4th Estate snaps up Times columnist's 'moving' memoir

4th Estate will publish the "hopeful, humorous and moving" memoir from the Times columnist Melanie Reid.

In 2010, a horse-riding accident left Reid a tetraplegic and she spent a year in hospital attempting to gain as much movement in her limbs as possible. She writes about her life in the ‘Spinal Column’ every Saturday in the Times Magazine and was awarded an MBE in 2016 for her services to journalism and people with disabilities. She is also a recent winner of Columnist of the Year at the British Society of Magazine Editors Awards.

Publishing director at the HarperCollins imprint, Helen Garnons-Williams, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Jenny Brown of Jenny Brown Associates to the title. The debut will be published in spring 2019 and it will retail at £16.99 in hardback.

A 4th Estate spokesperson revealed that the memoir will contain almost entirely new material “telling the story behind the story in the columns”.

Reid said: "This is the untold back story - it's the things I could never say before about hospital, paralysis, fellow patients and the bleakly hilarious coincidences which emerge from catastrophe - and ultimately it's about how love empowers you to survive.”

Garnons-Williams said that Reid “has such an inspiring story to tell and she tells it beautifully, with honesty and wit”. The publishing director added: “Her memoir is a testament to what she calls ‘the art of getting on with it’, an insight into the secret tribe of those battling chronic illness, a celebration of resilience and kinship and a reminder to us all that at any moment the life we know can be turned upside down.”