This morning, I logged onto Amazon UK and had a look at the books bestsellers list. What did I find at the top? Not a novel, not a biography, not a non-fiction tome, but one of these:

Of the top twenty bestselling books on Amazon this morning, five were adult colouring books (another five were cookbooks, but that’s a different blog post…).

Have you noticed this new craze for adult colouring? It’s making those who design the books and their publishers very wealthy indeed! Take Johanna Basford’s book Secret Garden. It has sold 1.4million copies worldwide to date (source: Guardian), taking the small British press that published it, Laurence King, by surprise. The illustrator told the Guardian:

‘[The pictures] are all over Twitter and Instagram. People are really proud of them – they are so intricate. You don’t have to have any artistic talent but what you create is unique. People send us pictures of them framed, and laminated. The appetite is simply enormous. I reckon people are taking their kids’ pictures off the fridge and replacing them with their own.’

Of course, these colouring books can be used by children, but they are marketed at ‘stressed-out, work-addled adults, who want to benefit from the quiet zen that a coloring session can bring’ (CNN). The trend is growing fast, largely through word of mouth and the growing acceptability of the pursuit as acceptable, and indeed meaningful, for adults.

So why are increasing numbers of adults buying their first packet of colouring pencils for twenty years and settling down to neatly shade between the lines?

First of all, it offers a break from the exhausting pace and digitally driven style of modern life. These days, we are inundated with computer screens and we rarely handwrite; there is some release to be found in time with paper and pencil, and a pleasant nostalgia.

Then there is the sense of mastery. In an adult world in which you frequently feel helpless and out of control, colouring between lines appeals: you can control this, you can at least feel that you are getting this right.

The peacefulness of the activity is also important. It’s a calm one, a quiet one; one that allows you to zone out and just be. Indeed, ‘mindfulness’ is a concept that is regularly being related to adult colouring – the practice of being in the moment, connected to it, which is spiritually beneficial. Colouring can even be meditative. In the Guardian writer Matt Cain wrote: ‘If I switch off the phone, computer and TV and concentrate solely on choosing the right shade of blue, avoiding going over the lines and slowly filling up my page with colour, all my other concerns, I’ve discovered, fade to nothing.’

Most interesting are the therapeutic benefits of colouring. Of course, art therapy has long existed, and has been used by therapists through the years to help clients relax, express themselves and reconnect with the ‘inner child’. Carl Jung used colouring with his clients; he would give them a mandela to colour.

So, having got past any hang-ups you may have had that colouring is for children, which book do you choose? Many are available, with a variety of themes:

• French publisher Hachette’s Art-Thérapie collection, with themes from butterflies to flowers, cupcakes to makeup.
• Mel Eliot’s Colour Me Good series, focusing on celebrities.
• Coloréitor published by the cartoonist Antonio Fraguas, for some fun escapism.
• Johanna Basford’s Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Coloring Book, for a whimsical wonderland.
• The Mindfulness Colouring Bookby Emma Farrarons, for pattern-based art.

What do you think of this new passion for colouring? Have you tried it? Would you buy a colouring book as a gift for a friend? I would love to hear your thoughts.