He figured that to survive such tragedy would only bring more suffering and so those thoughts restrained him from him ending his life.įrom that point on, even though he was still very ill, in a very small part of him he found the strength to try and fight the illness, and not let himself be consumed by it. He tried to gather up the courage to end everything once and for all, but he was too afraid, thinking that if he survived he might remain paralyzed, trapped in his body forever.

Standing on the edge of the cliff, he thought of all the people who loved him, and he thought of death. He got to the edge of a cliff, and was one step away from ending all his pain and suffering. He felt that living brought too much pain, and the only way not to feel the pain was to end his life. Everything he felt, everything he saw only made him more and more depressed. He was scared because he did not know what was going on inside his mind.Īfter three days with no sleep and food, he could no longer withstand the pain he was feeling. The impression of a dark cloud that poured endless rain over him made him feel 'caved in', with no way of escaping. He was 24 at the time, and with little or no understanding of depression, or awareness of it. One day, in September of 1999, Matt Haig felt that his old self had died. The novel was reviewed by The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, the Star Tribune, and the Toronto Star.

It is Matt Haig’s first nonfiction piece and the first time he wrote about his illness publicly. It is based on his experiences of living with depression and anxiety disorder, which he suffered from the age of 24.

There’s still an incredible amount of choice within our list, but with this guide in hand, you’ll be able to find the stories that suit your tastes, and get started with this incredible form of storytelling.Reasons to Stay Alive is a novel and memoir written by novelist Matt Haig, published on 5 March 2015. That’s where we come in - we’ve taken this huge field and narrowed it down to the 75 best manga stories. From fantasy adventure to autobiographical comics to historical fiction to, yes, superheroes and monsters, manga has stories for readers of every genre and age.īut if you’re new to manga, the sheer number of stories available can feel overwhelming. With all that history to pull from, it’s no wonder the world of manga is such a varied literary landscape. While the Western literary canon was largely confined to prose-centric novels until the rise of comics in the 1930s, Japanese storytellers have been embracing the power of combining pictures and words for centuries. Many Western readers understand the term “manga” to simply mean “Japanese comic books” - but in fact, manga has an incredibly rich history that stretches all the way back to the 12th century.

Reasons to stay alive amazon