Review: More Blood, More Sweat, and Another Cup of Tea by Tom Reynolds

[wshaffer]

More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea by Tom Reynolds

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book consists of extracts from Reynolds' blog, Random Acts of Reality, about his experiences as a paramedic for the London Ambulance Service. Like the blog, the book is compulsively readable, and full of that dark humor that medical professionals develop as a way of coping with the mix of life-and-death situations and plain idiocy that they deal with on a daily basis.

One of the most surprising things about this book is the amount of time Reynolds and his colleagues spend dealing with things that are not medical emergencies. Not only are they regularly called upon to deal with passed-out drunks, but people sometimes phone them up for things like a bad cold. However, there are plenty of hair-raising and occasionally heartwarming tales of medical heroics. (Without too much in the way of graphic detail - unless you're very squeamish, you can safely read this book.)

I would love to see Reynolds write something perhaps a bit more analytical and/or reflective. If this book has a flaw, it's that it betrays its origin as a set of blog posts by being very much a set of vignettes.

The Kindle edition of this book is currently free, and Reynolds's blog is always freely available. So there's really no reason not to check out Reynolds's work.

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Comments

[paulgreaves.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, I'm really glad you're reading this. I've been following Tom's blog for years now and my friend Clare published his first book (the predecessor to this work) Blood, Sweat & Tea:

http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Sweat-Tea-Adventures-Inner-city/dp/1905548230/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278749272&sr=1-1

Another personal link is that the area he covers I know very well. Although I live in Eastbourne, a previous girlfriend of mine lives in the part of East London he works in and I wondered how many times, when I heard the sirens blaring, Tom was at the wheel...

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Wow, it's a small world!

I remember stumbling across Tom's blog a while back, and then lost track of it, the way you sometimes do with things you stumble across on the Internet. I was quite pleased to be reminded of it when this book popped up in my Amazon recommendations.