Dear Stranger: Letters on the Subject of Happiness

I first came across Dear Stranger through an extract published in The Times. Published by Penguin in partnership with the mental health charity, Mind, Dear Stranger is comprised of 'letters' written by various authors, journalists and bloggers on the subject of happiness (including Marian Keyes, Rachel Joyce, Alain de Botton, Caitlin Moran). The extract was Caitlin Moran's letter. That was enough for me to decide to put this book on my birthday list, because I have a full-blown obsession! Observe the brilliance of the below quote from Caitlin Moran's letter.

"...you must not treat yourself any less courteously than you would a loved one, or a team-mate. You cannot spend days bitching at yourself, saying 'You are worthless', 'You said a stupid thing', 'You always make these same mistakes, and your knees are fat. Indeed the mistake you keep making is to have fat knees. You are a terminally fat-kneed clown.'

You would not stay silent if you saw someone being so repeatedly vile to someone else - if someone spoke to your brother, or sister, like this. You would find them. You would ride into battle on a horse against them. And yet, look at all the things you are saying to you."

Most of the letters are just two to three pages of thoughtful snippets about mental illness, depression, recovery and happiness, each providing food for thought on the subject. I love reading something that I know will stay with me long into the future, and this book certainly provides many sentiments that will do that.

Also contributing to the book is the illustrator of Alfie childrens' story books, Shirley Hughes, childrens' illustrator, Nicholas Allan and Private Eye cartoonist Tony Husband, with thoughtful insights given in picture-form.

The letters in the book are set out like chapters, one for each contributor, which makes it easy to flick through and read them in any order that takes your fancy. It's not necessary to read them consecutively as they appear in the book, though of course you could if you wanted to. This would be a great book to read alongside a novel (I know some people hate this idea), because reading a few pages really isn't at all taxing.

The last thing I will say about Dear Stranger is that I was rather disappointed that Stephen Fry didn't appear in the list of contributors. As the President of the Mind charity, I would have thought this would be a no-brainer for him, and I think he could have done something really interesting, but no such luck. His autobiographies serve much the same purpose, I suppose.

All profits from the sale of Dear Stanger (at least £3 per copy sold) will be donated to Mind (a registered charity, number 219830), available on Amazon here and through Waterstones here.