Lobster: And Other Things I’m Learning To Love, to give its full title, is the newest collection by the highly prolific author and poet Hollie McNish – mostly known to a wider audience for her pro-breastfeeding spoken word and poetry, and more recently poems like The Queen Was Not Your Grandma, following the onset of public hysteria after the monarch’s death, and Breastfeeding Boris Johnson. Both are included in this collection which, in the spirit of its predecessor Slug: And Other Things I’ve Been Told To Hate, is written, says the author, “out of both hate and love for the world”.

McNish has set her book across seven parts – from The Body to Motherland, all the way through Oral Sex and ending up with Beginnings. The collection is formed from poetry and diary-like prose that feels honest, fresh and like a conversation with your wittiest friend. This might not be ‘highbrow’, and some of it may raise an eyebrow or two, but McNish’s writing doesn’t come from the need to prove itself to anyone. Rather, she provides us with high value, a material so full of compassion and lust for life it makes you want to appreciate your own more.