What to read when absolutely nothing goes in

Up and not crying? Just about? Me too

Mar 06, 2025

I’m writing this on the train from Edinburgh to London, greedily spreading myself across the seat next to me and crossing everything that no-one gets on at Darlington. Normally when I make this trip, I revert to my old ways, jamming every waking minute with podcast recordings and coffees and meetings, like I’m afraid of what might happen if I find myself with an empty half hour. But this time I’m trying to practice what I preach. Meeting a friend for a coffee this afternoon to talk about her exciting new book project (one of those ‘so good why didn’t I think of that?’ ideas), going to the Nero Book Awards tonight (later: I’m back now, massive congrats to the winner, the brilliant, one of a kind, Maurice and Maralyn by Sophie Elmhirst) and, tomorrow, being photographed (not my favourite thing, too many chins) for a feature I’ve written for a Sunday supplement about my hair. (Which, like my cat, probably should have an agent all its own.)

‘Up and not crying’ is a bit of a mantra for 2025. Rather than the bare minimum it takes to get through the day, just getting out of bed can feel like a massive win

Feasibly I could have crammed in at least one podcast recording, probably even two if I got a wiggle on, and then crashed out on the train home. But no. Not this time. I am zen. I am not needy. Much. Mature, post-long-Covid me knows better. Or, more candidly, I’ve had a long-Covid relapse the last couple of weeks so it’s more about my body forcing me to listen to it than my brain actually having acquired some common sense.

Anyway, here I am, on the train, two coffees in. I’m up and not crying, or oppe og ikke gråter as the Norwegians apparently say. And right now I consider that a result.

‘Up and not crying’ is a bit of a mantra for 2025. Rather than the bare minimum it takes to get through the day, just getting out of bed can feel like a massive win. And I don’t really know how to feel about that. There’s so much going on in the world that really matters, things we could maybe even have an impact on if we got our shit together; but at the same time most of those things make my brain fog up at the very thought of them. Not so much fight or flight, as freeze, flop, fawn. And fog. (I’m already seeing Inside Out 3 with these five, six, new characters.) And I don’t know about you but I seem to be spending far more time with them than makes me feel good right now.

I was talking to a friend earlier about the fact that so many people have gone all-in on news avoidance. I get it. I really do. To a person they are all happier, calmer, better-rested, less brain-fogged and far less bonkers. Who wouldn’t be tempted to turn off rolling news with those benefits? But then a little voice pipes up: what about the world? What about the climate? What about women’s reproductive rights? What about foreign aid? What about Ukraine? And Gaza? What about the 170 mothers killed by their sons in the UK in the last 15 years? What about the way women are constantly pitted against each other? What about…?

The one news-concession I’ve allowed myself is to eliminate the BBC’s Today programme from my daily routine (not that my haphazard mornings warrant such a grand label). I used to listen to it religiously at 6.30am when I had a 90-minute each way commute, and I’m pretty sure it contributed to my all-round basketcaseness.

But this morning, with a train to catch and a lifelong history of time optimism (you know, always believing something can be done in much less time than it really can) I made the mistake of breaking my own rule. Turned on the radio, spent ten minutes being assailed by Trump’s victory rally (I mean congressional address) while I packed, and turned it off again. In that time I had miraculously become fatter, older, jowlier, grumpier and a lot closer to ‘up and crying’ than I had been 15 minutes earlier. Suddenly I hated all the clothes I’d just packed, the body they were supposed to go on, the face in the mirror, everything. A sort of news-induced dysmorphia.

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Which is all a round about way of saying that it’s not some kind of psychological wimpiness to be thrown off-balance by the chaos and fear and rapid, unpredictable change going on around us right now. It’s understandable to want to protect yourself from the very real sense that things we thought could never happen, that we thought were in the distant past, are actually beginning to look possible. (I actually had a semi-serious conversation with J about what would happen if women were suddenly blocked from accessing their money in online accounts à la The Handmaid’s Tale. That space under the mattress is starting to look very appealing.)

This environmental, political, social stress is manifesting in all manner of ways. Last night in The Shift’s monthly subscriber chat (an occasion that always fills me with joy, just watching the chat catch light) the conversation veered slightly hysterically from the political climate to Ukraine to someone’s new job to someone else’s odious colleague to The White Lotus (Parker Posey! Toxic friends!) to vet bills to the domestic load to Bridget Jones and, inevitably, books.

While we’re all emotionally running on empty my brain, at least, is like a bath overflowing with a tap of information that won’t stop running. There is nowhere else to put it. It’s full. That’s it

While we were chatting – about what we were reading, what’s on our bedside tables (or floors) and how many books it’s possible to read at any one time, it dawned on me that whilst I read and read and read (mainly work-related) I am currently absorbing virtually nothing. I’m ashamed to admit, it all goes in one eye and out the other. (Audiobooks are even worse.) That while we’re all emotionally running on empty my brain, at least, is like a bath overflowing with a tap of information that won’t stop running. There is nowhere else to put it. It’s full. That’s it. And yet it keeps on coming, sliding off and over. It’s all over the floor and seeping into the bedroom. At best, it’s there for a fleeting moment, and then, pfft, it’s gone.

The result for me has been a growing reluctance to read – which is alarming for someone who’s always used stories as somewhere to hide. So I started to wonder whether, rather than being the problem, books could be the solution. (And no this isn’t a transparent attempt to enable my book-buying habit, I don’t need enabling…) Here are some of the places I turn when my brain (and the world) is on fire:

What to read if you’re running on empty (or full, depending how you’re looking at it)

First up I’m going to be controversial here and say, how about don’t read anything for a bit? And maybe don’t binge Netflix (or Candy Crush) either. Maybe go for a long walk instead. Yes, this is really a note to self. After all you don’t make room in the bath by putting more water in, you do it by letting some out…

What to read if you need your faith in human nature restored

Human kind by Rutger Bregman is subtitled ‘a hopeful history’ and, even now, when cruelty seems to be the name of the game, it really will give you a fresh perspective on humanity.

What to read if life feels unbearable

Back in my weekly magazine days, readers used to tell us they loved so-called triumph over tragedy tales because they put their own lives in perspective. Two books that will definitely do that are Jenni Fagan’s Gordon Burn Prize winning and Women’s Prize for non-fiction longlisted, Ootlin and Lorna Tucker’s Bare, both incredible stories of homelessness, poverty and the capacity to keep your light shining when all around you want to snuff it out.

What to read if you need reassuring that this too will pass

Maya Angelou’s seven-volume autobiography, starting with I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and/or The Choice by Edith Eger. Two stories that are the definition of life-affirming.

What to read if your brain needs a long hot bath

OK, it’s romcom time. More than any other genre, I think your preferred romantic novel is a very personal thing. So, take your pick. Those in the know tell me to check out Emily Henry, but I want to give a shout out to Lindsey Kelk. I was late to her riotous romantic comedies, but I soon caught up. Start, like I did, with her LA-based next-door-neighbours-to-lovers, Love Me Do. Funny and warm, it will leave you feeling all fuzzy (as opposed to foggy). Think millennial Nancy Myers.

What to read if you need to immerse yourself in a whole new world?

Are we talking real-ish? Then try a trip to Slough House with Mick Herron’s Slow Horses series or head to Dublin and (re)acquaint yourself with Marian Keyes’ Walsh sisters before they hit our screens.

If that’s not far enough away for you, then get yourself to Prythian with Sarah J Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series (ACATAR to its friends!) Or if you need somewhere with fewer horny fairies, there’s always Narnia.

What to read if you just want to escape

There is no more dazzling storyteller writing right now than Elif Shafak. Let her latest, There Are Rivers in the Sky, transport you along two great rivers in search of one lost poem. While Francesca Segal’s Welcome to Glorious Tuga is billed as Jane Austen meets the Durrells. What more do you want?

What to read if you’re nostalgic for “better” days

The Friday Afternoon Club, Griffin Dunne’s “tale of precarious American privilege” will cure you!

What to read for practical but easy coping mechanisms

How to Feel Better by Cathy Rentzenbrink (previously published as A Manual for Heartache) is the reassuring bedside staple of several people I know who are going through a ton of shit right now. They swear by it.

What to read to top yourself up

I’ve had pretty limited success with meditation – brain too noisy – but Meditation for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman did better than most at cutting through the racket. This wise, comfortable ‘retreat for the mind’ succeeds where so many apps and other books fail.

What to read if you’ve reached the point of deciding to tackle it

Really serious? Beyond Anxiety by Martha Beck is your book. Last week’s The Shift podcast guest, Martha has come up with a unique approach to treating anxiety with creativity, tried and tested on someone who suffered from anxiety for 60 years: herself.

What to read if you need the impetus to get up and fight

If you’re revolving through freezing, flopping, fawning and flighting, bypassing fighting, One Day, Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This, Omar El Akkad’s shattering reckoning with the moral contradictions of the West is a jolt of adrenalin.

What to read for more recommendations

Read Yourself Happy,

Daisy Buchanan

’s charming and generous guide to reading yourself out of all manner of emotional slumps is a keeper.

• What do you read when you don’t know where to turn?