One morning, Caitlin Moran woke up - and realised that she had reached Peak Despair. And she’s not alone - in a world of worsening news, online fist-fights, and filthy rivers, it’s hard not to feel, well, terrible. Of course, in books, and movies, when the heroine faces such a crisis, she makes a seismic life-change: moving to a remote, ramshackle farmhouse; walking an ancient, 600-mile pathway; or reconnecting with her primal, joyful self by adopting a baby hawk, or hare. But Caitlin’s new book, How to be Hopeful, is not that kind of book. She tried – but it turns out remote Welsh farmhouses are really expensive. No-one with a job can walk 600 miles. And it’s incredibly hard to get access to baby hawks in North London. Instead, Caitlin decided to go on … a domestic quest. To see if she could stay in the same house, in the same neighbourhood, and the same awful modern world - but try to make better days. She left 800,000 followers on social media; eschewed 24/7 rolling-news for local newspapers; and sat on buses without headphones, to start listening to what people are really saying. Turns out they’re not, by and large, shouting hate-crimes at each other. They’re just working out whether to have chicken, or sausages for tea, instead.

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