I Miss You: Activities for Yearning Hearts by Gioia Guerzon & Rosie Leech

With a gentle and considerate style, this evocative little gift book proposes a series of conceptual activities to help the reader work through the sense of loss that arises when someone or something is missing from their lives. For example;

Spend one minute writing a list of all the things you can remember doing with the person that you miss. Simple everyday events can make as many memories as big adventures. Write as fast as you can. When one minute is up, stick the list to a window pane so that it can be seen from outside.

Combining the practical and the abstract, the activities have a Fluxus-style poignancy which is sure to strike a chord with anyone who has experienced the pain of a broken heart.With beautiful, stripped back illustrations and elegant packaging, this book is a striking and affordable gift for a friend or for yourself.

Gioia Guerzoni is a literary translator who has worked on novels by the likes of Deborah Levy, Teju Cole, Jenny Offill, Siri Hustvedt, Hanif Kureishi and Iris Murdoch, translating them from English to Italian. She has recently relocated from Italy to a small Greek Island where she lives amongst the pine trees near the sea. Gioia likes wandering about, looking at small things and listening to languages she doesn’t understand.

Rosie Leech studied Illustration at Edinburgh College of Art. Since graduating in 2019, she has been shortlisted in the World Illustration Awards 2020 and 2021, and has had her work published in journals including Counterpint and Salt&Wonder.