This is the first book you’re going to buy, borrow, or gift in 2019.
Here’s why:
- It’s timely.
- It’s funny.
- It’s just what you (or a loved one) will need after the holiday season (and when venturing into a brand new year).
I ordered Notes on a Nervous Planet the day it went on sale in the UK and had it shipped across the pond back in July, but it’s being released in the States on January 29, and I could not be more enthusiastic in this recommendation:
Get your hands on a copy and take it with you wherever you go.
I read Notes at my desk, in my hammock, and at an event where I presented on Iphelia and editing with the gift of feeling. I’ve followed Matt Haig, who’s a British author, husband, dad, and thought-provoking social media participant since before I got the book. He even retweeted a pic of me holding my copy of Notes (fresh out of the box), which I humbly consider my first celeb interaction (no screaming fans or overwhelming crowds required).
So what is Notes on a Nervous Planet? It’s an invitation to feel. It’s a beautifully curated stream of thoughts from a man who’s trying to get better. At managing his anxiety. At being a spouse. At fathering. At being a participant in a world that can sometimes seem like so much more than we can handle.
Like Erick writes in Iphelia’s acknowledgements, Notes on a Nervous Planet can be read any way you want: “Front to back, back to front, pick a page and go.”
I spent some solid chunks of weekend with the book, but I enjoyed a few of Haig’s satiating micro-chapters at the office between editing articles and responding to emails, too. We also did a lot of desk lunches together, during which I laughed and cried without reservation.
Haig’s ability to articulate experiences of anxiety is as educational as it is artistic. It’s also an act of solidarity. It’s the kind of “me too” that leaves room for the diversity of our experiences. It has the power to prompt readers to hunt for their own words and try them on for size—practicing the courage to give feelings about the past, present, and future a much-needed voice.
To my mind, this book is especially important for men. Haig isn’t a meditation guru. He isn’t a mental health professional. He’s a guy, confessing his fears and sharing his ideas in ways that I’ve come to know—primarily through marriage and co-ed group therapy—can be very, very hard…heartbreakingly hard…for men to do. I see this book being read, given, received, and celebrated by all kinds of men, and look forward to hearing more men’s voices chiming in on its relevance.
Regardless of your gender, Notes on a Nervous Planet is medicine. It’s poetry in motion, inviting emotion and space for us to be fully human and alive.
As we get ready to make room for whatever it is we want in the new year, I leave my final book review of 2018 with this juicy morsel from “Spaces,” a chapter near the end of Notes:
“In terms of shaping our own future, spaces are key. We need to make sure there are spaces to be free. To be ourselves. Literal spaces, psychological spaces.”
Haig goes on to write what we all know so well, but need to hear, again and again (which is exactly what Notes does, in so many creative ways): “We might have to set time to read or do some yoga or have a long bath or cook a favourite meal or go for a walk. We might have to switch our phone off. We might have to close the laptop. We might have to unplug ourselves, to find a kind of stripped-back acoustic version of us.”
In doing so, I hope Iphelia and Notes find a place on your bookshelf, and that you’ll treat yourself to a few pages whenever you need a reminder to (rephrasing Haig here) keep hold of yourself and never let go.
Editor’s Bookshelf is a regular review of soon-to-be-released books that, in the spirit of
Iphelia , asks important questions about how the written word—and in some cases, imagery—are used to help readers reconnect with their feelings, themselves, each other, and the world around them.
Iphelia’s editor, Linsey Stevens, answers these questions—chiming in on who will be most captivated by each book’s contents and how it invites readers to return to a heart-centered way of being.
Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig will be available on January 29,
