Elaine Bradbury’s Desert Island Books
Name: Elaine Bradbury
Job role: Practice & Workforce Development Lead, Vocational Learning & Development Team
About: I manage the team who supports students, work experience and health cadets. I am also the apprenticeship lead for the Trust and manage the recruitment team. I have always enjoyed reading for leisure, from being a child, and I try to read at least a few pages of a book everyday!
Book 1: The Green Mile by Stephen King
I started reading Stephen King as a teenager, and loved his books. This is about John Coffey who is imprisoned waiting the death penalty, and the supernatural events that occur. It is set after the Great Depression in the US and shows how different prison guards treated their inmates. The Green Mile is a huge book, so would take weeks to read on a desert island!
Book 2: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
A fabulous book about a young girl who lives alone in the marshes of North Carolina, how she survives and how she is viewed by the residents of the local town. I don’t know what it was that made me pick this up, but I read it twice through, I enjoyed it that much. It’s also a film now which really is worth a watch too.
Book 3: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
I have read all of the series of the The Thursday Murder club – they are brilliant! The story revolves around a group of people living in a residential/care home who want to try and solve unsolved murders. When a murder happens on their doorstep, they are all determined to find out who the perpetrator is, despite their ages. A funny, sometimes touching look at how the older generation still have friendships and how they all work together.
Book 4: The Roy Grace novels by Peter James
There are numerous books in this series, focusing on Detective Roy Grace and his work around Brighton. There is always a plot twist, making them a real who-dunnit! Sometimes the descriptions of the murders are graphic, but a lot of the time it is psychological, letting your mind think the worst – fabulous read!
Book 5: Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
The narrative is told from the point of view of Frank McCourt as a child. Born in Brooklyn, New York on 19 August 1930, Frank (Francis) McCourt is the oldest son of Malachy McCourt and Angela Sheehan McCourt. The story is painfully sad as it follows Frank and his family through the depression, dealing with the worst poverty. Compelling reading, with some humor even during the darkest times.
Book 6: This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
I laughed way too hard at some parts of this! This is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the NHS front line. Hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking, this diary is everything you wanted to know – and more than a few things you didn’t – about life on and off the hospital ward.
Luxury item
Piano – I can’t play very well so being stuck on a desert island would give me the opportunity to teach myself. And if that fails, I can chop it up for firewood!