What I Wish I’d Known When I Was Young

Regular price €17.50
A01=Alice Thomson
A01=Rachel Sylvester
abyse
adversity
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Alice Thomson
Author_Rachel Sylvester
automatic-update
bereavement
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=BTP
Category=DNXP
Category=DNXR
Category=JM
Category=VFJB
Category=VFJQ
Category=VFJR3
Category=VSC
Category=VSP
childhood
COP=United Kingdom
Cressida Cowell
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
disability
discrimination
drive
Edward Enninful
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_health-lifestyle
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_non-fiction
eq_self-help
eq_society-politics
everything
feminism
Grayson Perry
grit
hardship
how to
i had
illness
interview
knew
know
Language_English
Lemn Sissay
Marcus Rashford
Mary Portas
misogyny
Nadiya Hussain
overcome
PA=Available
personality
poverty
Price_€10 to €20
PS=Active
race
racism
Richard Branson
secret
sexism
softlaunch
succeed
teenage
teenager
times
true story

Product details

  • ISBN 9780008497507
  • Weight: 280g
  • Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
  • Publication Date: 11 May 2023
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
  • Language: English
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days

Our Delivery Time Frames Explained
2-4 Working Days: Available in-stock

10-20 Working Days
: On Backorder

Will Deliver When Available
: On Pre-Order or Reprinting

We ship your order once all items have arrived at our warehouse and are processed. Need those 2-4 day shipping items sooner? Just place a separate order for them!

‘A superb study … brilliant stories, hilarious observations and jaw dropping revelations about so many figures in public life we thought we knew – but never understood’ EMILY MAITLIS

Loss and adversity are part of the human condition, but an imperfect past isn’t always an indicator of what’s to come.

This book traces a pattern: why is it that often the people with the hardest beginnings in life – children who experience displacement, disease, financial ruin, abandonment or bereavement – become the most successful adults? And is there something to learn from those people, who perhaps have the strongest sense of what matters most?

Of Britain’s fifty-five prime ministers, twenty-five lost one or both of their parents as a child and 69 per cent suffered some form of serious childhood trauma. For their acclaimed podcast Past Imperfect, Thomson and Sylvester spoke to some such prime ministers, as well as pioneers and poets, CEOs and chefs, actors and archbishops, sports stars and Nobel prize-winning scientists. How did Richard Branson overcome severe dyslexia? How did Daphne Park, born in lonely, rural Tanzania, become one of Britain’s top spies? How was diver Tom Daley driven on to win an Olympic gold medal by being bullied at school and his father’s early death?

This book brings together psychological research with scores of intimate, fascinating interviews. The resulting narrative is full of hope, and might help us all towards a better understanding of resilience, motivation, perspective and courage.

Rachel Sylvester is a political columnist at The Times. She started writing about politics in 1996 and was a lobby correspondent on The Daily Telegraph before becoming political editor of The Independent on Sunday. She joined The Times in 2008. She is Chair of the Times Education Commission.

Alice Thomson is a columnist and interviewer at The Times. A former Times trainee, she became a foreign correspondent, feature writer and political reporter for the paper before moving to The Telegraph as a columnist, restaurant reviewer and leader writer. She returned to The Times in 2008. She is the author of The Singing Line.

Rachel and Alice host the Past Imperfect podcast together.