No Such Thing as Normal: From the author of Glorious Rock Bottom

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It’s not very often that a book makes it onto our grid (in fact, this might be a first) but there was something about ‘No Such Thing as Normal’, that set it apart from so many other books of this genre.

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.Also, the anxious should keep in mind that Gordon’s list of worries in chapter five may give you new ideas for things to worry about. I've read or listened to almost all of Bryony Gordon's books and have enjoyed following her mental health journey, and find her audio narration particularly enjoyable - even when she's talking about the most difficult topics, I find her a joy to listen to. It also presupposes that everyone's experience of mental illness has a coherent narrative structure, which I highly doubt.

The real shift happened the day I decided to meet new people with the eyes of a child, with curiosity and a genuine interest to know them and connect with them, from the heart. This book provides you with a guide for this and I’m sure there is a lesson to be learnt from it by all of us. I was still in academia when the pandemic began and it was useful having some mental wellness tips to share with anxious students. Look at the situation from this perspective: “I don’t have to agree with this, but I know where this comes from.Without minimising Gordon’s experiences, the book stews over the lack of funding for NHS MH services, while in the same chapter praising private care she received, and fawning over a health retreat in Ibiza (that she experienced for free as part of her job as a journalist). I’ve also stopped judging silly little things that seemed odd to me—like how the Chinese eat tomatoes with sugar because, to them, the cherry tomato is not a vegetable, but a fruit. These books feature both aesthetic and meaningful illustrations that both parents and children will love!

The result is a lively, honest and direct guide to mental health that cuts through the Instagram-wellness bubble to talk about how each of us can feel stronger, better and just a little bit less alone. Bryony Gordon says: "It would be disingenuous of me to say that I no longer care what other people think of me. She is the presenter of the Mad World podcast and in 2016 she founded Mental Health Mates, now a global peer support network which encourages people with mental health issues to connect and get out of the house. In No Such Thing As Normal, Bryony offers sensible, practical advice, covering subjects such as sleep, addiction, worry, medication, self-image, boundary setting, therapy, learned behaviour, mindfulness and, of course - as the founder of Mental Health Mates - the power of walking and talking. So when I got my first working contract in Sweden seven years ago, I embraced it with tremendous joy.And how do you even start to feel hope when you are under the influence of an illness whose main symptom is telling you that there is none?