Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas
ADAM KAY
(PICADOR, 160 PP, £9.99)
Tablet bookshop price £9 • Tel 020 7799 4064

A collection of anecdotes about ­urology, gynaecology and palliative care might not sound like a light-hearted Christmas read, but former doctor Adam Kay’s seasonal diaries – which recount the six Christmases and New Years he spent working the dreaded holiday shifts – are a heart-warming, often very funny tribute to the heroic work of the NHS.

Known for his best-selling This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor, a memoir about his time in and decision to leave medicine, Kay is a master of sentence-long stories and pithy caricatures. “Full marks to the anaesthetist wearing a badge that says: ‘He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake’,” is the diary entry for Boxing Day, 2004.