I thought this book was going to be the first all-gold 10 star of the year, but it has too many flaws. The author always presents himself as on the 'right' side of the conflict and he goes to many conflicts in Africa, the Middle East (mostly), that the other side are the worst kind of beasts to roam the earth, and with ISIS this is certainly true. I have a deep respect for anyone who goes into dangerous situations to help those in need, even if their own lives are at risk. I could never envision myself doing that! This memoir gives a very good indication of what these people go through.

We’re hardly short of books by doctors describing difficult work carried out in straitened circumstances – think Rachel Clarke’s Your Life in My Hands or Adam Kay’s This Is Going to Hurt– but Nott’s is something else entirely. Where most people strive to avoid trouble, he actively goes in search of it. “It is a kind of addiction,” he says in the prologue, “a pull I find hard to resist.” His stories of courage and compassion in the face of seemingly certain death are breathtaking. There’s the time, for instance, that Syrian jihadis stormed the makeshift hospital in which he was working after spotting him on the roof with a camera. Assuming he was photographing their movements, they were poised to drag him away but were persuaded not to on realising that the camera contained pictures of sunsets. Or there’s the moment he and his head nurse were driven to meet Mullah Omar, the feared Taliban leader, to secure permission to operate on a young Afghan woman who was haemorrhaging after childbirth. “His manner was serene, almost statesman-like,” Nott recalls. “I think just to get rid of us, he agreed to our request.” This is my brother!” he said aggressively, in English but with a very strong, Russian-sounding accent. Not just Isis, but Chechen Isis. “What are you doing to him?” Very rarely do I read a book and say, uncaring of a person's taste or of their choice in literature, that this is a necessary read. Is the practice of medicine a business or is it a vocation? Where does the balance lie between doing well and doing good?”He even treated Osama Bin Ladin’s wife for fibroids….. before Bin Laden became the household name for terror after 9/11.

I felt a touch of annoyance over Nott's arrogance as he often reiterated his frustrations working with medical personnel who disagreed with him (and, of course, he was always right!); however, I don't recall him sharing any stories when his methods were wrong; and,

A Lasting Impact

wars most affect those who are worst equipped to deal with them: people who are poor or disenfranchised, living in inadequate or unsanitary conditions with few of the amenities we take for granted in the West. War can make an already difficult existence impossible. Brave, compassionate and inspiring - it left me in floods of tears' Adam Kay, author of This Is Going to Hurt Nott freely admits that not only did he truly wish to help others on these volunteer missions, but that he also got a charge while "living on the edge"; One of the most brutally vivid evocations of modern warfare that you will read . . . superb, unforgettable, simply written and painfully clear . . . You are constantly amazed that men such as Nott can witness the extraordinary cruelties of the human race, so many and so foul, yet keep going. Be warned: this is a powerful but often traumatic read., Sunday Times Flash forward four years later, I'm working in a bookshop and a proof of David Nott's autobiography comes through the door. I didn't remember his name, I didn't even know what he looked like really, but I knew immediately that this was the man I'd heard of at the dinner party years prior. I had to read his firsthand account.