Description

‘The practical advice in this book is gold dust not only for lonely people, but for those who long to help them.’ – Joanna Lumley

Loneliness is an epidemic on the rise. It has long been documented that older people suffer from social isolation, but teenagers do too, likewise new parents, those with disability or illness, and anybody going through a significant life change.

As more people work full-time, and we interact via social media rather than face-to-face, we need to stop and ask ourselves: what can we do to ensure all our futures are more connected and socially satisfying?

This book will help to share stories of loneliness to increase our empathy and understanding of it, and to look for possible solutions. Using the research the Jo Cox Commission undertook following the MP’s senseless death in 2016, it offers a wealth of practical advice: how to spot the symptoms in yourself and in others; how to ease them; how to seek help and, ultimately, how to understand this most fundamental of human emotions.

Its aim is simple: to provide us all with the tools we need to lead kinder, more connected lives.

Publisher Review

How strange that in our inter-connected modern lives one of the greatest threats to happiness is loneliness. Nick Duerden has approached this dreadful and isolating condition head on, and huge comfort is to be found in the pages of his exceptionally perceptive and sympathetic book. The practical advice given is gold dust not only for lonely people, but for those who long to help them. * Joanna Lumley * An absorbing and inspirational book about our last big taboo. Through personal stories - often very moving ones - we discover how many initiatives are being set up to help combat the corrosive modern epidemic of loneliness and isolation. Nick Duerden's book should be essential reading, not just for professionals in the field, but for all of us. * Deborah Moggach, author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel * Practical tips on how to tackle loneliness * Times Literary Supplement *