“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.” PICKED FOR ESQUIRE MAGAZINE’S BEST BOOKS OF 2022
Best Books of 2022 – Picked by Readers – FINANCIAL TIMES
When Freddy was 21 years old, his dad, a larger-than-life, successful TV producer, was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a particularly aggressive type of brain cancer.
In vivid snapshots, Freddy recalls the ups and downs of an impossible time – from the entertaining antics of a wine-gum tossing competition in a hospital ward, to the comi-tragedy of trying to decipher his father’s muddled riddles as his speech disintegrates, to painful moments of regret and self-loathing as he squanders precious time.
Don’t Put Yourself on Toast is a bittersweet coming-of-age memoir which shows how the power of humour and laughter can provide, even in our darkest moments, sustenance, comfort and hope.
Best Books of 2022 – Picked by Readers – FINANCIAL TIMES
When Freddy was 21 years old, his dad, a larger-than-life, successful TV producer, was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a particularly aggressive type of brain cancer.
In vivid snapshots, Freddy recalls the ups and downs of an impossible time – from the entertaining antics of a wine-gum tossing competition in a hospital ward, to the comi-tragedy of trying to decipher his father’s muddled riddles as his speech disintegrates, to painful moments of regret and self-loathing as he squanders precious time.
Don’t Put Yourself on Toast is a bittersweet coming-of-age memoir which shows how the power of humour and laughter can provide, even in our darkest moments, sustenance, comfort and hope.
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Reviews
'An utterly fresh, unconventional memoir about realising what is important in life - and seizing it while it is still there.'
'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.'
'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.'
'A book close to my heart. A tragicomic triumph told with love and humour, revealing how out of darkness comes so much light.'
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.
'[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.'
'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.'
'Powerful snapshots of love and grief... Always sad, often uplifting, this will stay with you.'
'[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.'
'Deeply moving and, surprisingly, very funny'
'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.'