Fantasy Box of Book Gifts

A few reminders:

For paid members: Our monthly poetry salon is this coming Friday 8th December, 6-7pm Irish time. I will send you a zoom link the day before.

And for gold members: Our winter solstice salon is on December 20th, 7-9pm. Will be sending link details next week.

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Hello all

My December post for all members is here, this time with a seasonal gifting twist. What would be in your fantasy gift box of books?

My friend Caitriona sent me a photo on What’s App recently, with the simple tag. ‘Imagine!”. The photo is of 12 books wrapped in brown paper, each with a month of the year written on it. I see that the image is by ‘Diane Dugan Morrill entitled a ‘year of reading’ so thank you for the spark of inspiration for this post Diane, whoever you are

The photo got Caitriona and I thinking about books which inspire us, books we’d life to gift, and be gifted. And it also got me thinking about books which have shaped who I have become as a reader, a writer and a person; books which as a body of twelve, would help other people understand me better. So, a little game, which I invite you to join.

If you could pick 12 books, one for each month of the year, with each book saying something about who you are, what would you put into your fantasy gift box? If easier, think about it this way. If you really wanted someone else to get to know you, what books would you want them to read?

I warn you, this is a tough exercise! I have spiralled through so many options, finding it almost impossible to narrow down. I have left out some major books and authors in my life, but the final selection all speak to particular moments, and particular journeys. Some of these books have been with me for years, some are more recent additions. All of them have left a deep, lingering impression on the imprint on my life. Also, with nearly all of them, I can remember the exact place I bought it, and where I was reading it, so that now in my memory of the book feels like a conversation between place and content, which give rise to a third element, experience. So sorry to the authors and poets, too many to names, who have not made the list. Maybe next year, my box will be different, but for now… these are mine.

I have included a little story about how that book has influenced me and, if the place was also part of that dialogue, I have given some context. I have also categoriesed them, very unscientifically to what season I would suggest reading them in. Are they more a winter or summer read? What about spring and autumn? Can books have seasons too? Oh, what fun, with a nerdy bookish twist.… let’s embrace it all I say.

So, here goes.

January: His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman, Scholastic Press.

On the very first go, I am cheating, because I am counting all three books in His Dark Materials trilogy as one (others do that too, right?!). I am a late arrival to Philip Pullman’s work, and if I could turn back time I wish someone had sealed these into my palm when I was about 13 or 14 and invited me into Lyra’s world. I may have never come out. Over the last few years I have been making my way through Philip’s work, and have been particularly loving the Bolinda audio books, the real treat of this is when you get to Micheal Sheen reading the next series, The Book of Dust). Pullman’s words have been travelling with me on long winter night car journeys, or by the fire, flame crackling, the company of words and language and imagination electric. They are all books I will return to many times over, and as I slowly move into the world of children’s literature myself, they are laying a very aspirational path ahead, and saying, keeping going, keep going, the world in all its wonder and mystery awaits.

February. The Overstory, by Richard Powers. W.W Norton & Company.

The Overstory is one of those love it/ hate it books. I have met many who have said it was the best thing they ever read, and equally many who either despise it, or couldn’t get through the first pages. Great books often have that impact; they create an opinion. Over course of several long winter nights, I read this tucked under blankets and embraced by candlelight. Now, reflecting on how the book has shaped me, I am thinking particularly about how character is treated in this book, alongside the narrative shape of it. Trees are given central voice, their roots, their trunk, their branches, as the narrative dives into the roots at the beginning, then comes together and interweaves, only to break apart again. It’s the language that did it for me too, rich and flowering, like I love it. (More recently, and by way of getting a little nudge in for another recent book, Orbital by Samantha Harvey is doing something similar for me; making me think about the potential of form to drive narrative, this time without conflict as a pivotal force).

March. When Women were Birds, Fifty Four Variations on Voice by Terry Tempest Williams. Picador.

I first heard about this book from my friend Vanessa Reid, who gently pushed it in front of me as we gathered around a dinner table in Greece at Axladista, an olive farm and learning centre, and home of another friend, Maria Scordialos. We were on retreat, thinking about big questions in our lives, the power of writing and creativity, and ways to bring our work more fully into the world. When I got my hands on my own copy, I read it in a swoop, arriving excitedly into the text, but also the absence of text. The silences in this book, including a series of blank pages, are as powerful as the text itself. They speak to omissions, curtailments, of voice and the absence of voice, of women and feminism and what it means to write into our power and our silences too. The book continues to show me the potential of memoir and the personal essay. I hear rumours in the book industry that the memoir in dead, but I don’t think so. I think we’ll always want to be invited into the lives of others, into their view of the world and learn from their experience, when, and I underscore this, the quality of the writing is crafted and honed. Terry Tempest Williams leads the way in this book. I have read most of her other books since, but this is the one which has lingered, the opening few pages in particular, starkly bringing the core questions of the book into form through formlessness. I will leave it to you to explore what I mean…

April: Common Fire: Leading Lives of Commitment in a Complex World. Lauren A Parks Daloz, Cheryl H Keen, James P Keen, Sharon Daloz Parks. Beacon Press, Boston.

I came across this book in my early twenties when I, along with a very committed group of people who remain dear friends, were involved in the early stages of developing the non-profit Suas (now Stand), and I was programme lead for their international volunteer programme. It was a really formational time in all our lives, as we were grappling with huge questions of what it means to make a difference in this world, how to think about global citizenship in a post 9-11 era, what are the elements of transformative learning which can shape a person’s life and keep them committed to social justice in the long term. The book speaks about finding mentors, supporting young people in their quest for identity, belonging and home, developing critical habits of mind, engagement with complexity and ‘the other’, responsible imagination, emphatic capacity and resilience building . Essentially the book is a longitudinal study tracking the engagement of over 100 people, and factors of what motivated them and sustained then in their work. Now more than twenty years on (yikes), I can still see the thread of all these themes in the work I do now, and how I think about education as a long-term transformational process. Flicking through the pages of Common Fire to write this post, I want to re-read it all now again, with the lens of today, to see if what we were thinking about back then still holds true. I imagine it so.

May. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong. Penguin Press

When I finished reading this book, I posted about it immediately on instagram and copy what I wrote here, because I think it captures the awe I was trying to literally inhale. (It also lets you in on some of what is coming, plus one of the books I had to leave out of my list, so this is another sneaky way to include it). My reaction to On Earth was profuse, and is something I totally stand over. Since reading, I have listened to many interviews with Vuong, along with reading his collections of poetry, and each time, each time, each time, it is an utter YES. His new book, The Emperor of Gladness, is coming out in 2025, and I CAN NOT WAIT.

Here is what I wrote on instagram.

Every once in a while comes along a book which redefines the way you move in the world. When I was in my early 20s it was ‘The Hours’ by Michael Cunningham, and ‘Written on the Body’ by Jeanette Winterson. Last year it was ‘The Overstory’ by Richard Powers, and of course Mary Oliver, who can never go unmentioned; works which leaves tendrils in the soul so it can form in new ways. And now I come across a writer who is doing to books what soul does to self. A poet first and foremostly, Ocean Vuong, in sweeps of linguistic mastery, has cast a story to take on the great American novel by not inviting violence or victimhood as the central remembrance; a book which breaks form into poetry, then back into tenderness; invites autobiography then renders it a fallacy; does not shy away from everything real and raw and what must be said. (Can one gush too much?) Written as a letter to a mother who will never read it, Ocean is helping me to think, and write, and offers a permission slip to aim higher, think deeper, see wider, feel more.

In a world of crazy and turmoil, we can wonder about the valency of art in crisis. This book is a reminder that art can be mirror, trampoline, balm, buttress, buoyancy and a voice which cuts through to encourage us to be more of ourselves. Thank you @ocean_vuong for your gift to the world. You are velocity. You are making waves in the wider sea.

June. Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer. Milkwood Editions.

My edition of Braiding Sweetgrass is battered, thumbed, underlined (several times over), marginalia referencing other books, or simply saying, wow.

In February 2018, I brought this copy in Book Passage, Sausalito, California, then hopped on a ferry with my friend, Alessandra Pigni, and travelled back to San Francisco. It was a blustery late afternoon, and while the sun was golden, the wind was a whip, so I tucked myself into the passenger lounge for the hour or so ferry journey, while Alessandra stood on deck, letting the wind and the sun and the life of it all flood into her. We were both where we needed to be.

I knew, from that very first reading, that this would be an important book from me. Already it was helping me reimagine the potential for the narrative essay in writing about so many of the things which I feel are so integral to the health of the world right now: nature connection, reciprocity, new economies, indigenous wisdom, appreciation of different forms of intelligence, of kin. I could go on.

As we stepped off the ferry, I started telling Alessandra about what I had just been reading. She smiled, and showed me pictures of the sunset, her hair braided into a frenzy by the wind. She died eight months later. Alessandra was living it, she knew, she knew, as too does Robin Wall Kimmerer. I am perpetual student.

On my writing desk, I keep the final paragraph of Braiding Sweetgrass, to remind me why I do what I do:

“The moral covenant of reciprocity calls us to honour our responsibilities for all we have been given, for all that we have taken. It’s our turn now, long overdue. Let us hold a giveaway for Mother Earth, spread our blankets out for her and pile them high with gifts of our own making. Imagine the books, the paintings, the poems, the clever machines, the compassionate acts, the transcendent ideas, the perfect tools. The fierce defence of all that has been given. Gifts of mind, hands, heart, voice, and vision all offered up on behalf of the earth. Whatever our gift, we are called to give it and to dance for the renewal of the world. In return for the privilege of breath.”

July. Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Alfred A Knopf

Most people go to Italy to see the art and architect. On this trip at least, I went, apparently to read. I had many a good intention to explore the beautiful city of Bergamo, and wander into the wider Tuscany hills. I walked, a bit, but mostly I just found a little coffee shop, drank good espresso and read Americanah. It was one of those books I fell into and did not want to come out of, not even for a gelato. I could have said that for any of Chimamanda’s books, but I think the experience of reading Americanah also helped it stand out for me. She takes on the epic, and brings you into the very heart of story, character and image. It never feel political, but it is. It never feels overly meaty, but it is. Depth and breath, and storytelling from a master. She also has a new book coming out in 2025, ten years on from Americanah. I may have to cancel all my plans for 2025, given how many good books are on their way!

August. RoadTrip Nation. Random House.

Another book from my early twenties. I came across of project called Roadtrip Nation, where two American lads, Mike Marriner and Nathan Gebhard, bought a large green RV and travelled around the US interviewing people they admired about their career paths. That later became a book, and continued as a campus project inspiring others to do the same. I read the book, and I said to myself, I want to do something like that. Only I didn’t drive at the time. So instead of an RV, I got myself a backpack, a camera, a little bit of funding, a lot of good luck, and headed off for a year around the world, interviewing people I admire about their life stories. I went to 17 countries and interviewed around 175 people, which later became my own book, ‘One Wild Life’, which later led me to become a documentary photographer and to continuing my writing. All these years later, I am still learning from that experience. Never ever ever say that a book can not change a life. I am living proof of it, and forever grateful for those two lads, who I have never met, or who do not know of my existence. Thank you, and hello to wherever you are now.

September, The Hours, by Michael Cunningham. Picador

I am going to cheat again here, because by including The Hours, I am also including Mrs. Dalloway by Virgina Woolf, the film version of the book directed by Stephen Daldry and starring Merrill Streep, Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore, and also the soundtrack by Philip Glass. I know, I know, that’s a lot of cheating, but… the combination of these stories, the way each are mirror in the other, the way the narrative flows though the interior lives of these three women, across different eras and generations, the way Cunningham carries the voice of Woolf but does not overshadow it, the dimensions of the three women mirrored in Glass’ exquisite soundtrack. Honestly, there is fuel for much thought here, in thinking about how one art form can flow into the next, each author or actor or director or composer, like a beautiful weaver, handing the thread to the next. I re-read The Hours about ever two years, alongside diving into some of Virginia Woolfs work. And Philip Glass is on repeat.

October. The Book of Symbols.

We are entering into witchy territory.

I can’t remember when I first came across The Book of Symbols, the Taschen tome, but when I saw it in Hodges Figgus in Dublin (one of my favourite bookshops in Ireland), I knew I had to have it. Over 700 pages of exquisite text and images, the book is a compendium of archetypal imagery from around the world, selected from a larger archive. The origins of the book are amazing, dating back to Jung and a group of women who gathered to discuss the subconscious and dreamwork, and together began gathering imagery which would later become the archive. I use the book in lots of way. If there is a reoccurring image which keeps coming up for me in my reading, writing or life in general, I’ll reference the book. And I have used it almost like a tarot, holding a question, using a random number generator to select a page, and asking it for guidance though the form of an image. It’s on my writing desk at the moment, supporting me with the development of a particular image and symbolism dense piece of work. The Book of Symbols took 13 years to publish, and I am forever grateful to those original archivists and to the lead editor Ami Ronnberg for her humble commitment to a rather esoteric endeavour.

November: The Prophet, by Kahil Gibran

I think I first read this when I was around 15. I was interested in Eastern religion at the time, and was reading lots of Rumi, alongside other Iranian poets and writers. Gibran, fell into that mix, a Lebanese poet, who found himself in the Parisian artisan set of the early 1900s and then onto the US. Alongside reading The Prophet, I remember reading lots about the impressionist painters and artist communities of the time, including what was happening in Ireland with the salons of Lady Jane Wilde (Oscar Wilde’s mother), and the gatherings around poetry, literature and culture, the tendrils of which I can now trace into the work I am doing. My copy of The Prophet travelled with me for many years, including on a journey on the back of a pick up truck with my cousins and some friends as we drove from Lusaka in Zambia to Maseru in Lesotho. The truck broke down somewhere in Zimbabwe and we had to spend hours in a garage getting it fixed. I remember us all be cuddled under a blanket in the pick up truck, as I read The Prophet aloud to them all, it all now feeling like a dream.

December: Devotions, by Mary Oliver.

The end is often in the beginning. Mary Oliver has been a guide, a companion, a wise voice whispering into my poetic longing. I will remain, forever, devoted.

I choose Devotions, a collection of her work from 1963-2015 to remind myself that this is life-work; that art is a vocational path; that there can always be more; that the work never dies, and that you never know what heart it might land into, shaping it for the life ahead.

So now, over to you.

What is your fantasy book box? Please don’t feel the need to write as much as I have, but do if you wish go ahead! I’ve loved writing this post, and it makes me want to re-read all the books I have selected. To all the authors out there, thank you for the gift of your words. You make worlds. You make lives better, including my own.

This post is dedicated to the memory of Alessandra Pigni, who had so many more dreams to live, and despite knowing she may never get to them all, still went on living them, all the way, wind in her hair, to the end. X

Thank you for reading and/or listening.

Clare. x