I wasn't expecting to get on with the book, not being one for anthologies or collections of essays, but found it very easy to keep turning the pages. Each contribution is brief and warmly and engagingly written. It's as if you're picking up letters from friends, or friends of friends. And the short biographies of each contributor are intriguing and warrant further investigation.
There is a strong creative bent in the contributions with the writers urging the reader to stop procrastinating and find our own ways of expressing ourselves, too, in poems, songs, plays, novels or memoirs. There are also very personal observations on motherhood, relationships, abuse. Some of the contributors explain the projects they've launched - for example From Me to You which encourages people to write letters to people living with cancer.
But we're also encouraged to to make lemon curd or learn to ride a motorcycle, if we fancy it. And we are reminded to walk more for our physical and mental health, or to run, and not be daunted: take one step, then three steps, then ten "and someday maybe you can run a marathon. And if you can run a marathon, you can do anything".
This is a great book for dipping into, or reading in one long gulp. There'll be occasions where it will make you smile, other times you might weep, and perhaps it'll encourage you to start something new - or to write a letter.
For recommended non-fiction titles, take a look here.
