Writers Recommend: Marc Hamer
This week one of my favourite writers – in fact one of my favourite people – arrived on Substack. Here is a link to his page and I recommend you subscribe pronto:
is the author of three books, A LIFE IN NATURE, OR HOW TO CATCH A MOLE which was longlisted for the prestigious Wainwright Prize, SEED TO DUST, which was shortlisted for the same prize, and SPRING RAIN described by the New York Times as ‘rich and tender’. This latest book was billed as ‘a tonic for the soul’ and ‘a life-affirming memoir about how gardens can help us heal’. So if you are currently staring out at your sad little autumn garden at the moment and wondering how to inject life into it, or indeed yourself, then this might be the right book for you.
I have been trying to persuade Marc over to Substack for a while because I believe this platform will be all the richer for his arrival on it, and so, I thought the best way to introduce him to you was via my Writers Recommend series.
When I set up my pop-up bookshop, The Book Room, two years ago, I asked writers I know to talk me through their four favourite books within the genre that they write in. These books could be classic or contemporary and I sold them in my bookshop alongside one another. My thinking was that no-one knows the genres better than the writers who every day seek inspiration from them.
Marc’s nature writing curation flew off my shelves and I was restocking dozens of copies every week, there are some absolute gems in there and, if you click on the link, you can still order them from my website The Book Room (I do dispatch anywhere in the world but obviously there is the cost of postage to consider). You can even order the entire lot as a hamper (Christmas is coming up after all!).
So anyway, this is why during our interview you will hear my references to The Book Room. But it was a wonderful chat and I think you’ll really enjoy it, plus it gives you an introduction to Marc, and I will, over the next few weeks, share more from this Writers Recommend series with you.
If you don’t have time to watch or listen to our interview now, you can scan below to see which books Marc picked and what he had to say about them in brief, but I do recommend you listen to my whole interview with Marc, he talks about his own writing life as well as the books he wants to press into your hands, and how we manage to stay peaceful in an increasingly frustrating world, plus he even reads us a little poetry:
And for a quick preview, here are the books he picked:
Marc says: “Mary Oliver is an American poet and I’ve got a thing for American poetry and it’s got to do with my background and education, I went to an ordinary comprehensive school, I didn’t have a classical education when I tried to read a lot of English poetry I found it very difficult, there are a lot of allusions to classical literature and you can’t understand them, you don’t know what the poems are about. I discovered American poetry, it’s simple and straightforward, and it doesn’t matter that you come from a particular background.”
THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS by Wendell Berry
Marc says: “Another American poet and essayist, I just love Wendell Berry, he’s a working farmer and the poetry he writes blows me away. These little poems are little stories about managing and living with the things we have to live with, and in the title poem he’s telling the story about when he’s frightened and afraid for his children, he just goes to nature and becomes calm. Life is suffering, and we have to become resourceful about how we deal with that suffering or we fade away. Life is hard and difficult and there are wars and governments and events in the world that make life harder than they need to be, and you can spend your life fighting or you can find respite, and for me, sitting by the backdoor in my city garden and watching the sparrows or the rain dripping off the leaves, gives me that respite.”
TEACHING A STONE TO TALK by Annie Dillard
Marc says: “I love Annie Dillard’s writing, she writes essays, I think she’s an novelist as well. Her writing is beautiful, I would recommend anybody who is interested in writing to read her work about writing. Any line you pick out you will find something absolutely wonderful. I came across her a couple of years ago and she just writes about the stuff that we see and does it so well.”
THE MAN WHO PLANTED TREES by Jean Giono
Marc says: “This is a very, very short book – just 31 pages long – but I absolutely love it. Not only do I love the story, but the way it came to be written, it’s about a chap who entered a writing competition and the topic of the competition was ‘the most interesting man you’ve ever met’ or something like that — he wrote about a man in Italy who was a farmer and carried a pocket of acorns with him and everywhere he went, he had this walking stick with a spike on the end, and he dropped acorns into the ground. The writer used to go and see him and eventually over the years a massive oak farm had grown, through this simple man doing this simple thing with a pocket of acorns. It’s so beautifully written, so poetic and you can read it in an hour.”
Thank you for reading/watching, do let me know what you think in the comments, and don’t forget to subscribe to Marc.
This is a free post but most of my work is now behind a paywall, as I explain here:
But if you would like to subscribe to White Ink, or come along and join my monthly creative writing workshop, start here with this post to see what I have to offer you:
I watched as twilight fell, taking a brief break to stand in the garden while my little dog snuffled & had a wee on the lawn scattered with oak leaves dislodged by the windy weather today, and all felt right in my world. Such a perfect discussion to ease me into the evening, and I now have two of Marc’s books waiting to be read and listened to. 💕