What to read after watching The Outrun

Saoirse Ronan has gone and done it again. I saw The Outrun in cinema over 3 months ago and I'm still not completely recovered. Sorry to anyone who was at the same viewing as me and looked over in my direction at any point to see this:

I've been fighting the urge ever since to move to an isolated cabin on the Orkney Islands and take up cold water swimming. The urge for the latter is less strong, but it's still there, and maybe one day I'll be a better person capable of doing hard things - somebody who can go for a cold dip at Porty in the middle of January.

Adapted from the stunning memoir, The Outrun by Amy Liptrot, the movie follows recovering alcoholic Rona (our lady Saoirse) as she escapes the bustle of London and returns home to the Orkney Islands in a gripping and authentic portrayal of addiction and the healing power of nature. On Orkney, Rona connects with her complicated parents and forms heart-warming bonds with the locals, but she also spends a whole lot of time just with herself out in the wild. And boy am I a sucker for spending time out in the wild (preferably on land or in semi-warm water).

If you're a fan of The Outrun movie or book, I'd really recommend reading this article from Liptrot detailing the surreal experience of having her memoir adapted for the big screen. And if you're looking for a book that will give you similar feelings of awe, hope, and despair (what a combo), like The Outrun did, check out the below reading recs!

It's time to get out that never-ending TBR.

The Instant by Amy Liptrot

If you're hoping to spend more time with Amy Liptrot and Rona's story, The Instant, Liptrot's second book, might be the perfect read for you.

Ready to move on from the isolation of living on Orkney, Amy moves spontaneously to Berlin on the hunt for work and love online (shoutout to Tinder). What follows is a year of the unexpected, whether that be in the ways Amy connects with nature in a big city or the obsessive patterns love and lust can bring out in us.

Small Bodies of Water by Nina Mingya Powles

Nina Mingya Powles first learned to swim in Borneo - where her mother was born and her grandfather studied freshwater fish. There, the local swimming pool became her first body of water.

This lyrical collection of interconnected essays explores the bodies of water that separate and connect us, as well as everything from migration, food, family, earthquakes and the ancient lunisolar calendar to butterflies. In powerful prose, Small Bodies of Water weaves together personal memories, dreams and nature writing. It reflects on a girlhood spent growing up between two cultures, and explores what it means to belong.

Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton (non-fiction)

When lockdown led busy professional Chloe to leave the city and return to the countryside of her childhood, she never expected to find herself custodian of a newly born hare. Yet when she finds the creature, endangered, alone and no bigger than her palm, she is compelled to give it a chance at survival.

Raising Hare chronicles their journey together and the challenges of caring for the leveret and preparing for its return to the wild. We witness an extraordinary relationship between human and animal, rekindling our sense of awe towards nature and wildlife.

Unearthed by Claire Ratinon (non-fiction)

Like many diasporic people of colour, Claire Ratinon grew up feeling cut off from the natural world. She lived in cities, reluctant to be outdoors and stuck with the belief that success and status could fill the space where belonging was absent.

But a chance encounter with a rooftop farm was the start of a journey that caused her to rethink the life she'd been creating and her beliefs about who she ought to be. Enlivened, she turned her hand to growing food in London before finding herself yearning for a small parcel of land to call her own.

Unearthed tells the story of her leaving the city for the English countryside - and her first garden - in the hope of forging a pathway towards the embrace of the natural world and a sense of belonging cultivated on her own terms.

Group by Christie Tate (non-fiction)

Christie Tate has just been named the top student in her law school class and seems to finally have got her eating disorder under control. So why is she driving through Chicago fantasising about her own death? Desperate, she joins Dr Rosen's psychotherapy group.

In group, secrets are not allowed. This means telling a group of strangers everything – about her struggle with bulimia, her failed sex life, her overwhelming sense of loneliness and acute longing for a relationship.

When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Solà (fiction)

When Domenec - mountain-dweller, father, poet, dreamer - dies suddenly, struck by lightning, he leaves behind two small children, Mia and Hilari, to grow up wild among the looming summits of the Pyrenees and the ghosts of the Spanish civil war.

But then Hilari dies too, and his sister is forced to face life's struggles and joys alone. As the years tumble by, the inhabitants of the mountain - human, animal and other - come together in a chorus of voices to bear witness to the sorrows of one family, and to the savage beauty of the landscape.

On this Savage Side by Tiffany McDaniel (fiction)

Arcade and Daffodil are twin sisters born one minute apart. With their fiery red hair and thirst for an escape, they form an unbreakable bond nurtured by their grandmother's stories.

But no matter how hard they try, Arc and Daffy can't escape the generational ghosts that haunt their family. And so, left to fend for themselves in the shadow of their rural Ohio town, the two sisters cling tight to one another. Years later, as the sisters wrestle with the memories of their early life, a local woman is discovered dead in the river.

Drawing from the true story of women killed in Chillicothe, Ohio, acclaimed novelist and poet Tiffany McDaniel has written a moving literary testament and fearless elegy for missing women everywhere.

A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver (poetry)

If Mary Oliver has no fans, I'm dead. Not to be over the top - but her poems will make you want to put that damn phone down, befriend a robin in the woods and then run through a field as it flies above you.

In this collection, Oliver reflects on the loss of her partner, Molly Malone Cook,
and beloved dog, Percy. By transporting readers to her coastal hometown of Provincetown, Massachusetts, she shows us the importance of slowing down and paying attention to the little things. I am continually amazed by the way Oliver captures what it means to be a human in a world of unknowns–life is a mystery, but we are never alone, even out in the wild.

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