A Good Read

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A Good Read: Dr Alex George and Ella Al-Shamahi

Dr Alex George and Ella Al Shamahi

Dr Alex George and Ella Al-Shamahi

BBC Radio 4 - A Good Read, Dr Alex George and Ella Al-Shamahi

Mindfulness and mermaids feature this week

The TV Doctor and mental health advocate Alex George joins evolutionary biologist, paleoanthropologist and stand up comic Ella Al-Shamahi to discuss favourite books.

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle is a guide to spiritual enlightenment and preaches the importance of being in the moment. Alex George has found it an invaluable guide when he has suffered periods of anxiety and poor mental health.  Ella Al-Shamahi chooses a first hand account of being imprisoned in Yemen by Abdulkader Al-Guneid, a medical doctor taken from his home and locked up for over a year for posting his political views about the conflict in Yemen on social media.  She says Prison Time in Sana'a is a testament to inner strength as well as a guide to understanding a very complex if forgotten war.
Harriett's choice is the Mermaid of Black Conch - a novel about the capture of a sea woman by white fishermen on a fictional Caribbean island. Little Mermaid it is not.  Monique Roffey's mermaid has bad teeth and is full of sea lice.

Producer: Maggie Ayre

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A Good Read

Dr Alex George and Ella Al-Shamahi

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