Right book, right time.

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I've been meaning to write this blog for several days. Suddenly, it became particularly apposite.

    At the October meeting of my book club, we needed to choose our November reading material and we settled on David Harewood's 'Maybe I Don't Belong Here'. There were several books suggested, but we were intrigued by the story of an actor who appeared to have struggled with his mental health and discussed it publicly. At that point, none of us had seen Harewood's BAFTA-nominated, BBC documentary 'Psychosis and Me'.

    When we gathered in November at our beautiful venue, Hitchin's historic Kite at the Red Hart, there was an overwhelming sense of appreciation for the book, for the honesty of the writer, and for the way this autobiography resonated with so many of us.

    I'm choosing not to attribute any of my comments to real people - if members of the book club choose to tell their own story and give their own response to the book, I'd be delighted if they could make their own comments below.

    Adam had a close family member whose own difficult and life-changing story was told to great effect in public. None of us had known that before we began discussing Harewood's story and we were all moved to compare the two stories: it's likely that this other family member would not have been mentioned without us all reading 'Maybe I Don't Belong Here'. Adam also talked another close family member who is a person of colour, and several of us were as distressed to hear some of their experiences as we had been about Harewood's.

I enjoyed reading much of this alongside a vegan bacon butty and a peppermint tea!


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