Today is a monumental one for Hozier fans, as we’ve been gifted with four new tracks to obsessively listen to with the release of the ‘Unheard’ EP. If you’re like me, and you shamelessly listen to Hozier’s albums on repeat, I’ve got the perfect reading list for you. Below are my top recommendations based on your favourite Hozier song – enjoy!
1. Who We Are (Unreal Unearth, 2023)
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
Full of yearning, looking back and processing the bittersweet memories of a love lost, Our Wives Under the Sea is a beautiful and strange debut which I strongly recommend to anyone who loves Hozier’s ‘Who We Are’. Armfield’s sophomore novel, Private Rites, is also coming out later this year, so now’s the perfect time to jump into her work.
2. First Light (Unreal Unearth, 2023)
Onе bright mornin’ goes so easy
Darkness always finds you either way
It creeps into the corners as the moment fades
A voice your body jumps to callin’ out your name
But after this, I’m never gonna be the same
And I am never going back again
Sistersong was an expected gem for me, and I raced through it quickly. It’s a story of three siblings who undergo their own but intertwined transformations in a setting of wild magic and ancient Britain. It’s haunting and lyrical, and I’d recommend to anyone who cherishes that feeling of devastation for the past balanced with hope for the future.
3. Unknown/Nth (Unreal, Unearth, 2023)
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
My word, this book is full of the most stunning prose about devotion. Here’s a quote which honestly, if you don’t want to read The Song of Achilles after reading this, I don’t know what will convince you: ‘I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world’
Be prepared to also feel injured when completing this one.
4. It Will Come Back (Hozier,2014)
Don’t give it a hand, offer it a soul
Honey, make this easy
Leave it to the land, this is what it knows
Honey, that’s how it sleeps
I really don’t see this novel recommended enough. Aurora is a bizarre novel about a girl who is drawn into a surrealist coven. When they encounter forces they should have left alone, Aurora becomes caught between the seen and the unseen.
5. Too Sweet (Unheard EP, 2024)
The Giant Dark by Sarvat Hasin
The Giant Dark is a loose retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. Perhaps Hozier’s ‘Talk’ would have been a good link for this one, but the difficult and tumultuous relationship between Aida and Ehsan, full of jealousy, secrets, and difficult history definitely invokes the push and pull of attraction and rejection in Hozier’s ‘Too Sweet’ from his latest EP which drops today (22nd March, 2024). I’d recommend to anyone who likes their love stories not to be straightforward by any means.
6. Abstract (Psychopomp) (Unreal, Unearth, 2023)
Darling, there’s a part of me
I’m afraid will always be
Trapped within an abstract from a moment of my life
The weeds up through the concrete
The traffic picking up speed
All my love and terror balanced there between those eyes
Life Support (edited by Julia Copus)
This is a favourite collection of mine. It’s positioned as poetry which ‘offers new ways of looking’ and I can attest to the accuracy of that. For some reason, this collection invokes such nostalgia in me, and brings your eye to the little and large to see how it all intersects. A particular favourite is a poem about a woman in a chip shop who, watching the cooks batter and deep fry fish, is reminded of her experience giving birth to her first child. I love the perspectives illustrated and would recommend to anyone who wants to see things with new eyes.
7. Would That I (Wasteland, Baby!, 2019)
Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth
Chloe Michelle Howarth’s critically acclaimed debut, Sunburn, shares the lyricism of Hozier’s ‘Would That I’, and transports you to the long hot summer of sitting in the grass with your love. It’s a story of devotion and the female gaze, and I’d strongly recommend you add this to your wishlist for the perfect holiday read.
The gateway to the world
The gun in a trembling hand
Where nature unmakes the boundary
The pillar of myth still stands
The swan upon Leda
Occupier upon ancient land
The Damages by Genevieve Scott
Inspired by Hozier’s interest in exploring injustices against women. The lyrics were influenced by Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian columnist and global feminist speaker, who referred to the global systems that control women as the world’s ‘oldest form of occupation’. If ‘Swan Upon Leda’ is your favourite, read Genevieve Scott’s The Damages – a gripping novel that explores memory, trauma and accountability in a post-#MeToo world.