A Letter from Daisy to Booksellers

Dear Booksellers,

I want to say the most enormous thank you. As a reader, I’m so grateful for your kindness, your generosity, your time – and your magnificent, eclectic book recommendations. Thanks to you, my life is better. I’m happier, calmer, kinder, more creative, and maybe a little bit weirder! You have introduced me to so many brilliant new books, and incredible new voices. A conversation with you always leaves me full of joy. 

And I’m so grateful to you as a writer, too. It’s been one of the great thrills of my life to see you bringing my books to readers, and to spend time with you on book tours and visits. I’m hoping that my new book will resonate with you. I like to think of it as a ‘gateway’ book – the plan is that readers will pick it up and read all about how reading can soothe our anxiety, lift us up and change us for the better. Then they’ll come back to your shop begging for a copy of Rachel’s Holiday, or The Girl With The Louding Voice, or Diary Of A Provincial Lady…

READ YOURSELF HAPPY is the story of how books eased my anxiety, and made my world bigger, bolder and brighter. Reading has changed my life. I’m inviting everyone to join me in building a reading habit, because I believe reading is the very best thing we can do for our wellbeing. Modern life can jolt us out of our body and make us feel as though we’re going out of our minds. Reading restores us and allows us to go on voyages of delight – while staying calm, and still. Reading hasn’t just made me less anxious – it’s made me braver and shown me what lies on the other side of anxiety, if I can find the courage to sit with it. It’s made me more empathetic, and less afraid of the world. I believe reading gives us the impetus to tell our own stories. I think it makes us better communicators. I think it can even make us funnier, and sexier!

READ YOURSELF HAPPY is a guide for anyone who is struggling to chart their course through life, and I hope it does what all good books do – and makes the reader feel seen, strong and lifted up. It’s also a love letter to books, and booksellers. Because I need books for guidance, wisdom and joy, and I wouldn’t be able to get hold of any without you.

I would love to work with you and meet the readers in your community. I think there might be scope for us to do something really ambitious, together. As well as sharing the book with the reading faithful, I’m hoping to reach out to the future readers who need books more than they might know. I’m thinking about the best ways to make that happen, and I’m keen to collaborate with you, and offer anything bespoke that might be helpful and useful. I’m very happy to travel – I love a long train journey, it’s wonderful reading time!

But most of all, I want you to know that there is no way that I could be a writer if I wasn’t a reader. You introduced me to so many of the voices who have shaped me – Dawn Powell, Kathryn Scanlan, Helene Hanff, Kevin Kwan, Eve Babitz, Percival Everett, Laurie Colwin, Ingrid Persaud and Gayl Jones, to name just a few. And I’m so excited about the new writers you’ll be guiding me towards and helping me to discover in the future. 

Love

Daisy x