I can’t believe you’re finally here. I’ve been looking for you for so long.
These are my books: poetry, prose and a few experiments, written as Iain S. Thomas and as pleasefindthis. If you’re not sure where to start, start with I Wrote This For You or The Truth of You.
I’m writing my next book, You Need To Get Up. Join my letter to watch it take shape, and I’ll send you the opening pages of Give Me To The One Who Needs Me for free, straight away.
The Souls Trilogy
Three collections of poetry and prose, published by Andrews McMeel, about who we are underneath everything.
The Truth of You: Poetry About Love, Life, Joy, and Sadness
2021 · Andrews McMeel · The Souls Trilogy, Book 1
The first book of the trilogy: over 200 poems and pieces of prose about love, loss, joy and sadness, written to you, whoever you’ve had to be to get here. Available in paperback, ebook and audiobook.
The Secret of You: Poetry About Shadows and Light
2024 · Andrews McMeel · The Souls Trilogy, Book 2
The second book turns inward, to the thoughts and feelings we keep to ourselves and the things we have to let go of in order to heal. Over 200 poems and prose pieces on love, loss, identity and shame, with ink illustrations.
The Heart of You: Poetry About Hope and Persistence
2025 · Andrews McMeel · The Souls Trilogy, Book 3
The final book of the trilogy is about hope after despair: how we find the faith to keep going when everything has been stripped back to who we really are. More than 200 poems on fear, courage, intimacy and what we choose to carry. The audiobook is read by me.
What Makes Us Human
What Makes Us Human: An Artificial Intelligence Answers Life’s Biggest Questions
2022 · Sounds True · with Jasmine Wang and GPT-3
Jasmine Wang and I gave GPT-3 some of humanity’s most cherished texts, from the Bible and the Tao Te Ching to Rumi and Sappho, and then asked it life’s biggest questions: why we’re here, what it means to love, how we overcome suffering. This book is the conversation that followed.
Selected for Malcolm Gladwell’s Next Big Idea Club. Also published in Portuguese and German.
I Wrote This For You
The pleasefindthis books: the collection that started it all, and everything that grew out of it.
I Wrote This For You
Andrews McMeel · I Wrote This For You, Book 1
The international bestseller. Prose, poetry and photography in four chapters, written between 2007 and 2011. Also available in Portuguese and Spanish. More about this book
I Wrote This For You and Only You
Andrews McMeel · I Wrote This For You, Book 3
The follow-up to I Wrote This For You, collecting the writing and photography from 2011 to 2015.
I Wrote This For You: Just The Words
2013 · I Wrote This For You, Book 2
Around 400 pieces, roughly twice as many as the original book, without the photography. More about this book
I Wrote This For You: 2007–2017
Andrews McMeel · Hardcover · I Wrote This For You, Book 4
The ten-year collector’s edition: pretty much everything from the first decade of pleasefindthis, in one hardcover. More about this book
Every Word You Cannot Say
Every Word You Cannot Say
2019 · Andrews McMeel
In 2013, depression stopped me writing. This is the book I wrote on the way back: for the moments when you can’t find the words, so you know someone else understands. More about this book
More books
Intentional Dissonance
2012 · Novel
My novel. Ten years after the world officially ended, in the last city on Earth, one man tries to hold on to what’s real.
How To Be Happy: Not A Self-Help Book. Seriously.
2015
Poetry, prose and short stories about an attempt to be happy. Not technically a self-help book, but it might help.
300 Things I Hope
2016 · with Carla Kreuser
A list of 300 things I hope for you, without ever having met you.
Who You Were Before You Were You
2020 · illustrated by Chryssa Kunneke
A short illustrated book about hope and the lessons life teaches us. Before you were born, you had a conversation about everything you were afraid of, and someone told you it would be OK. If you’ve forgotten, this book is here to remind you.
Where Did Everybody Go? A book about staying at home
2020 · For children
Written in the first weeks of lockdown to help parents talk to children about why we were staying inside, what we could do to help, and why it wouldn’t last forever.
What We Should Do When This Is Over
2020 · illustrated by Rikus Ferreira
An old man and a young boy whose ordinary life suddenly changes. Each night they play a game, dreaming up everything they’ll do when the world goes back to normal.
I Am Incomplete Without You
Interactive poetry
A book of poetry prompts and questions, for writing your own way through it.
![[Dis]Connected: Poems and Stories, book cover](https://iainsthomas.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/419h97bjgbl.jpg)
[Dis]Connected: Poems & Stories
2018 · with Amanda Lovelace and others
A collaboration with some of today’s best-loved poets: prose, drawings and short stories about connection and disconnection.
25 Love Poems For The NSA
Ebook
A short ebook written in response to the Snowden revelations, using words reported to be flagged by NSA surveillance.
Also featured in
First Encounters with AI: Writers on Writing, edited by Nina Beguš (University of Michigan Press, 2026), includes an essay by me.
Looking for prints and other things I’ve made? They’re coming soon.
Before you go
If something here found you at the right time, join my letter. You’ll get the opening pages of Give Me To The One Who Needs Me straight away, and you’ll be the first to read You Need To Get Up when it arrives. I only write when I have something worth sharing.
