NON-FICTION
Eat, Drink, Run
By Bryony Gordon, Headline, £16.99
Review by Beverley Rouse
An uplifting book about how Daily Telegraph writer Bryony Gordon quietened her inner demon — nicknamed “Jareth the Goblin King” — through exercise.
Gordon, who wrote about her struggle with depression and OCD in Mad Girl (one of her two previous memoirs), went out for her first run to try to escape the “18-tonne Black Elephant” of mental illness, which felt as though it was crushing her in her own home.
She found the physical pain was not nearly as bad as the
mental torture of being inside her own head for those 20 minutes and started to jog regularly before setting up walking support group Mental Health Mates to meet “like-minded souls”.
Her work to encourage people to talk about their mental health struggles led to an invitation to meet the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry at the launch of the Heads Together initiative and Gordon describes in hilarious detail how she
accidentally agreed to do the London Marathon during a conversation with the Duchess of Cambridge.
This frank and funny book charts her journey to the finish line and to a place where she finally feels comfortable in her own skin.
An entertaining and inspiring read, especially for anyone who shares the nagging self-doubt Gordon battles every day. You will feel uplifted after reading this.