Matt Haig is an English writer and journalist who moves easily between grown-up novels, children's stories and frank, generous non-fiction — most of it warm, lightly magical, and quietly concerned with how a person keeps going. He was born in Sheffield in 1975 and raised in Newark-on-Trent, and he writes about big feelings without ever raising his voice.
He came to most of us through The Midnight Library, the 2020 novel that became a worldwide bestseller and made the case that a gentle, hopeful book can also be a serious one. If you've ever wondered which Matt Haig to read first, or what order his books go in, the happy answer is that nearly all of his adult novels stand alone — you can begin anywhere and follow your mood.
His best-loved books tend to share a shape: an ordinary life cracked open by something strange and kind, then put back together a little wiser. It's a reliable comfort, and the reason his name keeps coming up when readers ask for the next warm thing to sink into.
On our shelves
GentleSecond Chances
The Midnight Library
At the lowest point of her life, Nora finds herself in a library between life and death, every book a version of the life she might have lived had she chosen differently. She tries them on one by one, looking for the right one. Gentle, sad, and quietly consoling. Read it on a low evening when you need someone kind to tell you it's not too late.
Where to start
Start with The Midnight Library (2020). It's his breakout bestseller and a complete story in itself — the most welcoming way into his gentle, hopeful style, and the one we keep on the shelf. From there you can wander wherever your mood takes you.
Matt Haig’s books
A woman who feels her life has gone wrong steps into a library that sits between life and death, where each book lets her try out a version of the life she might have lived. Read it when you're weighed down by what-ifs and want a hand to hold.
On our shelves →A companion to The Midnight Library, published this May. Wilbur Budd, an eighty-one-year-old bookshop owner near the end of his life, boards a magical train that carries him back through the moments that mattered.
Grace Winters, a retired maths teacher, unexpectedly inherits a run-down house on Ibiza from a long-lost friend and uncovers something strange and supernatural about the island. Reflective and uplifting, much in the spirit of The Midnight Library.
An alien takes over the body of a Cambridge mathematics professor, sent to suppress a discovery, and slowly falls for the ordinary business of being human. Warm, funny and quietly moving — our species seen from just outside the window.
Tom Hazard ages so slowly he has lived for centuries; now a London history teacher, he must keep his secret while aching for an ordinary life. Bittersweet and time-spanning rather than strictly cosy, but tender all the way through.
A children's fantasy imagining how Father Christmas came to be, following a boy named Nikolas north through the snow in search of his father and the elf village of Elfhelm. Later made into a film, and lovely read aloud.
A seemingly ordinary suburban English family who happen to be abstaining vampires, their carefully kept secret beginning to unravel. A darkly comic fantasy about temptation, family and self-denial — sharper and stranger than his gentler novels.
Not fantasy at all, but his bestselling memoir of breaking down in his early twenties and learning to live with depression and anxiety. We mention it because it's one of his most-read and most-searched books, and it explains the warmth running through the fiction.
Good questions
Most of his adult novels are standalones, so you can read them in any order and follow your mood. The one loose thread for cosy readers is the Midnight world: read The Midnight Library (2020) first, then its 2026 companion The Midnight Train, which shares the setting but follows different characters.
It's a companion rather than a direct sequel — published in May 2026, set in the same world but following a new character, the bookshop owner Wilbur Budd. You'll get a little more from it having read The Midnight Library, but it isn't required.
The Midnight Train, published in May 2026 as a companion to The Midnight Library.
The Midnight Library — it's his most popular, completely self-contained, and the gentlest way into his style. It's also the title we keep on the shelf.
His grown-up novels are written for adults but are warm rather than racy, with no explicit spice. He also writes for children, including A Boy Called Christmas and its sequels, so it's worth checking which you're picking up — the adult and children's books are quite different in tone.
If you loved its hopeful take on second chances, his own The Life Impossible and The Humans are the natural next steps. On our shelves, Becky Chambers and the rest of the cosy corner share that same gentle kindness.
The Cosy Corner →Will Hug You →Strange & Beautiful → ← All authors Browse every book →