A darkly comic and moving reflection on what it means to be human in a world where nothing is certain, from the award-winning Oxford professor
Information was interesting and entertaining

A very powerful and gripping story that is difficult to read in some parts but worth sticking with. This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and I would read more of their work.

The E-Book could be improved and more user-friendly, such as links to the chapters, no significant gaps between words some text written has been typed in red and a cover for the book would be better. It is very document-like instead of a book. A star has been deducted because of this.

The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

Beautifully written and moving memoir detailing the author’s journey through the first few years of his MS diagnosis. Really eye-opening.

Thank you for the advanced copy of this.

I read this over a couple of evenings. I am familiar with previous work from this author.

This memoir is truly a beautiful piece of work, it's intense, emotive and powerful and everything I feel is laid bare for the reader.

He gives an honest and pure account of his diagnosis of MS and his journey from that point. He gives us a powerful insight into living with a progressive condition.

A truly amazing piece of writing, I cannot recommend this highly enough.

Metamorphosis by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst chronicles his life-changing diagnosis with multiple sclerosis and how he coped and reflected on it particularly in the form of books.

In Metamorphosis, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst provides a powerful and compelling account of his experiences of living with multiple sclerosis.

Douglas-Fairhurst is a professor of English Literature, and I had previously read excellent books of his on Charles Dickens and Lewis Carroll , so I was intrigued to read a more personal piece of writing by him. He engages us from the book's opening sentences in which he states "We all have trapdoors in our lives", his being his initial diagnosis of primary progressive MS. He goes on to describe the progress of his illness in a way that is honest, yet totally lacking in self-pity as he highlights some of the most painful aspects of his experiences as well as finding moments of gallows humour. The medical explanations he includes are clearly given in layman's terms and are highly illuminating.

Alongside this, what makes this book so brilliant is Douglas-Fairhurst's ability to draw on his expertise as a literary scholar to find analogies for his own experiences and to make a convincing case for the vital importance of stories in navigating periods of personal crisis. He explains his long-held conviction that "reading wasn't simply a form of escapism, but rather an invitation to leave ordinary life behind for a few hours and then re-enter it from a slightly different angle" - a mantra that appears to hold true as he reflects on writers such as Kafka, Beckett and Forster whose words prove instructive. Above all, the book pays homage to the pseudynymous diarist W.N.P. Barbellion whose long-neglected Journal of a Disappointed Man records his own struggles with multiple sclerosis. This was a book which was new to me but which I am now keen to seek out and read in full.

This is a moving and ultimately hopeful memoir which is both a testimony of life with a serious illness and a manifesto for literature and storytelling. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC to review.