When the Dust Settles: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER. 'A marvellous book' -- Rev Richard Coles

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was confined to a few pages in a PDF concluded by a bizarre diagram for constructing temporary shelving.

Lucy Easthope has been present at most of the catastrophic events of the last few decades, advising on everything from the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami to the 7/7 bombings, the Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand, the Grenfell fire and the Covid-19 pandemic. It is hard to read and very sad at times but there is a lot of hope and promise there too and the stories of so many people who are out there fighting to do better and to make disaster recovery stronger and more community focused than it is now.Whilst online video tools such as Zoom and Teams can be great for connecting the housebound or those unable to attend for multiple reasons, many of us need in-person contact. Lucy Easthope did a marvelous job narrating her book and it makes it all the more personal that it's the author reading it herself. Lucy Easthope is a world leading authority on recovering from disaster and in this book she talks about her experiences during and following a variety of different disasters and events across the world. Much of this is somewhat dispiriting, but When the Dust Settles also includes a striking example of how one community managed to achieve a form of closure after disaster.

A resolve to be a giant among men, to conquer, plunder and seize the greatness that he thinks is his right. So it is “somewhat dispiriting” to learn that she thinks “a slow rot” has set in in British disaster planning, with the focus shifting lately from doing what is best for the victims to prioritising the “optics” of a catastrophe. At the core of her job is a “process known as Disaster Victim Identification, which involves painstaking analysis by pathologists, anthropologists and odontologists to append a name to flesh, bone and teeth”.When humanity is taken apart, it is Easthope and her colleagues who step in with care and compassion. I can understand the professional and national pride, but other similar units from other countries have their leanings and achievements too. Went to see Lucy Easthope talk about this book at the ilkley literature festival, I should have bought it then it gives a fascinating insight into what goes on behind our dealing with disasters and what we should be doing, once again it shows that sometimes we forget the lessons we have previously learned. Random House presents the audiobook edition of Ikigai by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles, read by Noako Mori.

In When the Dust Settles we see how over the years the UK government becomes less invested in investing in disaster planning. She has been at the centre of the most seismic events of the last few decades, advising on everything from the 2004 tsunami and the 7/7 bombings to the Grenfell fire and the war in Ukraine. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.But, as Easthope, notes, there are also so many positive happenstances in people’s lives that people do not give enough credit to and just file as being ‘coincidental’ So why shouldn’t she be near a bombing/crash/natural disaster as it is happening? But this doesn’t fully explain her motivations, or the makeup of an individual who sees the “beauty of [human] decomposition and the way that we break down into our constituent chemicals and minerals”. a graphic but deeply humane account of what drew her to take on such work, and how she steels herself to tackle the worst of human scenarios. I have to admit within seconds of listening to this book I felt a kinship to Lucy upon hearing her recount a Liverpudlian childhood steeped in the Hillsborough tragedy. I met the author of this book at a local conference for Cymru Versus Arthritis- very engaging speaker, talks about a serious subject with humour.