Don't Put Yourself on Toast

‘A book close to my heart. A tragicomic triumph told with love and humour, revealing how out of darkness comes so much light.’ – TOM DALEY‘A startling debut… This book will make you want to hold everyone you love close, reminding you that life may be fleeting but the people in it never are.’ – Olivia Ovenden * Esquire magazine *‘It takes quite a talent to make a reader smile and cry at the same time. This is exactly what Freddy Taylor manages to do in Don’t Put Yourself on Toast. This book is light and deep, funny and sad, but, essentially, full of love.’ – Sonia Delesalle-Stolper, chief foreign editor * Libération *‘An utterly fresh, unconventional memoir about realising what is important in life - and seizing it while it is still there.’ – Iona McLaren * The Telegraph *Life-affirming… Don’t Put Yourself on Toast faces mortality head-on - and teaches us how to live… I read [the last] lines in tears, then found myself humming along and laughing. – Helen Brown * Telegraph Review *’[Taylor] intersperses humorous anecdotes that he jotted down at the time, with more sobering medical notes taken by his stepmother. His writing is fresh, never sugar-coated, and full of hope, and the love and comfort of family shines through the fear and desperation.’ * The Tablet *‘Comedy and tragedy exist side by side and, in this snappy memoir, Freddy Taylor conveys both the utter awfulness of his father’s two-year descent from diagnosis to death, and the moments of hilarity the family had on the way.’ – Ysenda Maxtone Graham * Daily Mail *‘Powerful snapshots of love and grief… Always sad, often uplifting, this will stay with you.’ – Phoebe Luckhurst * Evening Standard *’[The book] reads like a Beckettian tragi-comedy, dark and light in equal measure, paired with a coming-of-age spirit, all the while peering through a grim foreboding.’ – Kate Demolder * The Irish Independent *‘Deeply moving and, surprisingly, very funny’ – JACK WHITEHALL‘It is so engaging that I challenge anyone to read the book in more than one sitting…. Taylor is funny because he observes the absurdity of human behaviour so accurately. But there are also moments of profound tear-jerking sadness.’ – Olenka Hamilton * Catholic Herald *

Freddy Taylor was brought up next to the ugly white roundabout in Wandsworth, London. Now 32, he lives in Stockwell and works as a creative director at an advertising agency. This is his first book.

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