Read This is a weekly post written by a guest author – often a friend of mine, or someone I’ve met on my writerly travels, who recommends three books that they think deserve more recognition. If you’re interested in buying any of the books, please on the covers and give these hidden gems some love.

Read This: Francesca Ramsay

Here’s the disclaimer: Francesca is a friend of my son’s and it was via him that I was sent her book. Of course it doesn’t always work out when you’re sent a book via a friend or relation but this time it did. I loved Pinch Me, and you can see the breakfast picture I took of it and read my brief review on Instagram here. And only a couple of weeks ago I finally met her in real life when I was in Bristol with Henry. She’s as lovely in real life as she is on the page. Here’s a bit more about her:

Francesca Ramsay is an author, editor and art history teacher based in Bristol. Often working at the interface between art and the public has made her adept at writing about what we see in ways that are both accessible and entertaining. Her first book, PINCH ME: Trying to Feel Real in the 21st Century came out last year, and has recently been published in Italian as Toccami (Touch Me). 

You can find her on Instagram. Here are Francesca’s recommendations:

Witch by Rebecca Tamas

This book of poetry really gets me by the throat, every time I pick it up. It’s sexy and strange and visceral, grotesquely bodily and often, very funny. And there’s this great humility in Tamás’s writing. Alongside poems themed around spells and hexes (penis hex; spell for online porn; spell for UN resolutions – something for everyone!), each character, whether witch, or demon or God, comes with a vulnerable humanity that really pushes this idea that there’s good and bad in all of us. 

I sometimes forget how much writing can instill a sense of power in the reader, and Witch always reminds me of this. Reading it makes me connect to this part of my womanhood that’s deeper and darker than I guess how I present. Read it, and be reminded that we all have the ability to be witches, whatever that might mean for us (or indeed, take another look at the women around you). 

and we were so far from the sea of course the hermit crabs were dead by Lotte Mitchell Reford

Disclosure, this pamphlet was written by a friend of mine. Lotte and I went to uni together in Glasgow, living in the same freezing tenement blocks, drinking in the same grotty bars, and making all the same terrible mistakes (often on the same nights). But this fact is almost arbitrary. Regardless of knowing the author, this poetry reaches back and pulls out that very specific feeling, a juxtaposition, of being grown up at the same time as younger than you’ve ever been. And  I think this is a feeling most of us are able to relate to. 

Lotte doesn’t shy away from difficult subjects – they write about sex in all its beautiful and damaging complexity. They do the same with love and art and friendship. There’s a fascination with the body, its temptations and its breaking points. Some of their writing gives me the same feeling as looking at a Francis Bacon painting, which often gives me the same feeling as standing in an abattoir. Yet, abattoir excluded, I continue to return.

The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna (Translated by Herbert Lomas)

Moving away from poetry and onto a book that is genuinely just a joy. Though in hindsight, (having just read the back cover again), perhaps The Year of the Hare doesn’t need any more recognition. It’s Finnish, but has been translated into twenty five languages, been dramatised for the stage and made into a film twice. Regardless, I’d never heard of it.

Arto Paasilinna’s book tells the story of a bored salesman who, on hitting and injuring a young hare one evening, gets out of his car, picks it up and heads into the forest. The unlikely pair adventure around the country, forming an irrefutable bond and meeting all kinds of characters on the way. And the best thing is, nothing bad ever actually happens to them. Now more than ever, I think we need books like this. Pure escapism, and a book for anyone (aka all of us) who have wanted to jump ship from our working drudgery and head into the woods ourselves.

These all sound wonderful, but I also haven’t heard of The Year of the Hare, and it’s jumping straight onto my to-read list. Have you heard of it, or the poetry books? Do any catch your attention? Let me know in the comments. And if you’d like to be told about future Read This recommendations, you can follow me on Instagram, or subscribe to my newsletter.