Ring the Hill by Tom Cox

Place Writing with Hares and Cats

In this Substack we celebrate the art and craft of Place Writing. Do you want to be inspired? Join our band of readers and writers who love everything about place and home. Subscribe now and get fortnightly posts delivered to your in-box for free.

Tom Cox is a prolific and versatile writer, producing a suite of fiction and non-fiction books, the first being a short story collection Help The Witch in 2019, the most recent being 1983, a novel about an eight-year-old boy named Benji, published in 2024. Today though, I want to draw your attention to Ring the Hill which came out in April 2020, in a time of worldwide stress and upheaval. Yet this is not a doom-ridden tale about Covid-19, it’s a funny life-affirming book of creative non-fiction, about homes and hills, and I think it’s a very satisfying read.

I first came across Tom Cox on Substack—I find his friendly humour quirky and dynamic, and his writing style informal and genuinely heartfelt. Wanting to read one of his books, I discovered Ring the Hill as an audio book on Borrow Box. I found that listening to Tom’s voice brought the words closer somehow, and it’s easy to imagine being in conversation with him over a pint in a pub taproom.

When a book is this good, I have a strong need to get hold of it, to see the words on the page. And when I did, I was pleasantly surprised with the high quality of this hardback from Unbound. The text is nicely spaced for easy reading, the pages have a lovely cartridge paper feel to them, and attractive images—drawings and photographs—are interspersed throughout. Tom’s mum, Jo Cox, made the drawings inside the book and Clare Melinsky produced the colourful cover. All in all, it’s beautifully put together and it’s a fun read.

So, why is it Place Writing?

In my view I think it sits comfortably in this genre because Tom focuses on several specific locations, places where he has lived and that he knows well. When a narrator writes in first person, in an authoritative voice, they fulfil one of the main criteria I believe is important for Place Writing, which is all about presence-in-place. Tom then adds to the narrative of his personal experience by providing the reader with history and geography, and some of the human stories that make a place unique.

Interestingly, the book is categorised as ‘autobiography, lifestyle - travel’. No mention of Place Writing. I asked Tom if he had any thoughts about Place Writing as a genre:

‘I never thought of Ring the Hill as place writing but as I was writing it I did become aware of how obsessed I am with place, how obsessed my parents are with place, how an obsession with place has defined my life and how, back when I wasn't writing about place, I was yearning to without quite realising it.’

I think Tom’s response is similar to other writers who visit my Substack; they say that this field of writing is often where they are, but they’ve never thought of themselves as place writers.

The final chapter is about a house Tom rented for three years. It’s where he and his neighbours enjoyed a slightly alternative lifestyle and it has stayed in my mind—curious people wander in and out, wildlife is ever present, and stories are plentiful:

‘One day I ascended the hill and took up a stranger on his offer of a Korean massage, which involved him freeing my upper body of toxins by karate chopping me about the neck and shoulders while performing a kind of beatboxing that sounded not dissimilar to the noises my friend and I made while play fighting when we were eight. Afterwards, I felt loose and relieved, although much of the relief possibly came from no longer having to stifle a giggling fit.’ (p251)

In our email exchange, Tom explained that the title of the book refers to the medieval name for hares. They pop up throughout the chapters in the book, as do cats who become key characters. So, if you like hares and cats, and walking and hills, I can highly recommend this book to you.

---

Credits, References and Links

Photo above is my own.

Tom Cox writes The Villager on Substack.

Cox, T. Ring the Hill (2019). London: Unbound. Support independent bookshops and buy Ring the Hill via Bookshop dot org (affiliate link).

I really enjoyed listening to Tom’s own reading of the book on Borrow Box. This app offers a limited but growing range of audio books. I think this service is only for UK library card holders though. You borrow the books for FREE rather than buy them. And, the app has a sleep function as well—really useful.

This post is one of a series—see my page Recommended Books. To my knowledge, no shelves exist in libraries or bookshops labelled ‘Place Writing’ and these books in my opinion are good examples of the genre. I see it as my mission to create more awareness of Place Writing. I hope that one day books like these will gain recognition as epitomising the genre and officially be categorised as such.