Digital List Price:	418.95
M.R.P.:	599.00
Kindle Price:	279.30 Save 319.70 (53%)
	inclusive of all taxes
Sold by:	Amazon Asia-Pacific Holdings Private Limited

Follow the Author

Matt Haig

Reasons to Stay Alive Kindle Edition

by Matt Haig (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.3 15,810 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Kindle Edition

"Please retry"

₹279.30

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

₹0.00

Free with your Audible trial

Hardcover

"Please retry"

₹1,014.00

Paperback

"Please retry"

₹395.00

₹389.00

Preloaded Digital Audio Player, Unabridged, Import

"Please retry"

—

Kindle Edition
₹279.30 Read with Our Free App
Audiobook
₹0.00 Free with your Audible trial
Hardcover
₹1,014.00

5 New from ₹1,014.00
Paperback
₹395.00

19 New from ₹389.00
Preloaded Digital Audio Player
—

Great on Kindle

Great Experience. Great Value.

Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. Learn more about Great on Kindle, available in select categories.

Order THE COMFORT BOOK. Available now!

THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO FEEL TRULY ALIVE?

Aged 24, Matt Haig's world caved in. He could see no way to go on living. This is the true story of how he came through crisis, triumphed over an illness that almost destroyed him and learned to live again.

A moving, funny and joyous exploration of how to live better, love better and feel more alive, Reasons to Stay Alive is more than a memoir. It is a book about making the most of your time on earth.

'I wrote this book because the oldest clichés remain the truest. Time heals. The bottom of the valley never provides the clearest view. The tunnel does have light at the end of it, even if we haven't been able to see it . . . Words, just sometimes, really can set you free.'

Print length

274 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Canongate Books
Publication date

5 March 2015
File size

2142 KB
Page Flip

Enabled
Word Wise

Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

Enabled
See all details

Popular Highlights in this book

What are popular highlights?

The key is in accepting your thoughts, all of them, even the bad ones. Accept thoughts, but don’t become them.
Highlighted by 3,043 Kindle readers
Life is waiting for you. You might be stuck here for a while, but the world isn’t going anywhere. Hang on in there if you can. Life is always worth it.
Highlighted by 2,669 Kindle readers
Maybe love is just about finding the person you can be your weird self with.
Highlighted by 2,327 Kindle readers

Product description

Review

The intensely personal significance that the text holds for Haig, coupled with his desire to connect with others in the same situation, makes for an intimate and meaningful listen.-- "AudioFile" --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Matt Haig is an internationally bestselling author whose novels for children and adults have been translated into twenty-six languages. His children's books have won the Smarties Gold Medal, the Alex Award, and the Blue Peter Book Award and been nominated several times for the Carnegie Medal and the Waterstones Children's Book Prize.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description

The number one bestseller - warm, witty, honest and human, a manifesto for staying alive, whatever your demons --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

This book is impossible

Thirteen years ago I knew this couldn’t happen. I was going to die, you see. Or go mad.

There was no way I would still be here. Sometimes I doubted I would even make the next ten minutes. And the idea that I would be well enough and confident enough to write about it in this way would have been just far too much to believe.

One of the key symptoms of depression is to see no hope. No future. Far from the tunnel having light at the end of it, it seems like it is blocked at both ends, and you are inside it. So if I could have only known the future, that there would be one far brighter than anything I’d experienced, then one end of that tunnel would have been blown to pieces, and I could have faced the light. So the fact that this book exists is proof that depression lies. Depression makes you think things that are wrong.

But depression itself isn’t a lie. It is the most real thing I’ve ever experienced. Of course, it is invisible.

To other people, it sometimes seems like nothing at all. You are walking around with your head on fire and no one can see the flames. And so—as depression is largely unseen and mysterious—it is easy for stigma to survive. Stigma is partic-ularly cruel for depressives, because stigma affects thoughts and depression is a disease of thoughts.

When you are depressed you feel alone, and that no one is going through quite what you are going through. You are so scared of appearing in any way mad you internalize every-thing, and you are so scared that people will alienate you further you clam up and don’t speak about it, which is a shame, as speaking about it helps. Words—spoken or written—are what connect us to the world, and so speaking about it to people, and writing about this stuff, helps connect us to each other, and to our true selves.

I know, I know, we are humans. We are a clandestine species. Unlike other animals we wear clothes and do our procreating behind closed doors. And we are ashamed when things go wrong with us. But we’ll grow out of this, and the way we’ll do it is by speaking about it. And maybe even through reading and writing about it.

I believe that. Because it was, in part, through reading and writing that I found a kind of salvation from the dark. Ever since I realized that depression lied about the future I have wanted to write a book about my experience, to tackle depression and anxiety head-on. So this book seeks to do two things. To lessen that stigma, and—the possibly more quixotic ambition—to try and actually convince people that the bottom of the valley never provides the clearest view. I wrote this because the oldest clichés remain the truest. Time heals. The tunnel does have light at the end of it, even if we aren’t able to see it. And there’s a two-for-one offer on clouds and silver linings. Words, just sometimes, can set you free.

A note, before we get fully underway

Minds ar e unique. They go wrong in unique ways. My mind went wrong in a slightly different way to how other minds go wrong. Our experience overlaps with other people’s, but it is never exactly the same experience. Um -brella labels like “depression” (and “anxiety” and “panic disorder” and “OCD”) are useful, but only if we appreciate that people do not all have the same precise experience of such things.

Depression looks different to everyone. Pain is felt in different ways, to different degrees, and provokes different responses. That said, if books had to replicate our exact experience of the world to be useful, the only books worth reading would be written by ourselves.

There is no right or wrong way to have depression, or to have a panic attack, or to feel suicidal. These things just are. Misery, like yoga, is not a competitive sport.But I have found over the years that by reading about other people who have suffered, survived, and overcome despair, I have felt comforted. It has given me hope. I hope this book can do the same.

1

Falling

But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.—Albert Camus, A Happy Death

The day I died

i can remember the day the old me died.

It started with a thought. Something was going wrong. That was the start. Before I realized what it was. And then, a second or so later, there was a strange sensation inside my head. Some biological activity in the rear of my skull, not far above my neck. The cerebellum. A pulsing or intense flickering, as though a butterfly was trapped inside, combined with a tingling sensation. I did not yet know of the strange physical effects depression and anxiety would create. I just thought I was about to die. And then my heart started to go. And then I started to go. I sank, fast, falling into a new claustrophobic and suffocating reality. And it would be way over a year before I would feel anything like even half-normal again.

Up until that point I’d had no real understanding or awareness of depression, except that I knew my mum had suffered from it for a little while after I was born, and that my great-grandmother on my father’s side had ended up committing suicide. So I suppose there had been a family history, but it hadn’t been a history I’d thought about much.

Anyway, I was twenty-four years old. I was living in Spain—in one of the more sedate and beautiful corners of the island of Ibiza. It was September. Within a fortnight, I would have to return to London, and reality. After six years of student life and summer jobs. I had put off being an adult for as long as I could, and it had loomed like a cloud. A cloud that was now breaking and raining down on me.

The weirdest thing about a mind is that you can have the most intense things going on in there but no one else can see them. The world shrugs. Your pupils might dilate. You may sound incoherent. Your skin might shine with sweat. And there was no way anyone seeing me in that villa could have known what I was feeling, no way they could have appreciated the strange hell I was living through, or why death seemed such a phenomenally good idea.

I stayed in bed for three days. But I didn’t sleep. My girl-friend Andrea came in with water at regular intervals, or fruit, which I could hardly eat.

The window was open to let fresh air in, but the room was still and hot. I can remember being stunned that I was still alive. I know that sounds melodramatic, but depression and panic only give you melodramatic thoughts to play with. Anyway, there was no relief. I wanted to be dead. No. That’s not quite right. I didn’t want to be dead. I just didn’t want to be alive. Death was something that scared me. And death only happens to people who have been living. There were infinitely more people who had never been alive. I wanted to be one of those people. That old classic wish. To never have been born. To have been one of the three hundred million sperm that hadn’t made it.

(What a gift it was to be normal! We’re all walking on these unseen tightropes when really we could slip at any second and come face to face with all the existential horrors that only lie dormant in our minds.)

There was nothing much in this room. There was a bed with a white patternless duvet, and there were white walls. There might have been a picture on the wall but I don’t think so. I certainly can’t remember one. There was a book by the bed. I picked it up once and put it back down. I couldn’t focus for as much as a second. There was no way I could express fully this experience in words, because it was beyond words. Literally, I couldn’t speak about it prop-erly. Words seemed trivial next to this pain.

I remembered worrying about my younger sister, Phoebe. She was in Australia. I worried that she, my closest genetic match, would feel like this. I wanted to speak to her but knew I couldn’t. When we were little, at home in Nottinghamshire, we had developed a bedtime communication system of knocking on the wall between our rooms. I now knocked on the mattress, imagining she could hear me all the way through the world.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I didn’t have terms like “depression” or “panic disorder” in my head. In my laughable naivete I did not really think that what I was experiencing was something that other people had ever felt. Because it was so alien to me I thought it had to be alien to the species.

“Andrea, I’m scared.”

“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay.”

“What’s happening to me?”

“I don’t know. But it’s going to be okay.”

“I don’t understand how this can be happening.”

On the third day, I left the room and I left the villa, and I went outside to kill myself. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00N7KZLSG
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Canongate Books; Main edition (5 March 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2142 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 274 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #8,917 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #31 in Essays (Kindle Store)
- #107 in Essays (Books)
- #196 in Biographies & Autobiographies (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
4.3 15,810 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Matt Haig

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Matt Haig is the number one bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive, Notes on a Nervous Planet and six highly acclaimed novels for adults, including How to Stop Time, The Humans and The Radleys. His latest novel is The Midnight Library and the audiobook edition is read by Carey Mulligan. Haig also writes award-winning books for children, including A Boy Called Christmas, which is being made into a feature film with an all-star cast. He has sold more than a million books in the UK and his work has been translated into over forty languages.

@matthaig1 | matthaig.com

Matt Haig
3,570
Kindle Edition
1 offer from ₹329.57
Matt Haig
6,916
Kindle Edition
1 offer from ₹329.57
Matt Haig
27,365
Kindle Edition
1 offer from ₹329.57
Matt Haig
20,532
Kindle Edition
1 offer from ₹324.90
Jenny Lawson
15,139
Kindle Edition
1 offer from ₹280.39
Matt Haig
204,732
Kindle Edition
1 offer from ₹237.50

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

15,810 global ratings

5 star		58%
4 star		25%
3 star		11%
2 star		4%
1 star		2%

How are ratings calculated?

Reviews with images

See all customer images

Top reviews from India

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

TinA

If you are in search of a comfort book, this is the one.

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 29 January 2023

Verified Purchase

Dear Matt, I hope you read this and I hope it makes you feel better. I got this book exactly when I needed it. I've marked endless sentences that I have related to and many sentences that give me hope. Made me feel less alone in this journey. Thank you. I have a request- Can you write a book on self-compassion? Again, thank you for this book. Alot.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

S

... (which is not as rare as you think) I recommend this book

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 14 November 2017

Verified Purchase

If you are struggling with depression or know someone who is (which is not as rare as you think) I recommend this book. Though depression looks and feels different on different people, the author has managed to accurately paint a general picture of how harrowing and lonely depression feels like, basically an internal battle with your own mind. The author also lists things that helped him find a way out of his crippling mental state and it sort of gives hope for everyone who feels like there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
It is a comparatively 'small' book but definitely NOT a light read!

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Bharath Ramakrishnan

Excellent personal account on fighting depression

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 28 March 2021

Verified Purchase

I came across many references to this book and have wanted to read it since some time. This is the story of how Matt Haig fought depression. The book is extremely important – it deals with the topic of mental health which needs more attention, and his personal account is very well written and inspiring.

Matt is unable to reason how and why it happened, but he slips into a very deep depression. His self-esteem is dented severely, and he develops extreme anxiety – so much so that even walking to the store and buying something is unbearable. The descriptions of what he goes through are vivid and moving. At one point, he is only seconds away from taking his life. His girlfriend (and later wife) Andrea sticks by him as a pillar of support, and so do his parents. Drugs do not help, and it is only when he develops a high degree of self-awareness (as outlined on Eastern philosophy which is now the cornerstone of most mindfulness teachings) that his mental state improves.

As he points out, many people face depression and suicide takes so many lives every year. More men than women end their lives, though more women suffer from depression (while he does speculate on this in the book, there are good pointers on why this is case in the philosophies of Carl Jung & mythology commentaries of Joseph Campbell). Mental health is a critical subject and various simple habits you can easily inculcate can help.

It is not that he offers revolutionary new advice – however, it is simple, sensible and comes out of a very traumatic personal experience.

A book I strongly recommend.

12 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amol Bhosle

Whether you’re anxious or depressed please read this book.

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 18 September 2022

Verified Purchase

It gave me hope that what I'm feeling will not last forever. Feelings has an end to itself but not with my life and anyone else's. Resisting and suppressing feelings make them lasts longer than they are supposed to. It's best that you read it yourself first and help yourself.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

AbhinavGupta

Gives a lot to think about!

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 24 May 2021

Verified Purchase

Presents a different perspective on depression and the effects (positive as well as negative) it has on a person.
A deep-dive into what a person dealing with depression goes through.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Saurabh Majumdar

A story of the fight within

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 18 June 2017

Verified Purchase

My interest is seldom piqued by messages shared on social media. Hence, it was a rare occurrence for me to have picked up this book on Kindle minutes after reading an excerpt shared by a friend. I can often be accused of indulging in the cardinal sin of judging a book by its cover, though in my defence, it is the back cover blurb I am speaking of rather than the front cover art which is never germane to the content. However, I happened to make an exception when purchasing the book and turned over to the first page, truly blind and oblivious to the subject matter.

What struck me immediately was the earnestness and candidness in the tone of the writing. It can only come from someone who has sunk to the depths and risen from it, to an extent. For someone, who hasn't experienced depression or anxiety in any form, the story might seem like an exaggeration but that is definitely not the case. As masking is always seen as the more acceptable option when dealing with society, the worst of depression or anxiety never manifests itself in the visible world.

Being more attuned to fiction, I found the rawness of this book particularly refreshing and eye-opening. The shorter chapters interspersed with varying anecdotes lend well to reading by those who tend to slip in to contemplation and perhaps, recollection. Also, the book doesn't overdraw itself by being as concise as it is precise. It stands out as a good read by not only those experiencing anxiety or depression but by anyone in general, to better understand those invisible messages around us that just happen to be the most vital ones.

68 people found this helpful

Helpful

Aswini

Average Book

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 20 April 2022

Verified Purchase

Not really impressed. Since it’s about mental health struggles more and in depth struggles and how it was managed could have been elaborated in a much better way

Helpful

Pranav

Insightful and heartfelt journey!

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on 23 July 2022

Verified Purchase

Takes you on an insightful and heartfelt journey. Could especially relate to those bouts of overthinking
that the author had. Loved the book.

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

AM12

Overrated and not very helpful

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 30 April 2019

Verified Purchase

For those trying to answer the book title, I would not recommend this book.
I don’t know how it got so many great reviews!
I haven’t finished it... I didn’t find particularly interesting reading lists ( famous people with depression, depression symptoms from the nhs website, “how to live” tips, which include potentially dangerous advice: no drug in the world will make you feel better than being kind to people(!) - and we are talking about a mental disease here , right?)

I agree with other reviewers that point out the privileged position the author was living when depression stroke ... how about those with depression and not having the financial and emotional support he had? And those depressives with young kids to look after? And provide for ?
I think the title should warn us that this book is a personal diary and not necessary a book that will help you feel happy.

Finally, a book that really helped me to understand my depression and overcome it : Overcoming Depression , by Paul Gilbert

285 people found this helpful

Zac

Life with depression can still be a brilliant life; here’s a book to remind you

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 30 October 2018

Verified Purchase

An unconventional book perhaps calls for an unconventional review, albeit the book sits perfectly for an unconventional world. That this book can help to save people is a big understatement, and the words of praise that I have read on Twitter seemingly echo that.

Let’s get one thing out of the way, I have depression; I have a teenage daughter with anxiety. This book helps me, and it will help her, and the most important part of this is that a writer has been brave, a publisher has been brave and the rewards are there to be seen. It is the most important thing that this book opens conversation.

There is so much to praise about this book: its style; its prose; its brutal honesty; yet any emotion for this book will be nothing but personal for each one of us, and for me it has confirmed my thinking after years of neglect, it has strengthened my purpose and it has given me a proverbial pat on the back to reward my determination to actually physically get here, to this point, and write this.

The detail and debate in this book, and the hints in which to lead a life while carrying depression, enrich my soul as well as making me want to cry. That egotistical side of me which always seems to want to put me in my place has just read something which my imagination has been telling it all along.

Life with depression can still be a brilliant life; here’s a book to remind you.

If you have depression or anxiety, if you live with or know someone who does, read this. Then perhaps read the next one and the next one. Thousands of people on Twitter agree.

To ease the pressure of depression I watch favourite movies; I listen to wonderful music; I read and I delve into my imagination while taking a walk:

I also now read Reasons To Stay Alive.

108 people found this helpful

Mel Owen

Highly reccomend, cleverly written, easy to read and digest

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 13 August 2018

Verified Purchase

Highly reccomend to all sufferers or past sufferers of depression and anxiety. Having experienced bouts of depression myself over the years, I had a lot of “lightbulb” moments in reading about the authors experience of it and could relate to it. I have cried and laughed with this book and quite honestly didn’t want to put it down. It’s cleverly written to give a insight into how the condition can affect you but done where ever possible with humour. It has allowed me to use it as a tool to discuss the subject of my own depression with my husband by sharing specific pages and allowing me to open up to him about my current condition. Thank you very much to the writer for this incredible book.

112 people found this helpful

Mrs P

Read it!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 4 March 2019

Verified Purchase

I actually knew almost nothing about this book when I bought it. I am a book addict and in one of my Facebook groups there was a question that went something like “if you could only recommend one book to anyone ever again, what would it be?”. This book was mentioned more than once and had such strong positivity attached to it and long story short I just couldn’t resist. Normally I’ll buy a bunch of books and they’ll sit on my shelf for weeks, months, even years until I get around to it. But this one I actually picked up and read right away for some reason.

I am glad I did. I’m not going to post an in depth analysis because it’s nearly 1am and I’m tired. But the bottom line is this: I grew up with a depressive. I am a chronic depressive myself. I supported my partner with a serious bout of depression 2 years ago. All our experiences have been entirely different to one another’s. Yet this book somehow brought that all together. It made me feel light. It made me feel good. I am in an okay place at the moment, but next time I slip away, I think this book will be a ray of light that pierces the darkness. I think everyone should read it (not just the depressed) and it will be top of my list for inclusion in care packs from now on. Thanks to the author for writing it.

51 people found this helpful

Heather Playle

Empathy but no practical help.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 25 November 2017

Verified Purchase

I can understand why this book has helped people who are trapped in the 'I am the only person feeling this' loop. The writer is searingly honest about his feelings and experiences. I think I was hoping for more understanding of how he rescued himself - more lessons to apply, more inspiration rather than just empathy.

AbeBooks Books, art & collectibles	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services	Audible Download Audio Books	DPReview Digital Photography	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities

Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands	Amazon Business Everything For Your Business	Prime Now 2-Hour Delivery on Everyday Items	Amazon Prime Music 100 million songs, ad-free Over 15 million podcast episodes

Buy for others

Buying and sending Kindle eBooks to others

Follow the Author

Reasons to Stay Alive Kindle Edition

Product description

Review

About the Author

Book Description

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Product details

About the author

Matt Haig

Customers who read this book also read

Customer reviews

Reviews with images

Top reviews from India

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries