The Bridge Between Worlds - an evening with Dr Gavin Francis

Award-winning author and Edinburgh-based GP Gavin Francis’s The Bridge Between Worlds is the latest in a very diverse non-fiction back catalogue, from travel writing to medical memoirs.

In The Bridge Between Worlds, Gavin Francis explores bridges old and new, man-made or natural, musing on the view from the bridge through history, geopolitics, psychology and literature. Against the ever-growing obsession with national borders in politics and the media, bridges – whether seen as functional, emblematic or aesthetical – both unite and divide us. From the Tweed to the Thames, Bosnia to Brooklyn, Singapore to Siberia, The Bridge Between Worlds reflects on the bridges between nations and individuals, how they act as frontiers and reflects on the lives of people either side of the border.

Francis is a thoughtful and engaging writer, his prose has a lightness of touch which is a delight to read. He explores how we might better think of a connected world, and the empathy and conciliation that that might engender, demonstrating what the building of bridges has meant to our civilisation, how crossings can enrich our lives, and the price we pay when we tear them down.

'Gavin Francis has written an exquisite book on a structure we usually take for granted. This is a fascinating and delightful read.' Alexander McCall Smith

'Informative, imaginative and hugely enjoyable. Who knew? A bridge can take you anywhere!' Sara Wheeler

Gavin Francis is a wonderful writer - thoughtful, engaging, immensely knowledgeable and supremely human.' Bill Bryson

About the Author

Gavin Francis qualified in medicine from Edinburgh in 1999, after first studying Neuroscience, and is the author of ten books of non-fiction. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and works as a GP in Edinburgh and the Isles of Mull & Iona.

His books are True North: Travels in Arctic Europe (2008); Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins (2012) which was SMIT Scottish Book of the Year 2013 and shortlisted for the Costa, Ondaatje, Banff, & Saltire Prizes; Adventures in Human Being (2015), which won Saltire Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2015, was the Observer’s Science Book of the Year, and was a winner in the BMA Book Awards; Shapeshifters: On Medicine & Human Change (2018), which was a book of the year in the Sunday Times and the Scotsman. Island Dreams: Mapping an Obsession (2020) was shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year; Intensive Care: a GP, a Community, & a Pandemic was published in January 2021 and was a notable book of the year in The Herald, Scotsman, Financial Times, Observer, Irish Times, and New Statesman. Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence (2022) was a Sunday Times bestseller. Sir Thomas Browne: the Opium of Time was published in spring 2023 by Oxford University Press. Free For All – Why the NHS is Worth Saving is a passionate defence of the founding principles of the NHS, and an exploration of how and why it must be saved. The Bridge Between Worlds – a brief history of connection explores the power of bridges, actual and metaphorical, to bring people together – across forty years of travel, six continents, and 2,000 years of engineering.

He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and a Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners. His work has been translated into twenty languages.

Tickets

Admission £5 (includes voucher which can be redeemed on night against Gavin's books)

Admission and signed hardback £20