Matt Haig

“Haig is adamant that ‘one of the uses of the arts is to keep us sane’, and that ‘reading is a route out of yourself’. He is almost evangelical about the power of reading to do good. ‘I think books can save us and I think they sort of saved me,’ he says.”

‘A timely memoir of mental illness reads as a highly personal and creative response to crisis’

We’ve launched a new podcast together with Faber and Serpent’s Tail: called Read Like a Writer, it’s a celebration of authors, books and independent bookshops. The first episode featured our very own Matt Haig (author of the number one bestseller Notes on a Nervous Planet). And episode number two was with E. Foley & B. Coates, authors of What Would Boudica Do? from Faber. Subscribe to Read Like a Writer through your favourite podcast app now!

Matt Haig was interviewed in the Observer about his new book Notes on a Nervous Planet.

“Platforms like Twitter and Instagram try to get us as emotionally and psychologically invested in them as possible. And sometimes, if you just go on Twitter and passively scroll down your feed, it depends who you follow of course, it just seems like a fireball of anger. Wherever you are on the political spectrum, you can find something within five minutes to be really, really cross or anxious about. And there’s a psychological fall-out from all that.”