The Ten People You Meet

A Tender Tapestry of Lives, Love, and Loss

In The Ten People You Meet (And Other Writings), Chris Vobe, acclaimed author of The Water Tower, returns with a powerful and lyrical collection that blurs the lines between poetry and prose. Rooted deeply in the emotional and physical landscapes of his hometown in North West England, this anthology offers a rich meditation on the complexities of human connection, faith, and memory.

Split into three evocative sections—The Ten People You Meet, The Gospel, and Other Writings—the collection showcases a dynamic range of narratives and lyrical works. Vobe’s characters are as vivid as the settings they inhabit, each offering a unique lens through which themes such as love, grief, community, and spiritual introspection are delicately unpacked.

The Ten People You Meet is at once intimate and universal. Its stories and poems range from loosely connected vignettes to standalone reflections, creating a flowing rhythm that mirrors the undulating river imagery of the book’s opening. In “True Love,” “The Lover,” and “The Woman,” Vobe traces the arc of a man’s life through love and loss with poetic precision. Meanwhile, The Gospel forms a poetic cycle rich in spiritual nuance, culminating in the soul-stirring “Amor.”

The collection also includes poignant character studies like “The Christmas Bauble” and the haunting “The Wolf,” alongside “Fishing,” a return to the beloved world of Little Bassington and a nod to future stories in the series. Interwoven with Chris Vobe’s own photography, this is a collection that lingers—quietly beautiful, hauntingly honest, and unwaveringly human.

The Ten People You Meet doesn’t just tell stories—it invites readers to contemplate their own.

Explore the lives within the pages. Order your copy of The Ten People You Meet (And Other Writings) today.

Excerpt from the book

Clause 1: Wonderland

My mother’s influence is imprinted indelibly

On the opening pages

Of my storybook.

She led me through the Looking Glass,

Across the snow-capped fields,

Along a road that was destined to form

The circumference of my life.

I can still remember the flavour

Of those early days –

Not their meaning or their connotation,

Nor their rhythm or their beat,

Just their possibilities.

And it was with no hint of irony that I

Fell deep

Into the vast sea of waiting words that rose to greet me –

Not at her behest, but

As if that was what I had

Always been fated to do;

Coincidentally, since we are so unalike in

Every other way.

There, amid that ocean of ideas, I found

Dreams and imaginings at the tips of my fingers;

Reveries and nightmares

Within easy reach;

Continents of wonder and possibility

Clasped between the pages;

The wide, open arms of empathy

And rippling undercurrents of confrontation –

Thoughts and philosophies that life had,

Until then, kept locked away.

They lived side-by-side, those ideas, with

Undulating sadness

And the last vestiges of happiness

The world had to offer

Before it too darkened

Forever.

When the clouds and the chaos came,

Those cathedrals of imagination

Would be the alters to which I’d cling;

Whenever I was buried beneath the sheets,

Entombed in my own longing,

Lost beneath the wings of some careless defeat,

Or burning in a fire of my own creation,

I would open a book

And turn the page.