A Fortunate Woman
A Country Doctor’s Story
A Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller
Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Month for March 2023
Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2022
Watch trailer here & Baillie Gifford judge, Samanth Subramanian, here.
When Polly Morland is clearing out her mother’s house she finds a book that will lead her to a remarkable figure living on her own doorstep: the country doctor who works in the same remote, wooded valley she has lived in for many years. This doctor is a rarity in contemporary medicine – she knows her patients inside out, and their stories are deeply entwined with her own.
In A Fortunate Woman, with its beautiful photographs by Richard Baker, Polly Morland has written a profoundly moving love letter to a landscape, a community and, above all, to what it means to be a good doctor.
Illustrated throughout with photographs by Richard Baker.
Published by Picador (Pan Macmillan).
Hardback June 2022/Paperback March 2023.
This is no rural Call the Midwife, but a superb look at one woman making a difference… Morland writes about nature and the changing landscape with such lyrical precision that her prose sometimes seems close to poetry. There has been no shortage in recent years of books about healthcare . . . With this gem, Morland has done something similar for general practice.
The Sunday Times
A poetic, utterly human portrait…[a] masterly work.
A Times Book of the Year 2022
This book deepens our understanding of the life and thoughts of a modern doctor, and the modern NHS, and it expands movingly to chronicle a community and a landscape.
A New Statesman Book of the Year 2022
An immersive study… Morland’s book contains a profound message for the future at a critical moment for general practice and us all.
Times Literary Supplement
Timely… compelling…[the] vital perspective of a single frontline clinician… A delicately drawn miniature.
Financial Times
Elegantly and emphatically, Polly fills her pages with life. ‘A Fortunate Woman’ is a deep, deep pleasure to read.
Samanth Subramanian, Baillie Gifford Prize judge
Beautifully and tenderly written, [A Fortunate Woman] also serves as a topical reminder of what is possible with continuity of care.
Caroline Sanderson, ‘Editor’s Choice’, The Bookseller
Insightful, moving … instructive when so many practices are in crisis.
A Times Audiobook of the Year 2022
Morland’s portrait… updates Berger’s vision of general practice in several important ways… This is a book that celebrates relationship-based medicine, and what we stand to lose if this person centred approach to general practice is deprioritised.
The Lancet
Morland’s portrait makes a powerful case for the older order of intimate continuity of care…The anonymous inspiration of Morland’s book… becomes a kind of emblematic GP everywoman.
Tim Adams, Observer
A really terrific book… deeply moving, engrossing and unforgettable… At a very difficult time for general practice and for the medical profession as a whole, this book comes as a most welcome affirmation of the central importance of a respectful, reciprocal relationship between doctors and patients.
British Journal of General Practice
A compelling response to Berger’s classic account…drawn with colour and respect in Morland’s sensitive prose.
The Tablet
The descriptions of both the people and the place are a delight, beautifully illustrated by Richard Baker’s photographs. Although there is loss and grief in this book, it is also a celebration of what general practice can be at its best. Recommended reading for all aspiring doctors, and especially for those working in health policy, so they may understand and preserve the crown jewels of the NHS.
Dr Helen Salisbury, Nuffield Department of Primary Care, University of Oxford
Superb – beautiful, enthralling, careful, tender. It is not just a portrait of the doctor and all those she serves, but a memoir of an entire English community, timeless and revelatory. I found it deeply moral, moving, lucid, and loving.
Laura Cumming, author of On Chapel Sands
Polly Morland and Richard Baker have more than done justice to the original John Berger book – and produced a work that stimulates the eye and the mind in equal measure.
Alain de Botton
A beautifully written book, both moving and humbling.
Lissa Evans, author of Crooked Heart and Old Baggage
‘A Fortunate Woman’ sets out in compelling detail the relationship-based care that will be lost forever if we do not act to support and revitalize a profession under threat. It is a vibrant and authentic portrait of the rural family doctor in these difficult contemporary times.
Trisha Greenhalgh, Professor of Primary Care, University of Oxford
I was consoled and compelled by this book’s steady gaze on healing and caring. The writing is beautiful.
Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater and Ghost Wall
‘A Fortunate Woman’ is the best book I’ve read about general practice for a long time. Astonishingly perceptive, it shows how a committed GP can keep human values alive in an increasingly impersonal NHS – and why we urgently need more like her.
Professor Roger Neighbour OBE, former President, Royal College of General Practitioners
All human life is here in this evocative portrayal of the challenges and joys of rural family doctoring in modern times. Enthralling and uplifting.
James Le Fanu, author of The Rise & Fall of Modern Medicine
This beautifully crafted book drew me in immediately by reminding me of so many reasons why I became a general practitioner in the first place…a compelling narrative based on patient stories. I loved it.
Professor Dame Helen Stokes-Lampard
Stunning in style and content and I hope it encourages all readers to reflect on the book’s key message – the importance of relationship-based care and the fact that it is under threat.
Professor Martin Marshall, Chair, Royal College of General Practitioners
One of the best books about medicine that I have read. The patients’ stories are vivid, moving, often unforgettable. Polly Morland has written with incredible sensitivity, appreciation and descriptive ability about the valley and the people who live there.
Professor Roger Jones OBE
Beautifully written, beguiling, important, overlaid with kindness, quietly woven with a sense of place and a profound insight into how rural communities function. I loved this book.
Robert Penn, author of Slow Rise &The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees
A remarkable, gripping and inspiring book that itself must surely become recommended reading for today’s trainee GPs… a gust of fresh, clear, contemporary air.
Reading the Forest
Beautiful and fascinating … it combines the structural elements of storytelling with the skill of real-life reporting, clustering them in the brilliance of a cloisonné-finish.
Dundee University Review of the Arts
A thoughtful and readable contribution to understanding how healing works in a community setting… Polly Morland’s book is ostensibly documentary, with writing styles more common in fiction, demonstrating why we need to think about the culture as well as the science of medicine.
Dr Hannah Bradby, Cost of Living blog