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The Comfort Book
Cover of The Comfort Book
The Comfort Book
by Matt Haig
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An instant New York Times Bestseller!
The new uplifting book from Matt Haig, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Midnight Library, for anyone in search of hope, looking for a path to a more meaningful life, or in need of a little encouragement.
Named by The Washington Post as one of the best feel-good books of the year
“It is a strange paradox, that many of the clearest, most comforting life lessons are learnt while we are at our lowest. But then we never think about food more than when we are hungry and we never think about life rafts more than when we are thrown overboard.”

THE COMFORT BOOK is Haig’s life raft: it’s a collection of notes, lists, and stories written over a span of several years that originally served as gentle reminders to Haig’s future self that things are not always as dark as they may seem. Incorporating a diverse array of sources from across the world, history, science, and his own experiences, Haig offers warmth and reassurance, reminding us to slow down and appreciate the beauty and unpredictability of existence.
An instant New York Times Bestseller!
The new uplifting book from Matt Haig, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Midnight Library, for anyone in search of hope, looking for a path to a more meaningful life, or in need of a little encouragement.
Named by The Washington Post as one of the best feel-good books of the year
“It is a strange paradox, that many of the clearest, most comforting life lessons are learnt while we are at our lowest. But then we never think about food more than when we are hungry and we never think about life rafts more than when we are thrown overboard.”

THE COMFORT BOOK is Haig’s life raft: it’s a collection of notes, lists, and stories written over a span of several years that originally served as gentle reminders to Haig’s future self that things are not always as dark as they may seem. Incorporating a diverse array of sources from across the world, history, science, and his own experiences, Haig offers warmth and reassurance, reminding us to slow down and appreciate the beauty and unpredictability of existence.
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Excerpts-
  • From the cover

    Baby

     

    Imagine yourself as a baby. You would look at that baby and think they lacked nothing. That baby came complete. Their value was innate from their first breath. Their value did not depend on external things like wealth or appearance or politics or popularity. It was the infinite value of a human life. And that value stays with us, even as it becomes easier to forget it. We stay precisely as alive and precisely as human as we were the day we were born. The only thing we need is to exist. And to hope.



    You Are the Goal

     

    You don't have to continually improve yourself to love yourself. Love is not something you deserve only if you reach a goal. The world is a world of pressure but don't let it squeeze your self-compassion. You were born worthy of love and you remain worthy of love. Be kind to yourself.

     

    Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn't give up.

     

    A thing my dad said once when we were lost in a forest

     

    Once upon a time, my father and I got lost in a forest in France. I must have been about twelve or thirteen. Anyway, it was before the era when most people owned a mobile phone. We were on vacation the rural, landlocked, basic kind of middle-class vacation I didn't really understand. It was in the Loire Valley, and we had gone for a run. About half an hour in, my dad realized the truth. "Oh, it seems that we're lost." We walked around and around in circles, trying to find the path, but with no luck. My dad asked two men-poachers-for directions and they sent us the wrong way. I could tell my dad was starting to panic, even as he was trying to hide it from me. We had been in the forest for hours now and both knew my mom would be in a state of absolute terror. At school, I had just been told the Bible story of the Israelites who had died in the wilderness and I found it easy to imagine that would be our fate too. "If we keep going in a straight line we'll get out of here," my dad said.

     

    And he was right. Eventually we heard the sound of cars and reached a main road. We were eleven miles from the village where we had started off, but at least we had signposts now. We were clear of the trees. And I often think of that strategy, when I am totally lost-literally or metaphorically. I thought of it when I was in the middle of a breakdown. When I was living in a panic attack punctuated only by depression, when my heart pounded rapidly with fear, when I hardly knew who I was and didn't know how I could carry on living. If we keep going in a straight line we'll get out of here. Walking one foot in front of the other, in the same direction, will always get you further than running around in circles. It's about the determination to keep walking forward.

     

     

     

    It's okay

     

    It's okay to be broken.

     

    It's okay to wear the scars of experience.

     

    It's okay to be a mess.

     

    It's okay to be the teacup with a chip in it. That's the one with a story.

     

    It's okay to be sentimental and whimsical and cry bittersweet tears at songs and movies you aren't supposed to love.

     

    It's okay to like what you like.

     

    It's okay to like things for literally no other reason than because you like them and not because they are cool or clever or popular.

     

    It's okay to let people find you. You don't have to spread yourself so thin you become invisible. You don't have to always be the person reaching out. You can sometimes allow yourself to be reached. As the great writer Anne Lamott puts it:...

About the Author-
  • Matt Haig is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Midnight Library and the internationally bestselling memoir Reasons to Stay Alive and the follow-up Notes on a Nervous Planet, along with six novels, including How to Stop Time, and several award-winning children's books. His work has been translated into more than forty languages.
Reviews-
  • AudioFile Magazine Author/narrator Matt Haig's nuanced exploration of comfort is a cozy escape for the listener. With his pleasing Nottinghamshire accent, Haig narrates well-crafted short pieces on perseverance, forgiveness, philosophy, selfhood, and more. To hear this author read his words is to understand how much he believes in and encourages others to actively hope: "Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn't give up," he repeats so decisively that the listener starts to believe it's true. Haig knows about hope; his ongoing journey with depression and anxiety, eloquently expressed here, leads him daily to a deeper appreciation of comforting concepts, people, words, and places. Comfort and hope are the offspring of discomfort and despair, Haig says, coaxing the listener to lean into this delicious irony. E.S.B. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
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    All copies of this title, including those transferred to portable devices and other media, must be deleted/destroyed at the end of the lending period.

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The Comfort Book
Matt Haig
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