The Body in the Library by Graham Caveney

Cancer, tumour, cancer.

The words fizzle and dissolve into nothing like aspirin in water.

In this startling and deeply moving memoir from one of the great chroniclers of British working-class life, Graham Caveney charts a year of disease from diagnosis to past ‘original sell-by-date’. Shot through with Northerness, tenderness, and Caveney’s trademark humour, The Body in the Library reflects on an unfinished lifetime filled with books and with love. What’s it like to realise that the books on your shelf will remain unread? That the book you are writing will be your last – that you have become your own deadline?