The Midnight Library

Matt Haig was born in Sheffield, England on July 3rd, 1975. After studying History and English at the University of Hull, he became a well-known journalist and author of both fiction and nonfiction. Much of his writing focuses on depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues that he’s faced over the years, especially during his early twenties. These experiences likely inspired The Midnight Library, as well as similar works such as his 2015 autobiographical novel, Reasons to Stay Alive. Despite his struggles with mental illness, Haig has achieved great success as an author, with many of his books appearing on bestseller lists and being nominated for literary awards. His other fiction books—such as The Humans and How to Stop Time—often deal with fantastical or supernatural elements mingling with the mundanity of everyday life. Today, he lives in Sussex with his wife Andrea Semple and their two children.

Rather than drawing from any particular historical event, The Midnight Library is mostly inspired by the author's own personal struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts. While Nora gains a new perspective and a more positive outlook on life over the course of the novel, Haig is still careful to portray mental illness as an ongoing issue that requires treatment and patience. Even after her cross-dimensional adventure, Nora's problems aren't magically or completely solved, and this realistic outlook reflects Haig's firsthand knowledge of how depression and anxiety affect people. Haig's works are just a few of many recent efforts to reject taboos and talk openly about mental illness. Organizations in the United Kingdom that share these values include the Mental Health Foundation and Time To Change, both of which have historically fought to destigmatize mental health issues.

While many of Matt Haig’s books feature similar themes and lessons to the ones in The Midnight Library, his memoir Reasons to Stay Alive might be his most directly related work. In this autobiographical nonfiction work, Haig gives a detailed account of his struggles with depression and anxiety during his early twenties and beyond. Most notably, he discusses his close brush with attempting suicide, and the long, difficult journey of self-acceptance that followed. Like Nora in The Midnight Library, Haig learns to accept that his depression is a part of him and that life is nonetheless worth living and full of possibilities. While it’s a very different kind of story, The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges also explores the idea of infinite possibilities in an endless library setting. Each book in The Library of Babel contains merely one variation of the countless possible ways to randomly combine the letters of the alphabet into a book, so most of them contain nothing but nonsense. But, like Nora, many of the inhabitants of the library are determined to find some deeper meaning, truth, or happiness among the infinitely repeating shelves. While The Midnight Library focuses on the uplifting message of infinite possibilities and making the most of an imperfect world, The Library of Babel emphasizes the difficulty—and maybe the folly—of searching for perfect answers in a bewildering universe.