Imagine being able to see a metaphor in emphatic detail like Sandra Dieckmann. She shows how scarcity unleashes creativity. Her metaphor is a simple one: we are stronger together. Her colour palette consists only of blue-green, orange-red and grey-black hues. And out bursts movement, music, emotive skies and landscapes alive with shape and texture.

The character of the black dog may symbolise many things, but one day I made the connection between it and depression, which is sometimes described as the black dog. For me, human connection has been the antidote to depression and this story takes individual characters from their siloed experiences and throws them together to face the black dog. For that I treasure this book even more. I love how good books give us the language to makes sense of our world. That is the first step to healing.

The books I collect are an ode to life. And I offer them to my children as such. In perfect synchronicity, Dieckmann’s foreword includes this quotation, “Be a lover of the world, it is the only way to survive in it. – Janosh”.