Wales Book of the Year Focus – Spring Rain

Published Tue 11 Jun 2024 - By Literature Wales

This blog is part of a series spotlighting the books shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year Award 2024.

This time, we shine a light on Birdsplaining: Spring Rain by Marc Hamer, shortlisted for the Creative Non-Fiction Award.

Spring Rain, Marc Hamer (Harvill Secker)

In Spring Rain, writer and gardener Marc Hamer shares his path from difficult beginnings to contentment, by way of family gardens.

As a young boy in a violent home, Marc found refuge in his small back garden. Here he kindled a lifelong love of nature and learning by observing the plants and insects in his private kingdom and reading the old encyclopaedias he found in the shed. Marc has always found the answers to life’s questions in the natural world, whether as a child watching ants, as a young man living rough in the countryside, or as a professional gardener creating places of calm and restoration for others. Now in his sixties, he is finally creating a garden for himself, at his home in Cardiff. In this beautiful and moving memoir, he considers what he has learned, from the spring of youth to his autumn years, and reflects on how we reconcile our childhoods with where we end up.

With line drawings by the author, Spring Rain encourages us back in tune with the natural world and offers both consolation and a guide to a happier life.

About the Author

Marc Hamer was born in the North of England and moved to Wales over thirty years ago. After spending a period homeless, then working on the railway, he returned to education and studied fine art in Manchester and Stoke-on-Trent. He has worked in art galleries, marketing, graphic design and taught creative writing in a prison before becoming a gardener. Both his books, A Life in Nature; or How to Catch a Mole (Vintage) and Seed to Dust (Harvill Secker) have been longlisted for the Wainwright Prize.