About the book:

From award winning novelist and journalist David Profumo comes a dazzling work about the restorative power of nature and finding joy in simple pleasures. It is often said there is more to the experience of fishing than the mere catching of fish, and in this evocative, wide-ranging memoir Profumo explores the delights and mysteries of one of mankind’s most ancient pursuits.

As we move from the Highland waters of his childhood and into his adult travels from the Arctic Circle to the South Seas, The Lightning Thread unpeels this idiosyncratic subject, and shows how it embraces folklore, poetry, magic, drink and disaster.

By turns a lyrical celebration of the natural world and also the quirkiness of human nature itself, this is a hymn to the great happiness that pursuing his life’s passion has brought the author. In exuberant prose of warmth, wit and lightly worn erudition, this is a future classic from one of our finest writers – across forty countries and sixty years, one man’s quest for perfection.

A work of the passionate eclecticism, deep intelligence and virtuosically exuberant prose from one of our finest writers, The Lightning Thread is a future classic and the culmination of lifetime's obsession. The Lightning Thread takes the reader on a journey of unexpected delight, personal pleasure and profound discovery.

About the author:

David Profumo studied English at Magdalen College, Oxford, and King’s College, London, and was a teacher before becoming a freelance writer. His work has appeared in many newspapers and magazines here and abroad, from the Wall Street Journal to The Newsletter of the Kiribati and Tuvalu Philatelic Society. The author of two novels, he was awarded the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1989, and was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature in 1995. He has been Fishing Correspondent for The Daily Telegraph and Country Life, and lives in Perthshire.