Mudlarking

£10.99

For thousands of years human beings have been losing their possessions and dumping their rubbish in the River Thames, making it the longest and most varied archaeological site in the world. For those in the know, the muddy stretches provide a tangible link with the past, a connection to the natural world, and an oasis of calm in a chaotic city. Lara Maiklem left the countryside for London in her twenties. At first enticed by the city, she soon found herself cut adrift, yearning for the solace she had known growing up among nature. Down on the banks of the River Thames, she discovered mudlarking: the act of scavenging in the mud for items discarded by past generations of Londoners. Moving from the river’s tidal origins in the west of the city to the point where it reaches the sea in the east, ‘Mudlarking’ is the story of the Thames and its people as seen through these objects.

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SKU: 9781408889237 Category:

Description

‘Fascinating. Mudlarks are river scavengers, but Lara Maiklem is more like a time traveller’
Guardian

Mudlark (/’mAdla;k/) noun A person who scavenges for usable debris in the mud of a river or harbour

Lara Maiklem has scoured the banks of the Thames for nearly twenty years, in pursuit of the objects the river unearths: from Neolithic flints to Roman hairpins, medieval buckles to Tudor buttons, Georgian clay pipes to Victorian toys. What began as a search for solitude came to reveal the story of a city, its people and their lost ways of life.

*The No. 2 Sunday Times bestseller and the BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, now with full colour images*

‘Enchanting . . . I am quite tempted to join Maiklem on the riverbed looking for treasure’
Sunday Times

‘Reveals to us the fascinating and poignant micro-world of London’s history’
Hallie Rubenhold, Baillie Gifford Prize-winning author of The Five

‘No one has looked at these odd corners since Sherlock Holmes’
Sunday Telegraph

‘A quirky and delightful read, wonderfully evocative of London’s gloopy, ghost-haunted river’
Daily Mail

WINNER OF THE 2020 INDIE BOOK AWARD FOR NON-FICTION

Additional information

Weight 314 g
Dimensions 19.8 × 12.9 × 2.1 cm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Paperback

Pages

316 , 8 unnumbered of plates

Language

English

Edition
Dewey

942.2 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K

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