Heavy Light: A Journey Through Madness, Mania and Healing (Hardback)

'I tore through Heavy Light, and haven't been able to stop thinking about it' - Amy Liptrot

'Horatio Clare, one of the most brilliant travel writers of our day, takes us us now to that most challenging country, severe mental illness; and does so with such wit, warmth, and humanity, that, better acquainted with its terrors, we may better face our own' - Reverend Richard Coles

'Heavy Light is a record of the bravest, most perilous, most intrepid journey that any human being can ever make. It is stricken, moving, urgent, crucial, and deserves to - and, I don't doubt, will - stand alongside such classics of the genre as Solomon's Noonday Demon, Leader's What is Madness?, even Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. A luminous, beautiful achievement' - Niall Griffiths

'What a gift...having such an articulate agent, reporting back from the far edges of the mind' - Megan Agnew, The Sunday Times 

'A shattering journey ... remarkable' - Sheena Joughin, The Times Literary Supplement 

'Unforgettable' - Rory Sullivan, i 

'A superb and shining achievement ... Heavy Light is an odyssey for our times, full of hope in an uncertain future ... a life-changing experience' - Sue Brooks

'An extraordinary book: deeply moving, darkly funny and hugely powerful. It travels hard country: mania, paranoia, the huge collateral damage of madness. It shows its readers, unforgettably, what it is like to see the world on a "skewed plane". But the star by which it steers is, in the end and above all, love. This book confirms that Horatio Clare is among the most brilliant and compassionate writers of non-fiction I know' - Robert Macfarlane

'A brave, lit-up account of going mad and getting better, that forensically tracks the footprints of both journeys towards a settlement with the self' - Jeanette Winterson

'Horatio Clare is a true adventurer and an English original - as vital as Chatwin, as endearing as Withnail. Even when writing about his own breakdown he does so with a poet's ear, brave journalistic insight and, crucially, no shortage of humour. Heavy Light is a white-knuckle descent whose transcendent theme of mania is timeless and universal' - Benjamin Myers

'Compelling, beautifully-written and utterly devastating. A balm in itself' - Katie Law, Evening Standard 

'A fearless dive into the darks of the mind -- fiercely moving, ruthlessly honest and written with an exquisite care. It is a call for understanding that we all need to hear' - Tom Bullough

'Clare takes us inside his head in this profound, compelling account of acute mental illness, which is also a love letter to those who cared for and supported him. And as he recovers, Heavy Light turns into a heartfelt quest to understand what happened to him, and how we can heal those similarly afflicted. This book must have been terribly hard to write, but it feels so important he's done so' - Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller (Book of the Month) 

'A remarkable tribute both to the depths of human compassion and Clare's extraordinary gifts as an author, witness and guide' - Dan Richards, Geographical