine was broken and her life changed course. One day, she was in hospital supporting patients, the next she was one herself.

Over the years that followed, words like healing and recovery took on new meanings. Some emotions, like sadness and self-pity, dimmed. Others were heightened, and Grace learned to embrace them all: anger at a world ill-equipped to accommodate her new body; passion to demand change; and joy found in community, nature and wild swimming.

Through her powerful story, Grace shows how we can come back to ourselves after trauma and fight for change while joyously embracing life exactly as we are.

‘Extraordinary’ XAND VAN TULLEKEN
‘Superb’ RACHEL CLARKE

Publisher Review

Essential reading. Grace combines humour, warmth and grit to tell a story that would make anyone reflect on their own sense of self and the nature of injury and healing -- Xand van Tulleken A beautiful, powerful, immersive read -- Rachel Clarke A wonderfully intricate, heartfelt account of the blurred line between patient and doctor. Inspiring and life-affirming -- Viv Groskop Lucid, hopeful and fierce, this book is completely transformative -- Polly Morland Grace said she made the decision not to hold out for a cure or "for my legs to wake up ... life was for living now". Surrendering to what happens to us, to find joy and meaning in spite of it, is the bravest and most wise choice we can make and this book is an extraordinary one to inspire just that -- Miranda Hart A book of wisdom and love, trauma and acceptance, extraordinary resilience and justified anger, it'll change the way you think about disability. Stop whatever it is that you're reading and read Grace Spence Green instead -- Gavin Francis Unputdownable, awe-inspiring, necessary. The best book I've read by a doctor in a very long time -- Gabriel Weston Having also been through spinal cord injury, this is the best personal account of that trauma. I kept wanting to underline sentences because they are so true and so beautiful -- Tom Shakespeare To Exist As I Am upends the familiar tropes of the rehab memoir, and gives us something perceptive and new ... Valuable, insightful and beautifully written -- James and Lucy Catchpole Exquisitely written and compelling, this book tells the story of a remarkable doctor. By the end it will have upended the preconceptions many of us hold as to what it is to lead a rich, fulfilled life -- Caroline Elton