VIDEO – Book Plug – Tim Atkinson “Where does it Hurt?”
Welcome to the Book Plug.
Tim’s latest book is called “Where does it hurt – A memoir” and is an engagingly written, intensely personal and fascinating dance amongst the experience of persistent pain and its impacts on his life. Entwined within this is a wider look at how pain affects other people, the science and history of pain and how culture, society and personal experience affects it.
This book helps start a conversation about the medical mystery that is pain – Why do some people continue to feel pain long after they have healed? How can people feel pain from limbs that have been amputated? And what makes people with severe injuries sometimes feel no pain? The truth is pain is far from straightforward, and most of what we now know has only recently been discovered.
This Book Plug is an exciting opportunity to hear from Tim and have that conversation – where does it hurt? It was held on the 16th November 2021 and the video of the event is below.
Tim’s first-hand account of what it’s like to live with chronic pain has been called
“A very special book that occupies a category all of its own”
“A chronic pain-thriller-page-turner” and
“A thoroughly fabulous book that I could not put down!”
Someone also cheekily suggested that it was “Like Geoff Dyer, but with something important and interesting to say”!
Find Where Does it Hurt? here.
What it does say is certainly important and will be interesting both to those who suffer pain as well as the general reader and should spark some interesting discussion at the Book Plug.
Because most of us simply don’t know how strange pain can be, how little understood it is and how the pills and treatments we take or have might be making it worse. And that’s not all. The more you understand how the brain processes pain the more you realise that other things you take for granted aren’t as straightforward, either… and that pain can even, sometimes, be a pleasure!
‘The true experts when it comes to understanding the problem of persistent pain, its impact and potential solutions, are those challenged by pain who take on a journey of discovery and manage an often remarkable recovery. Here is a book written by such an expert.’ World-leading pain scientist Professor Lorimer Moseley, PhD.
Tim Atkinson
Until 2008 Tim Atkinson was a full-time secondary school teacher, holding a number of middle and senior management positions at a variety of schools. Since then he has established himself as an award-winning blogger, author of over a dozen books and freelance contributor to a variety of newspapers, journals and magazines (including the Guardian, Yorkshire Post, Irish Times and Times Educational Supplement). He has written commercial copy, textbooks, “how to” guides and novels, as well as editing anthologies, running writing courses, mentoring authors and creating educational and health-related support materials. As a blogger he has won awards, worked with top international brands and appeared on ITV’s This Morning and BBC Radio Four’s Woman’s Hour as a specialist contributor. Since 2019 Tim has been working closely with Connect Health helping to establish their “Flippin’ Pain” campaign, which has included devising materials, co-guest editing the magazine “Pain Matters” and participating in a number of events both in-person and online. His memoir about life with chronic pain, “Where Does It Hurt?” was published by Dotterel Press in September 2021.
A Northern Light, Daily Mail, July 24th 2021,
Walking the Dog, Memoirist Magazine January 30th 2021
An Old Flame that Burned Bright, Irish Times, March 2nd 2020
The Video of the Book Plug event is here!
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