The Comfort Book

Content Warning: The following section references suicidal ideation, sexual abuse, and slavery.

Haig was born on July 3, 1975, in Sheffield, England. He is a prolific author of adult fiction, children’s fiction, and nonfiction. As a child, Haig struggled with social anxiety, shyness, and concern with how others perceived him. When he was 24 years old, he experienced a mental health crisis and became suicidal while living in Ibiza with his girlfriend (now wife) Andrea. He detailed this difficult moment of his life in his first nonfiction title, Reasons to Stay Alive. Haig wrote The Comfort Book to document ideas, concepts, thoughts, songs, films, anecdotes, mantras, and stories that bring him comfort and make him feel alive.

Because Haig does not subscribe to any faith, he offers humanistic comfort that does not hinge on readers’ acceptance of any type of religious belief. Haig emphasizes the resilience and perseverance of the human spirit and a sense of hope spawned by people’s connectivity with one another and the world at large. For Haig, words are an avenue for connecting to others and cultivating positive changes in the world; they provide comfort and therapy to the writer, but also to the reader.