I enjoy having a book on my nightstand so I can read a few pages of wisdom, a short essay, or inspirational quotes from each night before I pick up the book I am currently reading at the time. This includes the novels The Humans, How to Stop Time and The Midnight Library, several children's books and the memoir Reasons to Stay Alive. In fact, this is exactly what you should do, especially if you’re facing depressive episodes in your life. While I didn’t find all the passages/entries equally inspiring, I was moved by more than a few that I read and reread multiple times. Haig – novelist, self-help guru, periodic endurer of depression and anxiety – needs these colours, that view, this sun, even the statement-making front door.

The German film-maker Leni Riefenstahl continues to arouse strong feelings nearly two decades after her death, because of her role as “Hitler’s propagandist” who made the pro-Nazi films Triumph of the Will and Olympia. To accept that the unknowability of the future is the key, and that there are versions of that future that are brighter and fairer than the present. You can find inspiration in similar cases to yours, or completely different stories from people who managed to survive, push through, and create a beautiful life afterward. You don’t have to feel guilty about fear or sadness or angerYou are the person experiencing the storm.

Some parts felt flat yet others were sublime to the extent that I wanted nothing more than to tear those pages out of the book and put them into a sweet pie, then eat it.

This is the kind of book which you will enjoy when you pick it up when you really need a good distraction from all the everyday usual distractions. Andrea Querido is a 40-ish book-loving, introverted word nerd who’s passionate about connection, self-care, personal growth, creating community and, of course, books! Although this wasn't the perfect book for me, I did enjoy the authors' mission and I know this is a book that many have found helpful and loved.As to the book itself, this isn’t the kind to read from cover to cover, rather something to dip into when you need a “comfort hit”. Similar to rain, which occurs no matter how hard you try to fight it, pain exists until it goes away.