Many Different Kinds of Love, by Michael Rosen

Subtitled ‘A Story of Life, Death and the NHS’ this opens with a section entitled ‘Feeling Unwell’ and moves rapidly through ‘Going to Hospital’ and into ‘Induced Coma’. Anyone who paid attention to the news during the spring and early summer of 2020 might be familiar with the illness and gradual recovery of the former Children’s Laureate, but this series of prose poems takes us into the mind of a man on the verge of death. With the inclusion of numerous entries from the nurses who cared for him when he was at his lowest point, and messages from his wife to his wider family, this is the story of the Covid epidemic from somebody who very nearly didn’t make it back.

This is an intensely moving read, but never mawkish or miserable. Michael’s wry humour peeks through even the darkest moments, sometimes when you least expect it, which is when the horror of what he want through really hits. His amazement at the love shown to him by strangers when he was at his weakest is humble and genuine, and he is only too aware that not everybody on his ward made it through. Interspersed with thoughtful and affectionate illustrations by his friend Chris Riddell, this book is about fragility and helplessness but ultimately hope.

I probably only have the emotional energy to read one book about Covid this year, but I’m glad it was this one.

- Paul

Hardback, £14.99 - paperback available in March 2022. Find this in the Poetry section!