Author Guide ·
Books Written by
Haig writes directly out of his own experience with severe depression and suicidal crisis in his twenties, and that origin shapes almost everything he’s written since — fiction and non-fiction both circle the same core question of what makes a life worth continuing. His work is gentler and more explicitly hopeful than most literary fiction, by clear intention rather than naivety.
By Lisanne Swart · 5 books · Contemporary Fiction & Mental Health · Updated August 2026
Contemporary FictionOn my shelf
The Midnight Library
Nora Seed, at the point of suicide, finds herself in a library between life and death where each book lets her live out a different version of her life based on choices she didn’t make. She moves through these alternate lives searching for the one where she’s finally happy.
The premise is high-concept, but the actual argument is quieter than it sounds: regret is usually about a fantasy version of an alternate life, not an accurate one.
Memoir · Mental Health
Reasons to Stay Alive
A direct, non-fiction account of Haig’s own severe depression and suicidal crisis at 24, and his gradual recovery over the following years, interspersed with short, practical reflections on what actually helped and what didn’t.
Structured in short fragments rather than a continuous narrative, deliberately written to be readable in small pieces by someone in crisis who can’t manage sustained concentration.
Contemporary Fiction
How to Stop Time
Tom Hazard has a rare condition that makes him age extremely slowly, and has lived for centuries under a set of strict rules designed to stop him from getting emotionally attached to anyone who will die around him — until he breaks his own rule.
Uses its fantastical premise to explore grief and the fear of attachment in a more oblique, novelistic way than his direct memoir work.
Non-fiction · Essays
The Comfort Book
A collection of short reflections, notes, and quotations Haig wrote to himself during his lowest periods, later assembled into a book intended to be read in fragments during difficult moments rather than start to finish.
Less a traditional book than a companion object — designed explicitly to be opened at random during a hard day rather than read in sequence.
Fiction
The Humans
An alien is sent to Earth to inhabit the body of a murdered mathematician and prevent his recent discovery from spreading, and gradually, against his mission, comes to understand and value human life and connection.
Uses an outsider’s perspective as a device to re-examine what actually makes human existence worthwhile, arriving at conclusions close to his later non-fiction work but from a different angle.
