Read Yourself Happy by Daisy Buchanan: Great ways to boost your shelf-esteem
Read Yourself Happy by Daisy Buchanan (DK Red £16.99, 288pp)
Author and podcaster Daisy Buchanan has been a champion worrier, she writes in her new book, pretty much as far back as she can remember. As an eight-year-old she fretted about whether she might have accidentally consumed some bleach.
At her all-girls’ grammar she felt like an outcast. ‘My problem is that I just can’t bear uncertainty,’ she once told a therapist earnestly. ‘Yes, that’s an issue for all humans,’ came the reply.
But books were always a refuge, and in Read Yourself Happy she sets out how they can alleviate the feelings of anxiety she has long battled with.
It’s not only that books have made her a more empathetic person, she writes: they have helped her find a stillness she craves. Above all, they have made her feel less alone.
Buchanan is scrupulously anti-snobbish – her own tastes aren’t highbrow. The novels she returns to include the Sweet Valley High series, Bridget Jones and the Cazalet Chronicles.
When dealing with a reading block, she advises returning to books you enjoyed as a child: rebuild your strength on material you know and love, then try gnarlier reading challenges.
Peppered throughout are author interviews about mental health and soothing the soul. In 2023, the Mental Health Foundation found that in the previous two weeks, 20 per cent of people had felt anxious ‘most or all of the time’.
Catherine Gray, author of The Unexpected Joy Of Being Sober, looks at how books have helped bring ‘the kind of space, clarity and brightness’ that she once sought from booze. David Nicholls talks about love stories, and admits he’s never got on with Jane Austen because you can see her endings coming a mile off.
Buchanan is reassuringly realistic about how hard it can be to pick up a book in the first place. She recounts trying to read on a train, only to find herself returning again and again to her phone.
Books, she concedes, can’t bring the ‘same instant, fizzy hit of distraction’ that smartphones produce, but they deliver longer-term rewards. If you need your confidence shoring up, she recommends the Trebizon school series by Anne Digby. To have a proper weep, try A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. To learn more about the world, try Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels. For a steamier experience, try Jilly Cooper.
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When reading feels like wading through sludge, Buchanan advises breaking the book into chunks: at the age of 37, she finally conquered Bleak House by reading it first thing, in 15-minute spurts. It’s always fine to abandon ship, she insists, but reading the ‘big’ books can be transformative. Doing so has made her a more patient person, she reckons.
Read Yourself Happy is odd, as Buchanan writes so passionately about other books that she makes you want to cast hers aside and pick up, say Middlemarch (surprisingly fun, apparently) or Cold Comfort Farm.
Books, Buchanan concedes, can’t eliminate anxiety altogether: in the morning her brain still rouses itself by screaming: ‘WHAT DID WE MISS IN THE NIGHT? WHAT DO WE NEED TO BE AFRAID OF?’ But reading has made her life ‘deep and rich’; it has helped her become comfortable in her own company. You’ll be left with a renewed hope for all that books have to offer, as well as a very long shopping list.