“The Comfort Book”

This is the third Matt Haig book I read this year, so his writing prowess has got to count for something. He wrote this - a delightfully eclectic mish-mash of lists and reflections - to help himself cope when he was depressed. It’s an easy book to read; I sometimes read several pages in the middle of the school day, to the chagrin of one boy who called me a nerd. But his protests were ignored as I absorbed myself in his philosophical thoughts that were sometimes astutely analytical and other times whimsical.

This was an especially satisfying read because I now understand how his interest in philosophy enriched his depiction of the main character, Nora, in his “The Midnight Library”. As an author, you have to take an intimate interest in a subject in order to make your character sound convincing.

And it seems that Matt had an encyclopaedic knowledge of all things quirky, including animals and historical figures. It’s darn cool reading how he made connections to his own state of mind from such seemingly disparate topics.