Book Club
First rule of book club ....
In this section we will be reviewing all things books, focusing on the burgeoning wellbeing genre.
This quarter we have reviewed 'Notes on a Nervous Planet' by Matt Haig
People are saying how difficult it is to concentrate on different things now, like reading, but Matt Haig’s ‘Notes on a Nervous Planet’ is the jumpstart to enjoy reading again. As the title suggests, it really is a very simple but highly effective collection of notes about 21st century life, in 306 pages of chapters and headings.
Although not a newly published book (published in 2018), Haig’s thoughts have never been more relevant. After it opens with a twitter-spat between him and a stranger on the internet, the book explores, and lists, the stresses we face with aspects of modern life such as the internet, digitalisation, time management, news, social media, the problems with excess, and provides his insights into coping with these things, and he doesn’t hold back on the lists.
The raw and open details Haig gives us about the anxiety and panic attacks he suffered in his younger years, and how he has overcome them, makes it difficult not to like the book, and Matt. Oh, and he is funny – exemplified by his ‘Ode to social media’ in Chapter six and ‘How to get out of bed in five steps’ in Chapter ten.
Here are three things to like about the book:
1. The tips on wellness Along the way, Haig shares tips on how he makes modern life more manageable. A seemingly gentle, unassuming self-help expert, he touches on the positive effects of less: less alcohol, less notifications, less time online. He provides ways to keep up with the news and not lose our minds. He dedicates a whole chapter to sleep. He draws the conclusion that ‘the growth in mindfulness and meditation is a visible response to an overloaded culture’. 2. The history Throughout the book, Haig gives snippets of events in history and some of them are bizarre. One of the notable events is under ‘Mass hysterics’ where Haig says that historical events have shown that individuals can have their emotions influenced by a crowd, and we learn about meowing nuns in a French convent in the 15th century. On a more serious note, Haig touches on how we are moving into a different time and out of the Holocene age, which has seen 12,000 years of stable climate change since the last Ice Age. This stark reminder of where the world is heading is just one of the ways in which he questions our existence and makes the reader question too. 3. The honesty Haig writes about the stigma around mental health and his own experiences with depression. We learn first-hand about situations that have been difficult for him in the past and his readers can empathise (and maybe relate) with his feelings and circumstances, which might be why he is such a successful writer. He acknowledges how hard it can be to stay on top of day-to-day politics, work, e-mails, and invites everyone to slow down. He is a hypocrite and acknowledges that some of his own advice he can’t always follow but that is why he is liked, because he’s not perfect.
In his own words, he tells us to keep empathy alive, break patterns, resist robotic tendencies and stay human. The book, as he states, ‘seeks to recognise that what we feel is just as important as what we have’. It is definitely worth a read if only to encounter a fictional conversation that a human has with a turtle or, a note from the beach.
Matt Haig’s newest work is a novel called ‘The Midnight Library’ and is the Number 1 Sunday Times bestseller, and a global phenomenon.