THE C0MFORT BOOK

It’s not easy reviewing a Matt Haig book - in my opinion he is literary Marmite. You either love everything he does and draw comfort from him, or you view him as an entitled hack cashing in on misery.

His earlier work “Reasons To Stay Alive” (the title alone makes me angry) was a bestseller, of course, but I avoided it because it seemed to be nothing more than a rich, middle-class weekender monetising his depression whilst being vain enough to believe he can help others with the same condition. But whilst real people with depression face an uphill struggle just to get out of bed everyday, Haig’s struggles were more of the “Waitrose selling out of avocados” variety. Now, Matt Haig wants to comfort us.

Some people are naturally suspicious of a rich writer going all “woe is me” and your level of engagement with this latest book will depend on how you see the author. He is either the most caring man in the world or a comfortably-off author cranking out quick vanity projects. I suspect Haig wrote this latest book to cash in on the “we need hope in these dark times” bandwagon; one of the more regrettable consequences of the last eighteen months has been the rash of dilettante writers thinking they are psychologists.

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”. You may glean comfort from this book, regardless of what I think, and that’s wonderful, but in my opinion if you need a Matt Haig book to comfort you then you must be easily pleased. A lot of the content is simply lists of music, books and films that Haig likes and finds comfort in. There are anecdotes here, poetry there, some remedial philosophy in-between
. Mixed in with this is pretty much the kitchen sink - stories, quotes, a list of “things it is OK to say no to”, and an apparently serious discussion about the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” If Matt Haig’s name wasn’t on this book, it would be lucky to sell twenty copies.

“The Comfort Book” is happy-fluff. If you need that in your life then you will enjoy this book. I’ve already seen glowing reviews for it so it is sure to be another bestseller for Matt Haig, and he may very well help some people (including you), but as far as I am concerned, the world wouldn’t suffer too much if this book didn’t exist.