I count this as one of the most influential books I’ve ever read. I’ve travelled a lot in the last 20 years and lived in many houses, and in that time only a few prized objects have taken the journey with me. This book is one of them. I remember the first time I read it feeling like I’d been given a permission slip to become the kind of writer I had always wanted to be, but had no idea existed.

This book woke me up to three things; (i) that I could use my writing to pursue my activist goals, (ii) that in my writing I could play with form – that there was such a thing as an intersection between poetry, memoir, and cultural essay, and (iii) that we can save the things we love. It gave me hope for the future and a sense of how I might contribute to the nurturance of the planet.

Here’s a little taster; ‘Life was so hard for my parents’ generation that the subject of heaven was never distant from their thoughts. The preacher would gleefully, or so it seemed to me, run down all the trials and tribulations of an existence that ground us into dust, only to pull heaven out of the biblical hat at the last minute. I was intrigued.’