Compare products

"having experienced our health service quite extensively as a father to a very poorly child this could be seen as a very worrying portrayal of the system you rely on however reading this retrospectively when the dark tunnel of constant fear and worry is behind you it really is quite cathartic"

"firstly this book should come with a health warning: do not start reading this late at night unless you don't need sleep and secondly if you do read it in bed ensure you are alone as you may end up in hospital when your partner threatens to shove your kindle up your rectum because your constant laughing and snorting is keeping him awake but thankfully having read up all about pr's i felt confident that the junior doctors would be able to remove it if necessary"

"what a dreadful waste of tax payers money and loss to the nhs when such a caring and conscientious doctor is forced to leave the profession because he cannot face the lack of sleep the ridiculous demands the job makes on his physical and mental health his home life"

"a complete waste of time and money!"

"i would recommend buying do no harm by the neurosurgeon henry marsh instead of this utter tripe"

"i was so disappointed total waste of money"

"it was a huge disappointment badly written poor editing poor content a miserable little book"

"what i didn’t like it was it sometimes demeans the patients pregnant women and having gone through two difficult births i found a man being glib about women’s health pain quite annoying"

"the ruthless exploitation and abuse of medical staff is a total disgrace for which lying greedy politicians of all political parties are to blame"

"could not be posted to amazon i'm very disappointed you have haven chosen not to allow my feed back i feel this is because the of my negativity which is the honest way i've been treated but 0n this occasion honesty is obviously not your best policy !"

"despite that though kay's descriptions had me laughing out loud and whilst i initially found it really irritating having to refer to the footnotes you'll see what i mean these were often the best parts of the book"

"soooo unfunny it's unbelievable"

"absolutely awful"

"so i'd recommend it as a good read but only if read with caution"

"i find the language he uses unnecessarily crude and lazy"

"this book is a true account of how medical professionals are under valued un loved and treated with disrespect by a small minority of society and the catastrophic effect such attitudes have upon these human beings"

"contrived forced humour sad uninteresting antidotes of life as a junior dr"

"i actually found parts of the book quite depressing if i’m honest and some issues made me feel angry especially the injustice of what the author had to endure not just with some difficult and or dumb patients but worse with how he was often taken advantage of by the medical system with the long hours etc"

"the huge amount of explanations also makes for difficult reading of the diary entries having to break off to read the notes"

"this book shows in shocking technicolour the depth of the water junior doctors are thrown into with very little in the way of lifesaving equipment and kay managed to alter the mood deftly in his recounting of events that led to his decision to leave the profession"

"i'm not sure whether that would have had legs for a dinner table moment for him or whether he just thought i was an actual moron"

"it's quite archaic but the nhs has outgrown itself with more high risk cases such as morbid obesity smokers and cases that are pregnant due to advancing technology therefore requiring high input without staffing that goes with these cases"

"nor do i think it's misogynistic just locker room talk which if you sit primly outside as a third party you could get on a hi horse and criticise but in the heat of the day to day is rather insignificant"

"you might think it exaggerated or farfetched but you'd be wrong"

"it's a wonder there aren't more accidents given the horrendous hours they work!"

"lots of unnecessary bad language that had never been mentioned in the reviews did nothing for the book"

"this book clearly shows the overwhelming job doctors have in hospitals portrayed with humour frustration anger and sadness"

"quite a few negative reviewers accuse him of poor crude language"

"but even so seeing it written down in all its awful sleep deprived reality was still shocking"

"i enjoy reading books about life in medicine there’s been several of them recently henry marsh’s excellent books being amongst some that i have read and it’s good that the disclosures in these books about allopathic medicine are there for all to read: plus it seems cathartic for the authors to write about their experiences in medicine some of which are extremely distressing medical cases for which they get no debriefing or counselling and others about how stupid the nhs can be with how its managed"

"the book itself is boring and repetitive"

"it also brings home the huge stretch put on the nhs by absolute idiots who have self inflicted stupid injuries on themselves but who are still seen and treated"

"no idea why the hype about this book unfunny and bland"

"i would like to use one of his expletives myself in this review but fear it would mean a disqualification which is actually what the bma should do with this incompetent"

"drs aren't expected to go off sick get time back owed and expected to just keep on until finishing their job on shift"

"i found it cynical occasionally bordering on misogynist in his horrible descriptions of women and their bodily parts when they are at their most vulnerable gynae detail in the book but perhaps not for a review but describing a womans vagina as a 'tw*t' is one such example "

"the part where adam says the beds were taken away from on call rooms so doctors can’t be seen sleeping on the job made my blood boil!"

"i veered off into general practice and lasted a little longer than he did however in the end successive governments' total lack of anything remotely helpful or supportive finished off my career just the same and with an incredibly heavy heart i threw in the towel in my early 40's"

"i mean why should i be wanting to read about some pathetic person who was never cut out to be a doctor in the first place?"

"i was thoroughly enjoying this book until around the 65% mark on my kindle when his anecdotes started to become a bit boring and repetitive and his tone ever so slightly ‘cocky’"

"i mean what a total idiot"

"dr kay describes a descent into burn out and it is to his credit that he has the courage to get out of the profession when he is unable to laugh anymore rather than to continue to struggle like hundreds of other doctors do ultimatley damaging themselves their family their relationships and their patients"

"too empathetic to the taxing nature of the life and work of a hospital doctor’s incredibly demanding and merciless daily life and the cruel toll it takes"

"after pouring hard decades of your life into the nhs you can enjoy a salary that is nearly as high as what a 26 year old city lawyer or accountant gets and cut back your unpaid overtime to just a couple of hours a day with sunday afternoons for the paperwork"

"a lot of the stories are blatant falsehoods or ripped off from other medical 'diaries"

"some of the stories did have me laughing but the overall impression it leaves is a doctor working hard long hours a job he takes great pride in but in difficult conditions at the limits of his knowledge and strength"

"this book even raised laughs on a very difficult day"

"as funny as this book is the final section will give you a big dose of reality as life as an a+e doctor and bring you back down to earth where the nhs is getting screwed over"

"the fact that it was non fiction made the humour seem tasteless these are real people kaye is writing about and the thought that relatives of his patients could be reading about their vulnerable relatives made me as a health professional myself distinctly uncomfortable"

"he comes across as arrogant uncaring misogynistic with a god complex"

"it should be read by each politician selected to be sos for health although i imagine they would simply pass it to their grossly overpaid advisor for a one paragraph brief"

"i know junior doctors work incredibly hard long thankless hours with little pay to start with and i am so grateful to them i am a qualified nurse so know a little about the workings of hospitals "

"disrespectful inaccurate and offensive"

"plenty of filthy condescending disrespectful songs about patients there too"

"kay does however fill the reader with the impending doom of his rather arbitarily chosen career"

"those young doctors deserve a footballers wage and free housing accommodation!"

"i enjoy reading books about life in medicine there’s been several of them recently henry marsh’s excellent books being amongst some that i have read and it’s good that the disclosures in these books about allopathic medicine are there for all to read: plus it seems cathartic for the authors to write about their experiences in medicine some of which are extremely distressing medical cases for which they get no debriefing or counselling and others about how stupid the nhs can be with how its managed"

"sometimes they’ll say nothing sometimes they might moan sometimes they might cry"

"the situation is now desperately and in many cases life threatening deplorable"

"he describes passing through the grades of sho registrar and senior registrar none of which existed much after the millenium the sr grade having been abolished with disastrous effects by the then cmo calman"

"one was found in bushes beside the car park sound asleep worryingly he had been driving for 30 minutes before getting out of his car and simply sat down and fell asleep"

"the saddest part is how they are treated by other more senior doctors and the management"

"the ruthless exploitation and abuse of medical staff is a total disgrace for which lying greedy politicians of all political parties are to blame"

"it irritated me right from the beginning with its foul language and derogatory tone"

"awful book smattered with totally unnecessary bad language if supposedly written by an intelligent educated person who moans all the time about a profession for which he is obviously unsuited for"

"what a dreadful waste of tax payers money and loss to the nhs when such a caring and conscientious doctor is forced to leave the profession because he cannot face the lack of sleep the ridiculous demands the job makes on his physical and mental health his home life"

"but after reading this book i realise what an insult and slap in the face that comment really was"

"i am not a prude but it was early into the narrative that i found the tone of the book dismissive misogynistic and overall lacking in empathy"

"dr kay is a nasty piece of work"

"the end game a medicosurgical disaster something which doctors at the pointy end of healthcare will experience on a regular basis cruelly knocked him down"

"the prostitute who inserted a child's sponge vaginally to sop up menstrual blood the rich seam of finding humour in the category 'patients who put stupid things into their orifices' has been rather over mined in this book to be honest which has 'been schnitzeled flat by her clients' pummellings over the past three months' nice empathy there doctor"

"you were too hard on yourself but i understand completely"

"i’m glad others in the review section have also come to a disappointing conclusion about this book"

"sections are ‘read out loud to the nearest person’ hilarious the last section is so unrelentingly tragic it quite literally sent me into a full on panic attack"

"but above all it made me very very angry!"

"this is one of the funniest saddest books i've read in a long time drama pathos whatever that means tears and laughter"

"also illuminating and very shocking"

"i work in the public sector and understand that you need to be flexible but the thought that we’re putting junior staff under such stress is very unpalatable"

"on many occasion during the book adam points to “stupidity” his own too negligence ignorance ineptitude and fallibility"

"the last bit is perhaps the most important highlighting the bad distribution of nhs funds with the higher echelons being paid the most for doing the least whilst the staff on the ground working ridiculous hours and being paid such a low wage suffer most and as highlighted in this book eventually throw in the towel and leave"

"so much so that if i’m ever taken to a+e for a life threatening emergency i’d tell my doctor to finish their coffee first"

"the book was very badly written boring in the extreme and not at all funny"

"in the nhs in some situations a gallows humour has to be adopted and i am sure it is the same for all the emergency services"

"definitely gives you a better understanding of the ridiculous hours and unfair responsibility the junior doctors are subject to"

"the book does not hold back on any of the difficulties you need to overcome on a day to day basis or the massive drain it has on your own life and instead of painting a picture of doctors as being beyond human it gives a more realistic view"

"the nhs relies on the goodwill of its staff working past their time usually writing up notes or incident forms that you haven’t had time to do during your shift or swapping their shift due to staff shortages at the last minute relies on them building their own support network instead of giving them the right support to deal with traumatic events that are all too common in the job but no amount of training will ever prepare you for working through their breaks “because the ward is too busy”"

"the 6 month all change rule also makes a complete mockery of the info i am given"

"spoiler alert: the ending is not what you might expect"

"what this has also done is make me even more proud of the nhs and its amazing staff and made me even more irritated by the inability of our government to see that and their inability to fix stuff such as failing systems"

"it irritated me right from the beginning with its foul language and derogatory tone"

"it paints a rather depressing picture of life as a doctor in an inefficient and stretched system"

"also known for his song parodies he was the entertainment at prince harry's 30th birthday adam's decision to leave medicine and go into entertainment full time is explained here and it's a very sad story"

"how they cope with the dangerously long hours on duty and often with huge responsibility prematurely on their shoulders is an eye opener"

"they can be confessional and moving and frequently highlight the crumbling structure of the nhs and the failure of politicians to appreciate the effect of policies they enact"

"i am in awe but equally so angry about the way the national health service is funded run politicised putting not only patients’ lives at risk but the terrible toll it has on the medical profession"

"no only is it eye opening into the life or lack of of our junior doctors and the often ridiculous situations they face it will also make you realise without a doubt that the wellbeing of our healthcare providers is worth fighting for"

"an example that haunted me was that if a baby has died in the womb the mother is still obliged to deliver it in a normal labour ward surrounded by mothers giving birth to healthy living babies how insensitive is that?"

"ever been a duty solicitor in crime and had to spend all night in the cells and be paid a lousy wage"

"read this book and then look yourself in the mirror before nagging the doctor for an unnecessary antibiotic or sticking something not designed for the purpose inside yourself!"

"i'm always very sceptical of books and reviewers that claim a book is 'laugh out loud' funny and probably would have been more swayed by the negative reviews had i not decided to read the first few pages before buying"

"at first i was somewhat irritated by the appearance of forced humour but this quickly gave place to enormous respect and sympathy"

"i wish a little more time had been spent on expanding the entries mainly because their brevity sometimes makes the author seem brash when i don't think it is the case"

"mixed feelings but overall i didn't enjoy it as much as i'd hoped"

"the nhs simply does not look after it's staff and like the doctor in the book both he and i and many other staff have left exhausted and frustrated that we never had sufficient staff the management who know very little about medical matters are running the nhs and telling medical staff how to do their jobs!"

"to be fair he seems fairly misanthropic generally but i can't help thinking that if you view women as silly vapid and a collection of icky body parts that's not going to make you a wonderful practitioner"

"well written extremely frank description of one young doctors journey to becoming a consultant the long hours the unexpected objects inserted in surprising places the cost to his health physical and mental the kindness the missed sleep the missed parties and the ones he'd wished he'd missed"

"he is rude arrogant condescending hates his job moans about his pay his patients his colleagues etc etc etc"

"" as distressing as infertility clearly is it is hardly the same as a life threatening cancer"

"it also brings home the huge stretch put on the nhs by absolute idiots who have self inflicted stupid injuries on themselves but who are still seen and treated"

"the nhs is on its knees and those in power need a damned wake up call it would do them good to roll their sleeves up and actually work on the wards theatres corridors all areas beside the hard working staff from the lowest paid to highest to see what real hard working people have to cope with on a day to day basis"

"the minister in charge must be aware of this but have a callous disregard for the suffering"

"now jeremy hunt’s inadequacy has been somersaulted by further political manoeuvring brexit & the impending privatisation of this marvellous institution"

"the fault lies with the legions of politicians who have lied and bullied anyone who has tried to highlight the bungling inefficiencies and refusal to accept the need for the health service to be properly funded"

"i've also felt my anger escalate to a very uncomfortable level"

"the main problem i had was the short written record of events and i was left wondering if i was reading a comedy script or a account of life in the nhs"

"i'm afraid i didn't like the author's style and in this instance felt that i wasted my money"

"the human condition in extremis is not to be treated flippantly"

"pointless remarks?"

"billions of our tax money are thrown annually at the service"

"whilst there is a is an overwhelming focus on female medical issues due to the author’s career path this is more than compensated by anecdotes about degloving and the dubious use of candles and fans by foolish males"

"sadly the long working hours and overworked staff continue to cause problems and there doesn't appear to be any light at the end of the tunnel"

"they survive on practically no sleep they never get cover and they have to know every inch of every medical condition they might encounter"

"some of the stories did have me laughing but the overall impression it leaves is a doctor working hard long hours a job he takes great pride in but in difficult conditions at the limits of his knowledge and strength"

"of course this is a book about sick people not just the stupidly injured so there are some moments there where you realise how fragile a human life can be and exactly what the mind and body is or is not capable of"

"for anyone like me who has spent hours and days in a&e or sundry hospital wards it is impossible not to be moved by the excessive demands placed upon our medics at all levels"

"they can be confessional and moving and frequently highlight the crumbling structure of the nhs and the failure of politicians to appreciate the effect of policies they enact"

"from cringe worthy blunt to hurtful honesty"

"not a book just a list of nasty experiences and some awful medical definitions"

"what i didn’t like it was it sometimes demeans the patients pregnant women and having gone through two difficult births i found a man being glib about women’s health pain quite annoying"

"not the reality of ridiculously long hours etc"

"this book reports through six years of “private” diaries the course of adam kay’s career from medical student to senior registrar and the reasons for his ultimate resignation from the national health service"

"eventually the pressure is too much and sadly he resigns from the nhs as a retired doctor i was really able to relate to his struggles and the sense of relentless pressure from the job often without time to eat or do anything else and i think things are worse now than when i was in practice"

"of course this is a book about sick people not just the stupidly injured so there are some moments there where you realise how fragile a human life can be and exactly what the mind and body is or is not capable of"

"sounds like he went into medicine for the wrong reasons and learned the hard way"

"don’t be put off by the intrusion of gallows humour i think most of us needed it as a form of mental insurance!"

"lots of cliche over indulgent self pity"

"you cry through laughter and the cold realisation of the abhorrence of doing the most important job in civilisation as an underrested underpaid under appreciated servent of society"

"the guy illustrates himself as a relentless saviour throughout every page of the book with his stories of self sacrifice and dedication to life but then makes fun of someone for grieving their dog"

"a mockery of the misconceptions of medicine a giggle at some of the silly things people do and say an account of many objects rammed into suspicious places and a personal insight into the experiences of one junior doctor"

"i am a doctor and bought this having seen his show advertised at the edinburgh fringe then being unable to get tickets"

"i fled the nhs 18 years ago and even then it was overstretched and creaking friends tell me how much worse it is now which is heartbreaking to hear"

"i hope the "lay person" can gain a better understanding of the stress of the medical staff before their numerous complaints about front line staff as managers in their offices have no idea of what really matters on the "shop floor" was disappointed when i finished the book a hard act to follow adam kay!"

"there are a few sections where the more squeamish might find it a difficult read"

"it is hardly surprising that this book has been a bestseller in the uk given its warts & all account of life working as a junior doctor in the nhs"

"is the third poorest performer compared to the 18 developed countries on the overall rate at which people die when successful medical care could have saved their lives" 3 "it has consistently higher rates of death for babies at birth or just after perinatal mortality and in the month after birth" it is sad to say but for a number of serious conditions you are less likely to survive when treated by the nhs than if you were treated by an "average" health care system"

"what a shame adam felt he had to stop being a doctor but totally understandable"

"the is the most bitter sweet book i have ever read and if i was prime minister it would be law that everyone reads it"

"my major sadness is that the pressures proved too much for adam he isn’t the only one"

"interestingly in it highlights how hard doctors work also v funny in places asia basically anecdotes about former patients"

"i've shed tears of both laughter and sadness reading this book"

"having been a junior doctor myself i completely identified with all his difficulties exhaustion and emotional commitment and dedication"

"and to the obvious detriment to any personal relationships or families?"

"am not in a medically related field however this book was really insightful as to what it must be like to be a medic and the really difficult decisions medics need to make day to day"

"still other reviewers have taken him to task for his potty mouth and crass humour"

"doctors teachers and so many public service professionals are leaving their "vocations" and this little book gives us an insight into why and why as a nation we should try to arrest the decline"

"a very good book marred by unwarranted low life expletives"

"dr kay with his book has broken this taboo"

"it was a huge disappointment badly written poor editing poor content a miserable little book"

"the writer is simply but tragically burnt out by the extremes of his workload & the book has a very poignant message about the unrealistic demands we place on our hospital doctors"

"this was a book club choice for me as this is womens problems!"

"frighten her to death !"

"i felt quite angry after reading this as it clearly shows the disregard the government has for our medical profession"

"lots of cliche over indulgent self pity"

"however comments like ‘the midwife will run along and do the bloods’ and his endless comments about the stupidity of his colleagues nurses and patients was simply unnecessary"

"i have been the impatient nurse paging an already overstretched junior doctor to come and review a patient prescribe more pain relief or fluids check gent or vanc levels or write a discharge letter as the patient is standing in front of me dressed holding their packed belongings with their angry relative who has come to collect them"

"luckily i do not suffer any pain"

"style lacunae: gaps in the text that does not deal with an important issue and is therefore not effective or convincing "

"but even so seeing it written down in all its awful sleep deprived reality was still shocking"

"if it wasn't for how hard some doctors and nurses work beyond their official working hours the nh s would be in a poorer state then it is now"

"you bang your head against a brick wall trying to get the government to understand i am in education"

"the last bit is perhaps the most important highlighting the bad distribution of nhs funds with the higher echelons being paid the most for doing the least whilst the staff on the ground working ridiculous hours and being paid such a low wage suffer most and as highlighted in this book eventually throw in the towel and leave"

"as a nurse with over forty years experience in neonatal care i was hooked into this book by the 4 star reviews"

"what i didn’t like it was it sometimes demeans the patients pregnant women and having gone through two difficult births i found a man being glib about women’s health pain quite annoying"

"as a fan of amateur transplants and their work as a band i already had a predisposition to enjoy adam kay's work and the book never failed me"

"also why condoms should have a picture warning on the packet"

"the author dr adam kay worked principally in the obstetrics & gynaecology depts of various hospitals & writes of constantly having to deal with one life threatening crisis after another of over long shifts often having to be extended by yet another crisis 10 minutes before he is due to clock off & of the constant constant need for sleep"

"also i wasn’t sure some of the diary entries particularly those which weren’t about work were really true eg the stag do "

"it made me feel guilty about complaining about how hard i work in my flexible part time work that stretches to almost full time and sometimes 7 days a week"

"no only is it eye opening into the life or lack of of our junior doctors and the often ridiculous situations they face it will also make you realise without a doubt that the wellbeing of our healthcare providers is worth fighting for"

"there is an underlying message that the nhs is itself suffering from too much pressure on essential doctors and nurses"

"should read this book and maybe just maybe our wonderful nhs and medical staff would get the funding they deserve"

"examples of the stress experienced by so called “junior doctors” working often unsupported and having to deal with multiple emergencies often at the expense of their personal commitments"

"if anyone is slightly squeamish about that area you might want to give the book a miss"

"if you don't laugh like a drain reading this then your name is probably jeremy hunt"

"there was an underlying tone that i didn't enjoy"

"i synpathise with adam kay and how hard he worked etc etc but the way he tried to put his point across was completely ruined each time because rather than write properly with descriptive adjectives he repeatedly used swear words"

"it must be aweful to be accused of a mistake knowing full well that you were so tired and could hardly stand when this unfortunate error occurred i think in this man's case it was when through a mishap in communication a baby died and very nearly the mother"

"hearing the hype surrounding this book i was very skeptical i was concerned that a dr had turned patients worst moments in to humour to sell a book"

"also if you don't like the use of the "f" word in this book probably not for you and also probably not one to buy your aged aunt unless you want to"

"the contempt for women who ask questions or want options clearly explained to them"

"i was that disaster"

"unless something is done about it there will be no nhs with cheap doctor slavery but i guess this is what the main aim is from the powers that be"

"an nhs already stretched to the limits in terms of staffing will only get worse if we cant support the staff we have"

"what this has also done is make me even more proud of the nhs and its amazing staff and made me even more irritated by the inability of our government to see that and their inability to fix stuff such as failing systems"

"what a dreadful waste of tax payers money and loss to the nhs when such a caring and conscientious doctor is forced to leave the profession because he cannot face the lack of sleep the ridiculous demands the job makes on his physical and mental health his home life"

"i like the unrelenting attachment to the profession and healthy disrespect for ruling politicians and most of all the glimpse into the life of a specialist doctor"

"it's hard to write funny it's hard to write compelling it's hard to write heart breaking unless that is you're adam kay in which case you can apparently just bash out all three while you're working as a doctor"

"dr kay describes a descent into burn out and it is to his credit that he has the courage to get out of the profession when he is unable to laugh anymore rather than to continue to struggle like hundreds of other doctors do ultimatley damaging themselves their family their relationships and their patients"

"this must be an unimaginably traumatic experience for a caring doctor"

"quite a few negative reviewers accuse him of poor crude language"

"my opinion is it’s rubbish"

"waste of time"

"i'm always very sceptical of books and reviewers that claim a book is 'laugh out loud' funny and probably would have been more swayed by the negative reviews had i not decided to read the first few pages before buying"

"sometimes they’ll say nothing sometimes they might moan sometimes they might cry"

"was looking for humour but a bit of a let down for my taste"

"i had very mixed views about this book"

"it was moan moan moan"

"on a more serious note the reality of being a junior dr and the long hours is quite shocking"

"starts off very funny indeed but soon turns into an endless list of boring and repetitive stories about the gynaecology ward"

"i know there is a shortage of both nurses and doctors but my personal opinion is that there is too much hierachy involved in the nhs"

"this book just isn't funny at all and there's too much swearing i it"

"the two parts which will stay with me forever is the description of the lost swab incident yes we do crawl around the floor and delve into the ‘bran tub of doom’ on such an occurrence and the reason for being late out from work almost every single shift"

"it must be aweful to be accused of a mistake knowing full well that you were so tired and could hardly stand when this unfortunate error occurred i think in this man's case it was when through a mishap in communication a baby died and very nearly the mother"

"as a retired member of the medical profession a junior doctor as he was then relies heavily on the nursing staff to keep them right in many aspects of patient care and senior consultants preferences on procedures"

"i am sorry he was unable to carry on"

"i'm a doctor and been through all the same stuff and i must say he sounds quite melodramatic and over the top"

"it doesn't shy away from how negligent quick fixes or plain old accidents might come about i'm not sure i'd have a steady hand after no food or sleep for one day least of all two with a never ending bleep and no rest in sight"

"kay does however fill the reader with the impending doom of his rather arbitarily chosen career"

"the real tragedy is that he's unlikely to be the last"

"working insane hours they are expected to make life or death decisions and be able to function on a level that requires total concentration and commitment"

"i read it really quickly probably won't ever read it again and i've forgotten most of it"

"on the whole though it's a cover to cover whinge about how tough life is as a junior doctor i am sure much the same could be said of junior teachers or junior most things even junior lawyers and how badly the nhs operates again i am sure much the same could be said of most institutionalised professions and maybe this needed to be said by someone to get the attention the nhs needs but kay doesn't offer any solutions or practical advice and it certainly doesn't explain the extraordinary sales figures"

"but it doesn’t stop there once one becomes a consultant the desperation desolation irritation and sometimes rage re appear at regular intervals"

"is the third poorest performer compared to the 18 developed countries on the overall rate at which people die when successful medical care could have saved their lives" 3 "it has consistently higher rates of death for babies at birth or just after perinatal mortality and in the month after birth" it is sad to say but for a number of serious conditions you are less likely to survive when treated by the nhs than if you were treated by an "average" health care system"

"it's probably worth noting that a large part of the book focuses on gynaecology and obstetrics so i imagine it might be too emotionally heavy in parts for people who've had difficulty in either area as a patient"

"there is a political element to this book and given the recent issues that the nhs faces it would have been wrong to ignore these aspects"

"also the level of pastoral care for junior doctors seemed to be totally non existent one hopes that it has changed since the diaries were written but somehow i sadly doubt it"

"he was clearly never cut out to be a doctor he hated every minute of it and is no great loss to medicine"

"i don’t usually read anything remotely to do with human services as i work in them but i happened on this one after a recommendation"

"he's perhaps lucky he chose obstetrics because we can imagine those in a&e or say cardiology face this awful reality far more frequently than an obstetrician"

"having experienced our health service quite extensively as a father to a very poorly child this could be seen as a very worrying portrayal of the system you rely on however reading this retrospectively when the dark tunnel of constant fear and worry is behind you it really is quite cathartic"

"the time framework of the book doesn't ring true"

"i found it cynical occasionally bordering on misogynist in his horrible descriptions of women and their bodily parts when they are at their most vulnerable gynae detail in the book but perhaps not for a review but describing a womans vagina as a 'tw*t' is one such example "

"but do not do what i did and read it while on the bus going to and from work on the way in i was laughing so hard people were giving me funny looks while on the journey home i was an emotional mess after having something in my eye for 20mins *a complete lie"

"this book makes compulsive reading as we follow the ups and downs of adam kay from a medical student to an over worked senior registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology"

"whether you're an occasional visitor to hospitals or there far too often you will enjoy it"

"yes there are tragic times"

"having experienced our health service quite extensively as a father to a very poorly child this could be seen as a very worrying portrayal of the system you rely on however reading this retrospectively when the dark tunnel of constant fear and worry is behind you it really is quite cathartic"

"nor do i think it's misogynistic just locker room talk which if you sit primly outside as a third party you could get on a hi horse and criticise but in the heat of the day to day is rather insignificant"

"yes i know the budget is tight but something has to give and sadly it is the patients and those working the frontline that suffer the most"

"some hard hitting and sad stories that will show people what it is really like working in hospital"

"there are definitely a few ‘ouch’ moments and the frequent talk of bodily fluids all the things that can go wrong with the human body and things that people do to themselves for pleasure or vanity might not be for the faint hearted!"

"people who are offended by what he's written need to chill or come up with a alternative to dark humour that helps medical professionals retain their sanity"

"mine certainly is not i became really bored at 25% so abandoned the rest"

"thank god he has left and the way it has been written😫😫😫 quite frankly i am astounded this boring and offensive excause for a book was written by a person of allegedly high intelligence"

"managed to plough my way through 20% before giving up in frustration"

"other reviews have taken a rather less sympathetic approach that his book is essentially a 280 page whineathon"

"other passengers may notice when you get to the bits about human stupidity"

"it's quite archaic but the nhs has outgrown itself with more high risk cases such as morbid obesity smokers and cases that are pregnant due to advancing technology therefore requiring high input without staffing that goes with these cases"

"this is a really funny book but at the same time a very sad reflection of how ridiculously stretched staff at all levels are and how over worked and underpaid they are by the nhs!"

"the unbelievable pressure the people who save lives work under is totally criminal they have no time for a private life no time to relax barely any time to sleep"

"i am a doctor and bought this having seen his show advertised at the edinburgh fringe then being unable to get tickets"

"the lack of public resources and some very sad events"

"having an alternative career as a writer would have helped but the relentlessness of the work so angrily described must have made the decision easier"

"don't get me wrong it's very readable and quite amusing but it got repetitive rather too soon"

"i have also been the nurse on nightshift when things have been the “q” word turning a blind eye as a junior doctor sneaks into the day unit next door for some shut eye because they are exhausted on their 5th night"

"the real tragedy is that he's unlikely to be the last"

"it’s also ugly cry heartbreaking"

"i'm just a little old fashioned where the f word is used so commonly these days everywhere so much that babies will be bungie jumping out of the womb screams 'f who turned the light on'"

"i won’t spoil anything but that part is where your laughter tears change to sad tears"

"his dry sardonic wit literally had me crying with laughter his sarcasm and self depreciating humour and observational comedy was pure gold"

"it left me even more concerned about the nhs and how it’s going to cope with the baby boomers generation growing old"

"an example that haunted me was that if a baby has died in the womb the mother is still obliged to deliver it in a normal labour ward surrounded by mothers giving birth to healthy living babies how insensitive is that?"

"how wrong could i be"

"contrary to their views that the author was arrogant and rude and didn’t care about his patients adam struck me as a great dedicated doctor"

"to be fair he seems fairly misanthropic generally but i can't help thinking that if you view women as silly vapid and a collection of icky body parts that's not going to make you a wonderful practitioner"

"this doctor came across as arrogant and conceited"

"i don't want to get too much into the political side of it as i'd probably write enough to make my own book but a huge change needs to happen and asap before an already dying nhs finally gives up the ghost completely"

"however they did not effectively address the bullying boasting intimidation lack of consideration and nastiness they had to endure because of the consequences to their career"

"what doctors have to deal with on very little sleep the huge responsibilities they have and the decisions they have to make are shocking"

"despite this the brevity does also help in conveying the rush and chaos of the job and how little time there really is to care or show you care as the next emergency beckons tiredness overcomes you and numbs you"

"from the report: 1 "the uk’s nhs performs worse than the average in the treatment of eight out of the 12 most common causes of death" 2 ""

"but this really brings it home in all its falling asleep at the traffic lights brutal reality"

"i agree with most comments that the book is very funny but we should not forget the roots of a bad medical system that allows individual or a group of individuals to fail to apply knowledge if any correctly"

"uproariously funny for the most part but tinged with the frustration that medical staff in the nhs are fighting an uphill and possibly a losing battle in terms of patient satisfaction due to inadequate funds and trained personnel"

"their training is an ongoing baptism by fire during which sadly more and more doctors are moving abroad to countries where they are properly valued properly paid and never asked to work continuously for close to 100 hours"

"we are losing wonderful doctors like this from the profession due to the unbearable intolerable pressure they are put under"

"very accessible for non medics kay provides footnotes to explain procedures and medical jargon throughout the book which can be a bit irritating at times but are also funny in their own right"

"read it in oct 2019 when the whole stupid time and money wasting saga of brexit was in full cry"

"the short sections on cancer are particularly tough"

"life seems to be a tsunami of problems accompanied by sheer exhaustion"

"contrary to their views that the author was arrogant and rude and didn’t care about his patients adam struck me as a great dedicated doctor"

"we should support these doctors more"

"it must be aweful to be accused of a mistake knowing full well that you were so tired and could hardly stand when this unfortunate error occurred i think in this man's case it was when through a mishap in communication a baby died and very nearly the mother"

"it was a huge disappointment badly written poor editing poor content a miserable little book"

"but scary too when you discover how downright dangerous it is to have too little sleep!"

"however the book is tedious repetitive and very poorly edited"

"covers every aspect of why we need sleep"

"very depressing if you are and insomniac as it tells you all of the terrible damage that has been done to your brain and body for chapter after chapter after chapter"

"i do feel it will change my sleeping patterns and when it doesn't it will make me feel terrible about it"

"undoubtedly extremely boring"

"this means the whole book is quite repetitive and could have been edited down into a shorter version"

"i found the book too scientific and very repetitive"

"if anything reading such books for people with pre existing anxiety could make them feel pretty helpless"

"alas it has also been partly responsible for triggering the worst insomnia of my life"

"however the book is tedious repetitive and very poorly edited"

"it even offers a little guidance for anyone suffering mental health issues such as ptsd anxiety which disrupt sleep"

"the sheer misery of being unable to sleep like seasickness you can't die of it but you will wish you could doesn't really get much coverage"

"entirely unhelpful book"

"could be shorter a bit repetitive time to time but a must read"

"sometimes i found the description of the experiments a bit long winded and felt that there was a bit of repetitive content but i was absolutely fascinated the book and its contents and have taken a number of things from it about the importance of a good night's sleep to health happiness and longevity which i am trying to incorporate into my approach to sleep"

"maybe you need glasses or maybe it's your glasses or contact lenses that are making you dizzy and not focused and giving you headaches?"

"i thought it would be easy for me to go to bed half an hour earlier and get up half an hour later thus achieving the eight hours sleep that professor walters says i need but in practice it has proved difficult and frustrating to change the seven hour habit of a long lifetime"

"this is known as the null hypothesis"

"made me think a whole new way about sleeping patterns and how lack of sleep affects us"

"ispoiler alertsleep 8 hours a day everyday i wonder why so may of us obsess with nutrition and fitness and ignore sleep"

"i would have discovered that anyone who claims that they function optimally on less than 8 hours per night every night is fooling themselves"

"worse we’ve decided along the way that anyone who won’t or can’t live up to them is lazy or uncaring"

"matthew walker expertly except explains the science of sleep the adverse effects of not getting enough of it and shares his insights into how a change in society’s attitudes to sleep could help us live longer healthier lives"

"the author does something which is particularly outstanding as an expert in his field he's able to effectivley communicate to non experts in a way which is easy to read and isn't filled with unnecessary jargon"

"it illustrates how we as humans tend to neglect sleep and make do with too little of it for nights at a time"

"if the desired effect was to scare people of missing sleep one chapter would’ve sufficed i also got bored of it trying to convince me of what it already convinced me a few chapters ago missing sleep is bad you keep hoping the book is going to give you some help for the problem it says you had but it just doesn’t"

"the pernicious effects of insufficient sleep are also covered"

"overall a fascinating but frustrating read at least for someone who dreams almost literally of being able to follow the author's advice"

"the information on quite how long caffeine stays in the body and how it acts to disrupt sleep was a real eye opener sorry about the pun and over the last 3 weeks i've avoided caffeine after lunch and have since found it much easier to get to sleep and i sleep better"

"even worse for the scandinavians"

"if my circadian rhythm is hard wired to make me a late riser ie many hours after dawn then i need to deceive my body clock drastically"

"when i have had mri scans it has been very noisy"

"as i incorporate changes to my routines lifestyle and environment my chronic insomnia of many years duration is finally getting better!"

"it flowed and information dripped off the pages"

"from his assertion that drowsy driving is worse than drink driving to his suggestions about how to improve neo natal units to ensure best possible survival of pre term babies this is a book with 'wow' moments"

"scared the hell out of wife"

"you wouldn't want to miss out on your sleep again after reading this as it's so important"

"you can summarise with the general adivise: don’t sacrifice sleep when weighted against something else and try to get as much of it as you can without over thinking it"

"as much as we should head the warnings about circadian rhythm and blue light we should also remember that stressing over every fine detail could lead to a neurotic life void of enjoyment"

"i am as many of us a bit of sleep deprived for many reasons: children technology early mornings to be at work and silly habit of trying to read books in the bed"

"from his assertion that drowsy driving is worse than drink driving to his suggestions about how to improve neo natal units to ensure best possible survival of pre term babies this is a book with 'wow' moments"

"i am at particular health risk if i don't get enough high quality sleep "

"i’d strongly recommend it to anyone especially those that have trouble sleeping"

"you cannot catch up on lost sleep except r"

"it is exactly as other reviewers have said : it simply sends you into a blind panic about how you'll just die if you do not sleep well"

"i would then try and prove myself wrong experimentally and statistically"

"it's a mixture of current accepted wisdom avoid blue screens at night and grandmotherly advice go to bed at the same time each night "

"as a side factoid i recently read that the world health organisation classifies shift work as a probably carcinogen because such hours mess up your sleep so badly"

"only problem is i find it hard to change to an 8 hour routine or to sleep for that long i was previously more relaxed about my sleep"

"i forced myself to read through till the end because it’s a timely subject and not many people are talking about it"

"the only reason it did not get 5 stars was the review of alex guzey which points to some i believe valid inaccuracies which frankly annoyed me"

"the pernicious effects of insufficient sleep are also covered"

"throw away all those diet books how to become better books and spend a fiver buying this"

"quite the opposite in fact therefore to read time and time again that we must get x hours sleep otherwise we will get all sorts of horrible life threatening illnesses is neither helpful nor interesting"

"and his book is partly an ode to sleep and its virtues and partly a dreadful warning about what happens if individuals and societies continue to under sleep"

"the most notable was where he described hunter gatherers dying earlier because they didn't get enough sleep because they spent too much time foraging and not getting enough sleep"

"it also dispels many unhelpful myths by showing clear conclusions based on rigorous research"

"i would have realised that simon and garfunkel’s lyrics in the sounds of silence about greeting their old friend darkness sleep and “the vision that was planted in my brain still remains” was insightful in highlighting the the key role of sleep in learning and memory"

"an exceptionally boring and badly written book"

"matthew walker does not flinch from elucidating the catastrophic effects of consistently not getting enough sleep"

"throw away all those diet books how to become better books and spend a fiver buying this"

"this book explains why we sleep the positive effects of sleeping in your mind body and health and the negative effects that not sleeping enough has on them"

"and another is when without this information the human race has set some ridiculous parameters around when we should sleep & decided they should apply to everyone"

"he breaks down the roles of the rem dream state sleep and the non dream like state deep sleep which gives an understanding of why each part of the sleep cycle is important for our health"

"scary stuff"

"without sleep expect chronic illnesses to afflict your being and body without sleep expect to be grumpy and not at your best and so on"

"the book shows us clearly that some babies & children won’t be able to go to sleep early & stay asleep!"

"however for my as a non native english speaker i found that the author used difficult vocabularies on many parts of the book"

"i had so many aha moments as i learnt about the reasons behind different aspects of sleep which i had experienced but never questioned"

"this description is given over and over you start to believe it and say jesus!"

"this means the whole book is quite repetitive and could have been edited down into a shorter version"

"if you are having sleep trouble what's the good of being told how terrible that is without being told how to do something about it?"

"as a result perhaps the promised advice on how to actually sleep better is disappointing and rather sketchy"

"lack of enough sleep is implicated in conditions such as cancer alzheimer's and diabetes"

"i have three gripes"

"i had nightmares after reading of the sickening cruelty involved in this research"

"it’s ludicrous to ignore this knowledge just because we’ve got it wrong previously!"

"he has a tin ear and it’s very excruciating to read"

"the information on quite how long caffeine stays in the body and how it acts to disrupt sleep was a real eye opener sorry about the pun and over the last 3 weeks i've avoided caffeine after lunch and have since found it much easier to get to sleep and i sleep better"

"two there is a conspicuous absence of discussion of the situation of people who live in scotland or more northerly latitudes and southern latitudes where the lengths of the day and night vary dramatically over the year and of people whose circumstances affect their sleep parents of young children carers people who have to wake in the night because of a medical condition shift workers etc "

"i wouldn't recommend to those who have sleep problems as it is just telling you how bad it is to not get a good night's sleep every night"

"i would have thought one of the first questions researchers would ask is how these rhythms differ between the eight hour day an the eighteen hour day that we experience in these latitudes"

"matthew walker presents the most neglected topic sleep which is fundemental to every individual in the human race in thier maintenance of wellness and sanity in a very readable book"

"the evidence of lack of ability to learn remember make sound decisions and the onset of diabetes heart disease cancer dementia and the destruction of your immune system are all attributed to less than 8 hours sleep per night"

"my only criticism was that it was somewhat repetitive and towards the end of the book i had read enough!"

"too much jargon and detail on experiments and tests"

"it even offers a little guidance for anyone suffering mental health issues such as ptsd anxiety which disrupt sleep"

"then the obsession begins you buy a fitbit you track your sleep hours and get frustrated when you can’t get what is deemed to be the minimum sleep time before you know it you’re waking up in the middle of the night unable to sleep because of the anxiety not sleeping enough creates"

"if you're a coffee lover maybe give it a miss"

"lack of enough sleep is implicated in conditions such as cancer alzheimer's and diabetes"

"the author doesn’t promote over analytics but neither does he condemn it"

"but that belies the depth of investigations that have gone into scientific analysis of the brain of the role and mechanism of non rapid eye movement and rapid eye movement sleep and of the consequences of sleep deprivation"

"a lot of the advice was the common sense things my parents taught me but were later swamped by the worldly preoccupation with wakefulness and a view that sleeping is a waste of time and life"

"if anything reading such books for people with pre existing anxiety could make them feel pretty helpless"

"i think that the fitness and nutrition industry will or should wise up to the need of adequate sleep"

"the fact that margaret thatcher and ronald reagan both died from alkzeimers is attributed to leading lives with less than 6 hours of regular sleep"

"it truly scares me to think that for years i am just about to turn 50 that i neglected my sleep hours thinking that it was the better thing to do"

"another point of contention would be the authors views on slumbers economic benefits"

"as a side factoid i recently read that the world health organisation classifies shift work as a probably carcinogen because such hours mess up your sleep so badly"

"a final quibble"

"also quite terrifying how sleep or a lack of can greatly disturb our daily lives"

"it gives you no hope whatsoever just a series of repetitive descriptions of experiments that go like this: we took x amount of healthy young people or mice we sleep deprevided half of them tried for y effect and surprisingly the deprived confirmed that sleeping deprivation causes or increases chances of getting z problem"

"as a neuroscientist walker to more than qualified to discuss what is currently understood about sleep stages brain function during sleep and the explanations of why we dream"

"it’s ludicrous to ignore this knowledge just because we’ve got it wrong previously!"

"bangs the same drum throughout"

"sometimes i found the description of the experiments a bit long winded and felt that there was a bit of repetitive content but i was absolutely fascinated the book and its contents and have taken a number of things from it about the importance of a good night's sleep to health happiness and longevity which i am trying to incorporate into my approach to sleep"

"it puts in your head that if you miss as little as one hour of sleep you risk getting all major problems including cancer and alzheimer you might get fat depressed and it might even ruin your dna"

"my friend's mum sadly passed away and her lack of sleep contributed to it"

"very depressing if you are and insomniac as it tells you all of the terrible damage that has been done to your brain and body for chapter after chapter after chapter"

"the sheer misery of being unable to sleep like seasickness you can't die of it but you will wish you could doesn't really get much coverage"

"it gives you no hope whatsoever just a series of repetitive descriptions of experiments that go like this: we took x amount of healthy young people or mice we sleep deprevided half of them tried for y effect and surprisingly the deprived confirmed that sleeping deprivation causes or increases chances of getting z problem"

"it gives you no hope whatsoever just a series of repetitive descriptions of experiments that go like this: we took x amount of healthy young people or mice we sleep deprevided half of them tried for y effect and surprisingly the deprived confirmed that sleeping deprivation causes or increases chances of getting z problem"

"i have always struggled with sleep since i was a child"

"basically don't work shifts don't skimp on sleep don't cross time zones all the things we do all the time and it's packed with scientific studies supporting his case including lots of information on how the brain uses sleep to get rid of waste products it doesn't need process information at a deep level and develop new neural pathways"

"matthew walker has spent his life time studying sleep and the book is full of evidence from studies that prove that getting a full nights sleep is so important to our health and cognitive functioning"

"actually helped me quit alcohol and caffeine due to the effects on sleep and i feel better as a result"

"we have designed our modern society around a set of non scientific irrelevant & sometimes even harmful ‘rules’ such as ‘working 9 5’ & ‘early start & early finish school times’"

"putting my employer first over my sleep seems so so stupid now even getting up early for exercise and doing chores in the early to late hours to try to get ahead instead of getting into the bedroom to sleep"

"quite the opposite in fact therefore to read time and time again that we must get x hours sleep otherwise we will get all sorts of horrible life threatening illnesses is neither helpful nor interesting"

"it’s made me totally re evaluate the importance of a good night’s sleep and made me realise that i’ve been chronically sleep deprived for years"

"basically don't work shifts don't skimp on sleep don't cross time zones all the things we do all the time and it's packed with scientific studies supporting his case including lots of information on how the brain uses sleep to get rid of waste products it doesn't need process information at a deep level and develop new neural pathways"

"it’s all a bit scary for someone who is prone to sleeping problems"

"in the daytime every time i forget something or cannot remember where i put something i now put my failure down to an incorrect sleep pattern"

"this is definitely one of these books that has potential to change your life and routine forever"

"it became a little predictable in end but certainly worth a read if you not sure about the importance of sleep"

"will my damaged telomeres repair themselves in any way for example?"

"it will just make you worse"

"however the effect that the book will have on the reader could be very subjective"

"there’s some interesting bits here and there but not enough for a whole book and all of the doom chapters don’t help"

"some of his philosophical reasoning of the evolutionary benefits of various sleep patterns is less convincing"

"i was amazed horrified and inspired by the evidence based facts presented"

"one basis problem that struck me from the outset and i was expecting to be satisfied before the end"

"are you sometimes less optimistic than you used to be?"

"i thought it would be interesting but actually it just made me feel really anxious about sleeping so much so that i developed full blown insomnia!"

"this has made me take much more care about my sleep patterns and has really opened my eyes to how society has organised itself to denigrate those who are not natural early birds forcing people into unnatural sleep patterns in order not to lose out in the workplace or at school"

"there’s some interesting bits here and there but not enough for a whole book and all of the doom chapters don’t help"

"it desmythifies alot of fallacies said in current society and shows with fact and numbers based in scientific studies the relationship between cause and effect of the lack of sleep!"

"diet exercise sleep"

"lots of new info about the health benefits or of course the opposite when our sleep hygiene is poor"

"really really boring i’m afraid too boring to send you asleep"

"that is not predicting a dream"

"one of the most important books i have read about health and just how critical the quality of your sleep is to good health and not just for your brain"

"at my age the particularly powerful wake up call ho ho for me is the much greater chance of premature death even in your sixties"

"it's already an international bestseller but i wonder how many people have truly changed their sleeping habits long term as a result?"

"we have designed our modern society around a set of non scientific irrelevant & sometimes even harmful ‘rules’ such as ‘working 9 5’ & ‘early start & early finish school times’"

"this book is not a page turner as much as a chapter turner where there is alot of interest in the chapter information but because of alot of science within the words you can get lost at times"

"explains everything very simply and clearly but also the devastating effects of sleep depravation"

"i never realised the impact lack of sleep can make"

"very useful for insights to how sleep affects us and also how detrimental a lack of sleep is"

"not very helpful there's a bit here for you if you have trouble falling asleep but not much if your problem is waking up in the night"

"it is claimed that putting clocks an hour forward or back kills off lots of people but nothing is said about the different length of days of light in many latitudes"

"i'm afraid this book is undermined by too many nonsequiturs"

"life changing well written i have been reading it at 3am when i could not sleep the irony is not lost on me"

"even when i do manage to be in bed for eight hours i often do not sleep well and suspect i miss out on the essential rem and nrem sleep"

"we don't realize how important sleep is rather we do realize how important sleep is yet we do nothing about it"

"i read this the whole book i learnt some things i didn't know about sleep but it hasn't made me go to bed earlier to get the full 8 hours sleep which is why i wanted to read it"

"i found it boring and it really labours the point that sleep is important"

"otherwise it would be even less"

"it should carry a health warning"

"sadly there are no easy solutions"

"there are about 40 pages of slightly drier scientific stuff from pages 30 onwards but it's important to read them to understand the really good stuff later"

"like a couple of places where something drops 4 600% or 200% which is not possible unless you head in the negatives which is not the case"

"but scary too when you discover how downright dangerous it is to have too little sleep!"

"i am as many of us a bit of sleep deprived for many reasons: children technology early mornings to be at work and silly habit of trying to read books in the bed"

"how am i not dead already?"

"the author is i venture to suggest a good sleeper and the book is addressed very largely to those who could sleep more if they wanted to"

"this book whilst you know a lot of do’s and don’ts re sleep the impact in my opinion has been unknown"

"it is not a science book but rather one that brings the conclusions drawn from the scientific process to the masses"

"this book will put the fear of god into you in terms of the amount of sleep you need and the harm that is caused to your health when you don't get it particularly to your long term cognitive function"

"listen to the joe rogan podcast with matthew walker then you'll want to read it!"

"everytime i try and read it i fall asleep"

"really really boring i’m afraid too boring to send you asleep"

"bit of a dry read graphs and repetitive description"

"i forced myself to read through till the end because it’s a timely subject and not many people are talking about it"

"even i felt i wasn't doing enough"

"an exceptionally boring and badly written book"

"three after all the alarming stats there’s nothing to say whether i can make up for my past misdemeanours – can my body mind regenerate at all when given the sleep it needs?"

"if my circadian rhythm is hard wired to make me a late riser ie many hours after dawn then i need to deceive my body clock drastically"

"but i must join the critics over some of the reporting which is vague and alarmist without giving enough information to be able to judge how serious the alarms really are"

"putting my employer first over my sleep seems so so stupid now even getting up early for exercise and doing chores in the early to late hours to try to get ahead instead of getting into the bedroom to sleep"

"it is somewhat repetitive in places but overall very convincing"

"but i must join the critics over some of the reporting which is vague and alarmist without giving enough information to be able to judge how serious the alarms really are"

"do you sometimes feel dizzy?"

"the only reason it did not get 5 stars was the review of alex guzey which points to some i believe valid inaccuracies which frankly annoyed me"

"long and boring!"

"some of the writing is a little wordy"

"this is the worst book i have ever read"

"are you having too much coffee?"

"as i incorporate changes to my routines lifestyle and environment my chronic insomnia of many years duration is finally getting better!"

"really interesting topic but i’m finding it difficult to read"

"full marks to the author"

"are you sometimes forgetful?"

"basically don't work shifts don't skimp on sleep don't cross time zones all the things we do all the time and it's packed with scientific studies supporting his case including lots of information on how the brain uses sleep to get rid of waste products it doesn't need process information at a deep level and develop new neural pathways"

"then a chapter or two later he goes on how unhealthy we live today by being surrounded by 'blue light and how much better our hunter gatherer ancestors used to sleep because they were'n't exposed to the blue light"

"i was so impressed by his approach & the way he described how the study was first designed & then developed & expanded that i read the book feeling for the first time that i was reading genuine findings & not someone’s unproven opinions"

"if you read nothing else"

"there is not one aspect of health and wellbeing that sleep does not affect not to mention academic and sporting performance"

"perhaps someone with no knowledge of sleep would find it more interesting if they are learning about it for the first time"

"too analytical and hard to get to the crux of the information: there is 1 good chapter with practical info"

"our irresponsible attitude towards sleep is terrifying"

"two there is a conspicuous absence of discussion of the situation of people who live in scotland or more northerly latitudes and southern latitudes where the lengths of the day and night vary dramatically over the year and of people whose circumstances affect their sleep parents of young children carers people who have to wake in the night because of a medical condition shift workers etc "

"i feel he rather overstates his case you are given the impression that if you don't get 8 hours and get it every single night you're doomed to a life of failure and mediocrity"

"the guiness book of records allows free falling from 30 000 ft but now excludes sleep deprivation records as too dangerous"