Rest and Be Thankful

Reviews / Votes

Blends gnawing tension and surging tenderness ... At its height, Glass's battlefield prose calls to mind not a hospital soap but the literature of the trenches. This, though, is a trauma-generating war on death and despair fought for us in every city, every day * i paper * A poetic novella by a writer who also works as a senior nurse in a major London hospital. Glass evokes the exhaustion and relentlessness of working long shifts, the pain, the bleeding and cracked skin that comes with endless hand scrubbing, and most poignantly, the grief of the bereaved, all in excruciating detail. There's a ghost story element too, which adds a lovely frisson to the proceedings * Evening Standard, Best Books of 2020 * Touching ... What, Glass asks, do we expect from our caregivers, and how do we replay them for the burdens we lay on them? Rest and Be Thankful is almost absurdly pertinent, and with its devastating close, the answers seem stark: we ask far too much, and for some there is no replenishment * Times Literary Supplement * The ward scenes, with their crystalline descriptions of the vertiginous business of care, exquisitely beat out the ceaseless rhythms of life on a hospital front line * Metro * Thrusts the reader into the pulse-raising fear, frenzy and relief of work in a paediatric intensive-care unit - the author's own specialism ... A battlefield atmosphere arises from Ms Glass's prose as she recounts the time-stopping teamwork that aims to preserve tiny, fragile lives * Economist * A sense of impending doom permeates Glass's gripping but disturbing second novel * Irish News * PRAISE FOR PEACH: 'The language is scintillating, the emotional heft remarkable * Observer, The best fiction for 2018 * Unsettling, idiosyncratic and discomforting, as well as being moving and utterly absorbing ... A bold, memorable novel - gripping, strange and utterly singular * Spectator * Peach is shocking, revealing and deals with a subject most authors would shy away from. It is uncomfortable, worthy and brave ...Glass deserves recognition for her bravery regarding both the topic and style * Independent * A daring novel * Sunday Times * A visceral work * New Statesman * An immensely talented young writer ... Her fearlessness renews one's faith in the power of literature -- George Saunders Glass's commitment to the visceral is like nothing else I've read ... Peach inhabits a strange, horror-story realm of the hyperreal, and Glass's vision goes a long way towards portraying an experience that's near-impossible to articulate * Observer * A dark poetic read that is a visceral in its telling. It's an extraordinary debut that we urge you to seek out * Stylist * A genre-defying and brilliantly surreal novella ... Barely 100 pages, and somewhere between poetry and prose, this is a book to be devoured in a single sitting. Glass is an exciting new author to know * Vogue * An impressive achievement ... A truly original voice for the future * Big Issue * Through prose that is lyrical, mythic and yet wonderfully clear, Peach expounds on themes of good versus evil, and the base nature of desire, consumption and carnality ... There is a spoken word vibrancy to Glass's prose * Irish Times * Powerfully felt, sinister, vivid * Literary Review * A gutsy, discomfiting experiment * Metro * A propulsive, unforgettable read that's impossible to shake * Entertainment Weekly * Choose wisely the moment when you pick up Peach; because once you do you'll be unable to put it down until the very last sentence -- Kamila Shamsie, author of Home Fire Impossible to categorise, intimately weird and exhilaratingly bold, Peach shares literary DNA with Gertrude Stein, Hubert Selby Jr, and Eimear McBride, but Emma Glass's massive talent is all her own -- Laline Paull, author of The Bees Ferocious, startling, all-consuming ... it has changed the way I see the world -- Daisy Johnson, author of Fen A work of genius. So lonesome and moving, so gruesome, wry, tender and plaintive. It is the new Jane Eyre, and one wild, thrilling ride. Swallow it in one gulp, and carry a spare copy in your pocket. Always -- Lucy Ellmann, author of Mimi