I'm interviewing academics at the University of East London for a research brochure. The other day I met someone called Barbara Taylor.
"So what's the real world impact of your book going to be?" I asked chirpily.
"Well, it's going to be published by Penguin," she replies. "It's about mental health, a mixture of historical study and memoir as I've spent three years researching the asylum system, and I was in Friern Barnet hospital in the 1980s. Books like that tend to attract a lot of attention."
She's only The Barbara Taylor - world famous historian of feminism! Actually I've never heard of her, but one has a way of noticing when one is the presence of brilliance and a quick google afterwards confirmed I had been.
The book is about how we look after each other - everyone needs looking after, mental health is just one example of that. She says that question is nothing new, it's always been a preoccupation of feminism. But the book will shed light on the current political climate in which looking after the vulnerable members of society is looked on with suspicion.
Can't wait!
"So what's the real world impact of your book going to be?" I asked chirpily.
"Well, it's going to be published by Penguin," she replies. "It's about mental health, a mixture of historical study and memoir as I've spent three years researching the asylum system, and I was in Friern Barnet hospital in the 1980s. Books like that tend to attract a lot of attention."
She's only The Barbara Taylor - world famous historian of feminism! Actually I've never heard of her, but one has a way of noticing when one is the presence of brilliance and a quick google afterwards confirmed I had been.
The book is about how we look after each other - everyone needs looking after, mental health is just one example of that. She says that question is nothing new, it's always been a preoccupation of feminism. But the book will shed light on the current political climate in which looking after the vulnerable members of society is looked on with suspicion.
Can't wait!
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