Twas The Nightshift Before Christmas

Festive Diaries from the Creator of This Is Going to Hurt

By: Adam Kay

Narrated by: Adam Kay

The number one Sunday Times bestseller.

Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas is a short gift book of festive diaries from the author of multi-million-copy bestseller This is Going to Hurt.

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat . . . but 1.4 million NHS staff are heading off to work. In this perfect present for anyone who has ever set foot in a hospital, Adam Kay delves back into his diaries for a hilarious, horrifying and sometimes heartbreaking peek behind the blue curtain at Christmastime.

This is a love letter to all those who spend their festive season on the front line, removing babies and baubles from the various places they get stuck, at the most wonderful time of the year.

'The perfect surgical stocking-filler' - The Times

Critic reviews

Sunday Times humour book of the year

The perfect surgical stocking filler. Jokes galore. This little book will no doubt cheer up the many readers who find it under their tree

Very, very funny (Graham Norton)

Beyond hilarious . . . A small-but-perfectly formed follow-up to This is Going to Hurt, this Christmas-themed delight continues to capture the dark humour and dedicated work of NHS professionals everywhere

A funny, poignant snapshot of humanity

Will have you crying with laughter

Contains Kay’s unique alchemy of medical insight and cynical wit

Hilarious and heartbreaking

The funniest book of 2019

Kay's fans will be delighted to discover that it is entirely as revolting, funny and moving as the first

Matchless stories . . . funny, disgusting and moving

Wow

I know this book only deals with cases he remembers… but makes me happy for our (US) healthcare. The references to God- should have left out - I get that it’s your book and your story… but is off putting. As a medical professional I enjoyed the story. Glad you decided to write while medicine was in your family- it really sounded like it was not in your heart. But I bought both books!

Thank you again Adam.

Adam Kay's books always manage to reaffirm my faith in humanity somehow. Moved to tears.

Gotta love health staff

Reminder of the difficulties our health work force face encapsulated in a humorous personal story.

Hilarious

If you work in healthcare this book is for you. Read his first one too. He tells the humorous and disgusting side of medicine.

ER Dumping and Turkeybone in a Trachea?

Truly a brief and ribald rant by Adam Kay. Audible experience enticed laughter in many en route to an architectural paradise by the sea. Kayes’ style imparts a unique view and classification of the morose nature of holidays when experienced through the eyes of medical professionals. Learned what “G-y” dumping is and how “Turkeybone” in a trachea is a quotidian occurrence on Satan’s merry go round (aka “The ER”).

“Would you believe there’s a medical term specifically and exclusively for a mass of undigested sharon fruit in an intestine? No wonder medical school takes so long, learning all this s...”
---Adam Kay

There is a rationale why many healthcare workers choose to be purposely absent from the ER during the holidays. And their are those who live for the “rush” of the incoming patients whose conditions are further stressed by environmental factors, food and unresolved familial conflicts creating the ideal recipe for another “hell” round in the ER. Adam Kay heals naturally with humor and helps us to understand the meritorious and somber realities of holidays.