by Luke Jennings (Author)
As a child in the 1960s, Luke Jennings was fascinated by the rivers and lakes around his Sussex home. Beneath their surfaces, it seemed to him, waited alien and mysterious worlds. With library books as his guide, he applied himself to the task of learning to fish. His progress was slow, and for years he caught nothing. But then a series of teachers presented themselves, including an inspirational young intelligence officer, from whom he learnt stealth, deception and the art of the dry fly. So began an enlightening but often dark-shadowed journey of discovery. It would lead to bright streams and wild country, but would end with his mentor's capture, torture and execution by the IRA. Blood Knots is about angling, about great fish caught and lost, but it is also about friendship, honour and coming of age. As an adult Jennings has sought out lost and secretive waterways, probing waters 'as deep as England' at dead of night in search of giant pike. The quest, as always, is for more than the living quarry. For only by searching far beneath the surface, Jennings suggests in this most moving and thought-provoking of memoirs, can you connect with your own deep history.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Edition: Export & Airside ed
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Published: 01 Apr 2010
ISBN 10: 1848873689
ISBN 13: 9781848873681
Book Overview: With this dark and dramatic memoir of an angler's life, Booker longlisted author Luke Jennings' new book places him in the front rank of British natural history writers. 'A beautifully-crafted story... I was transfixed... completely absorbed by Jenning's stilled, naturalist's eye as he waited by dark canals and chuckling chalk streams for that flash of beauty, while on that other plane, above the water, the ugly chaos of life waited to resume its infernal narrative.' Nicholas Crane
Prizes: Shortlisted for William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2010 and BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2010.