It's difficult to give this a star rating because I really enjoyed it, yet I recognize that it's not a terribly well-written work overall. It does have its moments in that regard. I found that it really moved in the middle. Maybe the emotional aspects of the time period he was discussing in the middle (the band's early heyday from about 1981-1987) were a little easier to convey than some of the more complicated material concerning his home life. Early on the attempt to convey dialogue felt stilted at best. Later there was a lot of repetition and cliche. If I weren't as connected to the material, I'd probably give this 3 stars. There is a lot of work being done with that little “may”. From a scientific standpoint, there is a severe issue of selection bias in the narratives the book offers. Rediger does not, after all, tell any stories about people who became ill and then changed their diet, avoided stress, embraced love, and faced up to their inevitable extinction – and still died anyway. You would think there would be no shortage of such discouraging tales. Without a sense of whether they, as you might suspect, vastly outweigh the cases of amazing recovery, it is hard to draw firm conclusions. The introduction even claims that the author has discovered “the foundation for a new model of medicine”, but it would be irresponsible to suggest anyone decline hospital treatment in favour of positive thinking. In the meantime, the author himself at one point boasts that it is almost impossible for him to become ill. Given the timing of his book’s publication, one can only hope he is right.

Moreover, this is not imaginative literature. It's filled with stories of people like you and me who did the impossible without doing anything special. Their stories are narrated in detail with scientific explanations wherever necessary. The writing style is lucid and exudes a certain warmth. Each chapter touches on a different aspect of healing. The best part about the book is that it makes a lot of sense. The exact crux of the book is hard to put into words, but I'll try to give it a shot.Marchant] has chosen very moving characters to show us the importance of the research…and she has an equal flair for finding inspirational figures… the studies are irresistible.” New York Times

It can seem like we are biologically doomed to find reasons to be stressed, afraid, and anxious. [...] Long ago, it’s what kept us alive. Now, it’s killing us.I believe there is no source of deception in the investigation of nature which can compare with a fixed belief that certain kinds of phenomena are impossible. —William James We moved into Outside Studios at Hook End Manor, which was once the house of the Bishop of Reading and was more recently owned by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. A beautiful place for me to finally fall apart." This is one of the most eloquent, intimate memoirs I have ever read. It is so beautifully descriptive, in a way only a true artists can express. He is able to paint a picture of bleakness and colour with the same flair. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of reading this book, not just because I love The Cure and am interested in hearing what Lol has to say, but because it is also easy and gentle to read. Lol Tolhurst photographed in his home in Los Angeles, September 2023, by Pat Martin for the Observer New Review. I wish Lol had had more to say about each of the Cure albums he chronicles, but I’m guessing these details are scant due to the ravages of time on memory, to his ubiquitous inebriation during those years, and to the fact that he probably contributed little to the making of those albums, Lol’s contribution to The Cure being more about brotherhood and being a key strand in the tendrils that connect band members (maybe like Andy Fletcher in Depeche Mode?).

When it comes to spontaneous healing, skepticism abounds. Doctors are taught that "miraculous" recoveries are flukes, and as a result they don't study those cases or take them into account when treating patients. What I learned from this book is that there's more to healing than what western medicine prescribes. And it's not always something that can be measured in even a well-designed research study.

I guess there's only so much information you can put into one book, and I really do hope Lol Tolhurst has another one in him to share. Cured is about absolution and healing, about friendships so deep they're almost karmic, about fun and fame, tragedy and survival. Taylor decided to write the book because, even though most diabetes experts in the UK have now accepted that his rapid weight loss programme works, many doctors in Europe and the USA remain unconvinced. “It’s not easy to get new ideas accepted in medicine. So it will be a while before this gets into the textbooks and generations of doctors are taught about it.” In the history of medicine, we have almost never used the tools of rigorous science to investigate remarkable recoveries from incurable illnesses. But, Dr Jeff Rediger, a world-leading Harvard medic, psychiatrist and theologian, has spent the last fifteen years studying thousands of individuals from around the world and examining the stories behind these extraordinary cases of spontaneous remission. In Cure, the award-winning science writer Jo Marchant travels a wide terrain of ideas – from hypnosis to meditation, from placebos to positive visualisation – rescuing each from the realm of pseudoscience. Drawing on the very latest research Jo discusses the potential – and the limitations – of the mind’s ability to influence our health, and explains how readers can make use of the findings in their own lives. Praise for Cure: It provides an insight into some medical terminology/physiology, e.g. explanations of the immune system and its role in cancer, and I thought that this was explained clearly for those who may be new to the topic.