Reasons to Stay Alive - Matt Haig

Synopsis from goodreads:

I want life.

I want to read it and write it and feel it and live it.

I want, for as much of the time as possible in this blink-of-an-eye existence we have, to feel all that can be felt.

I hate depression. I am scared of it. Terrified, in fact. But at the same time, it has made me who I am. And if - for me - it is the price of feeling life, it's a price always worth paying

Reasons to Stay Alive is about making the most of your time on earth. In the western world the suicide rate is highest amongst men under the age of 35. Matt Haig could have added to that statistic when, aged 24, he found himself staring at a cliff-edge about to jump off. This is the story of why he didn't, how he recovered and learned to live with anxiety and depression. It's also an upbeat, joyous and very funny exploration of how live better, love better, read better and feel more. 

Published by Canongate

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'When you are depressed you feel alone, and that no one is going through quite what you are going through. You are so scared of appearing in any way mad you internalise everything, and you are so scared that people will alienate you further you clam up and don't speak about it, which is a shame, as speaking about it helps. Words - spoken or written - are what connect us to the world, and so speaking about it to people, and writing about this stuff, helps connect us to each other, and to our true selves.'

I read Reasons to Stay Alive the same day it arrived in the post. 

I'd been looking forward so much to this book arriving.

Actually, both looking forward to it, and a bit trepidatious about reading it. 
For one thing, I thought, if I don't read it straight away, I might put it off and become more and more scared about starting it. So I opened the cover and just read it. 

It's not always easy to comment about something that deals with subject matter which relates very personally to you. 

But I want to try, because if ever there was an important book it's this one. 

Because, speaking from experience, depression can be an isolating, frightening, misunderstood illness, and if there's anything that's able to help with a sufferer feeling a bit less alone and bit more understood, then that 'thing', be it a book, a film, whatever, is worth shouting about. 

Words I would use to describe this book, for someone who doesn't want to read or can't manage to read a big long review just now, (based on my experience of desperately wanting to understand more about this illness but recoiling at the detail in some books that I just couldn't cope with on my own at times when struggling):

kind, understanding, honest, helpful, warm, positive, open, important, cheering, supportive, encouraging, straightforward, a friend.

This book helps because it grasps what depression is like, how it can take over your life and make you feel like you are not yourself anymore, the depression is you. How can the book do this with so much insight and comprehension? Because the writer has been there and knows.

Author Matt Haig describes his own personal experiences with depression and anxiety, the worst and lowest point he found himself at, what he has done to try and get better, how he has found ways that sometimes help him, and the things that he wants to live for. 

It was wonderful to read of how books, and then starting to write, have been so important in helping Matt. He recommends here some of the books that he read when he felt unwell. I find solace myself through reading as much as I am able to, and still want to try writing one day, so it was encouraging to read how these things helped the author.

He also discusses some of what he has learnt about the illness; I found the mentions of evolutionary psychology interesting and maybe one day I'll read more about this - has the world moved on too fast for our minds? I think that was the sort of idea, if I've grasped it correctly. 

The book informs, or reminds us, depending on your knowledge, that there is still a huge amount that is unknown about this illness:

'The more you research the science of depression, the more you realise it is still more characterised by what we don't know that what we do. It is 90 per cent mystery.'

In terms of my thoughts about the book, all I can say is what the book did for me, as I was reading it, and after I had finished. I hope that this is helpful.

For someone struggling with depression (and anxiety), this book could make a difference to you in these ways - these are some of the things I thought and felt about it as I read:

It will help me

It will help someone who loves me

It's kind and understanding and honest

It's easy to read, and well presented, decent sized decently spaced print and a manageable length, something that can't be underestimated when you're depressed

It's open and honest and it shows me that there is a chance to get through each day

It shows that I are not alone in thinking awful things, in thinking I might never feel better, and it understands - this is huge - it understands that sometimes doing the tiniest smallest things are terrifying, and they are major accomplishments. In particular I'm thinking of the part about going to the shop on your own when you are very low. 

It understands the battle to try and hold on to a positive thought. 

It offers me reasons to be hopeful, to be strong, and ways to look at things differently, positively.

I feel like someone else in the world understands me now. I feel a bit less alone, a bit less scared, a bit less guilty and anxious and burdened. 

It helps you understand that everyone's experience of depression differs, that there is no one size fits all approach or answer to it, but it offers things to try that have worked for the author.

Just to reiterate one of my feelings about it mentioned above - I think it will be helpful to read for someone who loves you and is trying to help you with this illness, to help them see it from the inside as well as the outside, it offers some clarity and insight that a person really suffering might not be able to put into words very well for themselves, - how do you explain depression? - and it will help them to encourage their loved one that they are not the only one who feels depressed like they do (a common feeling). 

There's a couple of pages headed up 'Things depression says to you'. I nodded at it all so I marked the whole pages. Things like...
'Why are you trying to apply for a job? Who do you think you are?.....
Why are you crying?
Because you need to put the washing on?
Look at the people walking outside....
Why can't you be like them?'
Those pages alone really helped me feel a relief that somone understood. And they might just help others without experience of it to gain insight. And to me, both of these things, the compassion given to sufferers and the understanding given to others, breaking down stigma, are really, really important. 

Many other words that struck a chord as I was reading, here's a couple of them: 

'...the sheer exhaustion of never being able to find mental comfort. Of every positive thought reaching a cul-de-sac before it starts.' 

'days contained thousands of tiny battles'

There are so many sentences I will revisit and re-read, that struck a chord with me and had me nodding in agreement, thinking 'yes, that!', or passages that had me in tears, or sections that felt like a comfort, like a virtual hand holding mine or a virtual friend offering understanding and kindness, and I think and hope I will be able to find encouragement in this book in any future times that I might need it.

It was great to see the quote from Stephen Fry on the book's cover, someone else in the public eye whom I like and admire for breaking down stigma surrounding mental illness.

I hope these thoughts have made some sense and it's not all too incoherent I just felt this was a brilliant book and I had to write about it.

Thank you Matt Haig for being brave enough to look back on his memories and experiences and write this book, thank you to the publisher Canongate for bringing it to us. 

Men Of Letters - Duncan Barrett - Author Q&A

Today I am very pleased to welcome author Duncan Barrett to the blog! 

His new book Men of Letters is out now. (AA Publishing, £8.99, softback)

Hi Duncan, please could you tell us a bit about your new book Men of Letters?

Men of Letters tells the true stories of some of the thousands of Post Office workers who went off to fight in the trenches during the First World War, in particular those who served with the organisation's own battalion the Post Office Rifles. Based on their trench diaries and the letters they wrote home from the western front, it looks at every aspect of their experiences of war, from the rituals of daily life in the trenches (in particular the importance for morale of regular mail and food packages from home) to the terrible slaughter of the Somme and Passchendaele, when men saw former post office colleagues suddenly killed alongside them. These very ordinary men living through extraordinary times give us a glimpse of the war as the average tommy experienced it. 

What drew you to this topic - I understand that there is a personal link in your family to the Post Office Rifles? 

Actually, the only personal link to the POR story is that my great-great-uncle fought alongside them in the battle for High Wood in September 1916, and like many of the PORs he was killed there. But I didn’t actually realise the connection until I began researching their stories. I visited High Wood as part of my research for the book, hoping to see the land where they fought and he died. Sadly, though, the only people allowed inside these days are those who come to shoot game birds in the wood. 

Do you enjoy researching the books that you write, and how easy/difficult was it to find out about this topic in order to put your book together?

I was very lucky that there is a wealth of material on the Post Office Rifles held at the Imperial War Museum, and also at the British Postal Museum and Archive. Many of the PORs shared their own stories with each other before they died, and some of these were printed in the POR Association newsletters. I also had access to lots of the original letters they wrote to their loved ones from the front lines, which helped me to get to know them on a personal level. I found the research fascinating – although occasionally I did find it frustrating that all the people I was writing about were no longer alive. With my previous books, The Sugar Girls and GI Brides, which are both based on interviewees with living subjects, I’ve always been able to pick up the phone if I realised something was confusing me. 

Do you find the writing process addictive - is it hard to stop once you get going?

To be honest, I find that I’m always on such a tight deadline that I don’t have time to stop even if I wanted to! But certainly, you do get into the flow of writing once you’ve been doing it for a while. The first few weeks on a new book are always the hardest, trying to get back into that daily rhythm again. Then after a while it begins to get more enjoyable!

I really enjoyed your book about The Sugar Girls. How do you decide what you want to write about next? 

Generally, I find that working on one book I start to have ideas about the next one. When my partner Nuala and I were researching The Sugar Girls, we spent a lot of time interviewing old ladies in the East End, and Nuala started to think, ‘I’m getting to know all these other people’s grandmothers, but I’ve never really interviewed my own grandmother.’ When The Sugar Girls was out of the way, she spent several days talking to her grandmother Margaret, and hearing about her experiences as a GI Bride in WW2 – and that inspired us to write our next book about the GI Brides. One of the women we wrote about in that book was in the ATS during the war, and we were so fascinated by that aspect of her war experience that we decided our third book would be about women in the forces – we’re working on that now, and it should be in shops March 2015. Men of Letters was a little bit different in that the publisher approached me about writing something to do with the First World War, to tie in with the Centenary this year. I wanted it to be a story that focused on ordinary men on the front lines, and if possible using some of their own words – we eventually agreed on a book about the Post Office Rifles (a battalion of ordinary postmen and telegram boys) incorporating the letters they wrote home. 

Thank you for answering my questions Duncan!

Agent Dmitri - Emil Draitser - Guest Book Review

Published by Duckworth

Guest review by Mandy Jenkinson

Dmitri Bystrolyotov was one of the Great Illegals, a group of Soviet spies operating in the West between the two world wars. He was recruited in the 1920s and went on to lead a quite extraordinary life. He was a larger-than-life figure, courageous, charismatic, a master of seduction (he invented the modern “honey trap”), handsome, resourceful, and above all a committed Communist, dedicated to the service of his motherland.

Much of the trajectory of his life as a spy seems stranger than fiction, and that, for me, was one of the problems of this book. Emil Draitser has done an impressive amount of painstaking research, but still relies in part on Bystrolotov’s own memoirs, and Bystrolyotov is an unreliable narrator par excellence. He contacted the author back in the 1970s shortly before Draitser’s emigration hoping he would take on the task of writing his biography. Thirty years later and with increased access to the archives after the fall of the Soviet Union, Draitser set about the task. He admits to not being able to verify some of the events, but too often allows himself the luxury of speculating. Reconstructed conversations (which always sound false and stilted), cod psychological explanations of Bystrolyotov’s motives and actions, too much reliance on the memoirs, all made me distrustful.

Reading the tagline “The Secret History of Russia’s Most Daring Spy”, I expected the book to be more thrilling and exciting than it actually is. I was soon bored by the accounts of one incredible exploit after another. I found the book more interesting after Bystrolyotov’s ill-advised return to the Soviet Union, where instead of being feted for all he had done for his country, he fell foul of Stalin’s paranoia and was arrested and sent to the Gulag. His ordeal in the far North makes for some gripping reading. But essentially I just couldn’t engage with this man. He never truly came alive for me. Perhaps that’s inevitable with someone who spent much of his life pretending to be someone he wasn’t, and just as it’s impossible to really enter the heart and mind of many another super-spy, such as Kim Philby, perhaps such a biography is always doomed to partial failure. I would have liked to see more illustrations, but perhaps theses weren’t available.

Nevertheless, in spite of my reservations, this is an intriguing look into the world of high-level espionage, and a glimpse, at least, into the secretive world of Soviet intelligence. A pity about the lurid cover, though, one hardly appropriate for a serious biography.


Many thanks to Mandy for reading and reviewing this novel for The Little Reader Library. Mandy is an omnivorous reader who enjoys reviewing, for newbooks magazine as well as elsewhere, and enjoys discovering new authors.

Bolder and Wiser - Sarah Dale

Today I am pleased to be part of the blog tour for Bolder and Wiser by Sarah Dale. Below are my thoughts on the book, an excerpt from the book, and an international giveaway!

'I suspect we would all be surprised by what we discovered if we took any group of twenty women over sixty and listened to them properly.'

With the subtitle 'Remarkable Conversations with Older Women', this is a wonderful collection of thoughts, reflections, hopes and lived experience of twenty women aged between 60 and 85, brought together by author and chartered psychologist Sarah Dale. Being in my thirties, initially I wasn't sure how much of relevance I would find here, or whether it would strike a chord with me, but I'm so glad I read it because I found it fascinating and extremely insightful reading.

The author sets out in her preface what drew her to thinking about this time of life: '...with fifty lurking just beyond the horizon, I can feel the stirring of another stage of life.'...'I set out to find twenty women, all at least ten years older than me, who were willing to chat to me about what matters and what doesn't, as they look back.' As she briefly considers the way things have changed in women's lives over the past couple of generations, and how big some of the differences are, which makes it fascinating, I think, to hear these older women's voices: 

'The whole concept of older women with energy, choice, education, and much closer to equal status with men is therefore relative new, and still evolving. There isn't much of a road map. The generation I've been interviewing is at the cutting edge. It feels important to me to hear what they have to say about it.'

As I read, through chapters including thoughts on marriage, parenthood, work, amongst many others, I was invigorated by some of the wonderful, sage advice these women have been kind enough to share, passing on the wisdom of their varied experiences as they look back. In particular, I loved the 'what matters' and 'what doesn't' summaries of each chapter, as well as the 'advice for younger women' and also the section introducing the women, because it was so interesting to read about their backgrounds. Sarah Dale even asked each of them to recommend a couple of favourite books, which also appealed to this fellow bookworm.

I would certainly recommend this book, it's definitely worth your time whether read all at once or dipped in and out of, the author has skillfully collated the results of her interviews and integrated these with reflections on her own experience to produce a thoughtful and inspiring read with thoughts from intelligent, lively, strong and courageous women. Also as a younger woman who doesn't have many older women in her daily life, and who is prone to worrying and indecision, it has offered me the chance to share in some valuable life experience, as well as some things to really think about and some great advice that I think could improve my life, and I genuinely thank the author, and the women who collaborated in this work, for this.

I'll leave you with a few quotes from some of the advice for younger women that I loved and which struck me as particularly wise:

'Don't let anybody (yourself included) stop you from trying what you always wanted to explore or experience.'

'Life is a learning curve and the more you know the more you realise how little you know and how much is left to learn.'

'Never think you've left something too late, that the chance has passed you by.'

'Enjoy being young and don't be too concerned with how you look because you will look back and realise you were lovely and fresh.'


~~~~~

About the book...

Hit 50 yet? Sarah Dale is about to. This impending event set her wondering about successful ageing, what life looks like for women who have been there and done that, and what adventures are to be had on the other side of 50.

In this fascinating and celebratory book, Sarah talks to 20 inspiring women who have not only made it past 50, but are happy to be there.

These open and honest conversations, punctuated by Sarah’s observations about her own journey, reflect on friendship, work, health, creativity, marriage, motherhood, money – and whether you should stop dyeing your hair.

About the author...

Sarah is a practising occupational psychologist and accredited coach. She designed the structured coaching programme, Creating Focus®, and is the author of Keeping Your Spirits Up, a guide to facing the challenges of modern life. She lives in Nottingham with her husband, two daughters and step-son. Her moments of leisure are spent Nordic walking, reading fiction and frequenting coffee shops, the more independent the better. She secretly loves a good jigsaw.

You can find out more about Sarah Dale on her website, www.creatingfocus.org or by following her on twitter (@creatingfocus) or on Facebook (Sarah Dale – author).

Excerpt

On a beautiful day in August, we seek out a wild swimming spot on Dartmoor. It is an idyllic setting, an ancient grassy common on the bend of the river, overhung by lush oak and beech trees in full summer leaf. Dappled sunlight falls across wet children sleek and glossy as seals, and their shrieks bounce off the rock face as they dare each other to ever higher leaps from the bank.

I bring up the rear of our little family group, as we haul our picnic and towels from the car park. My varifocals and unsteady flip flops, as well as customary caution, result in me being slower than everyone else in making my way along the uneven riverside footpath.

I imagine, if I were living in some fictional primeval tribe, that I might soon be discarded. What do I bring to the party? Am I becoming a liability? As a woman approaching fifty, I no longer offer physical strength or child-bearing potential. If I ever was physically daring, I’m less so now. The brief appeal of dipping in the river chills as quickly as my feet when I test the temperature.

I’m no longer the quickest, strongest or the one with the loudest voice. I have fulfilled my reproductive purpose, if that is what we are here for. I won’t have more children and my daughters are growing in independence on a daily basis.

But I don’t feel ready to resign myself to the background yet. In many ways I feel that my work has barely started. Am I deluded in thinking I have some valuable contribution to make? What shape will it take? What exactly is my purpose? And does it matter?

The women I have had conversations with over the last months have a wide range of views and experiences. My initial response is relief that not one of them is invisible. Their contribution may sometimes be subtle but is often all the more powerful for that.

It is like a dew-laden spider’s web: visible if you look for it; awe-inspiring in its construction; efficient, beautiful and very strong in its natural habitat. It is also very easily swept aside by those clumsily making their way through life without stopping to notice what is right in front of their faces. The corporations, institutions, families and generations who ignore older women are losing far more than they realise. Society needs older women like the world needs bees. 

I have heard from women, all of whom are at least sixty years old, who hold things together. They quietly and relentlessly challenge injustice. They support and soothe and organise and nurture. They lead the way. They laugh. They struggle, and doubt themselves. They keep going, and encourage others to keep going. They see the bigger picture as well as the tiny details of life that matter. They are a curious mix of astonishing patience and exasperated energy. They care.

I have paused for a while in my middle-aged rush of busy domesticity where work and motherhood uneasily co-habit, backlit in recent years by my own uncertainties about ageing. I have stopped to listen to these ordinary, yet extra-ordinary, women. I expected interesting things.

However, I didn’t expect the project to be so immediately and intensely personal. It has confirmed or challenged my own views of what matters and what doesn’t. It has left me with clearer ideas about the kind of older woman I would like to be. It has reassured me. It has been time well spent.


Giveaway!

The International giveaway on this tour is 1 x paperback copy of Bolder and Wiser.  Entry is via the rafflecopter form below.

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