Staring at Lakes

A Memoir of Love, Melancholy and Magical Thinking

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Staring at Lakes

By: Michael Harding

Narrated by: Michael Harding

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About this listen

Throughout his life, Michael Harding has lived with a sense of emptiness - through faith, marriage, fatherhood and his career as a writer, a pervading sense of darkness and unease remained. When he was 58, he became physically ill and found himself in the grip of a deep melancholy.

Here, in this beautifully written memoir, he talks with openness and honesty about his journey: leaving the priesthood when he was in his 30s, settling in Leitrim with his artist wife, the depression that eventually overwhelmed him and how, ultimately, he found a way out of the dark by accepting the fragility of love and the importance of now.

Staring at Lakes was a number-one best seller in Michael's native Ireland and won three BGE Irish book awards in 2013, including Non-Fiction Book of the Year.

Mental Health

Mood Disorders

Personal Development

Psychology & Mental Health

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Critic reviews

"It's rare for a memoir to demand such intense emotional involvement and rarer still for it to be so fully rewarded." (Sunday Times)

Most relevant

I’ve read this book was sold when i noticed that Michael was narrating. It’s a great story and the reading suits it so well. Get him on to read more of his own stories and others!!