Category: Arts

Better To Live

How I Learnt To Survive Depression

by

Alastair Campbell

"Superbly readable, supremely useful. Unflinching, clear-eyed, honest, raw and revealing, it may be the most important achievement of Alastair Campbell’s vivid and varied life. This book could save lives." – STEPHEN FRY

BETTER TO LIVE is Alastair Campbell’s honest, moving and life affirming account of his lifelong struggle with depression. It is an autobiographical, psychological and psychiatric study, which explores his own childhood, family and other relationships, and examines the impact of his professional and political life on himself and those around him. But it also lays bare his relentless quest to understand depression not just through his own life but through different treatments. Every bit as direct and driven, clever and candid as he is, this is a book filled with pain, but also hope - he examines how his successes have been in part because of rather than despite his mental health problems - and love. His partner of forty years, Fiona Millar, writes a moving afterword on how she too has learned to live with his depression.

Depression is the predominant mental health problem worldwide - it is estimated that 1 in 6 people in the past week experienced a common mental health problem and major depression is thought to be the second leading cause of disability worldwide. BETTER TO LIVE is a call to arms and an extraordinary memoir in one compelling and inspiring narrative. This is a book that really could save lives.

"One can only hope that BETTER TO LIVE provokes a far wider and more honest understanding of the condition" – JON SNOW