The Lightning Thread

Book excerpt: From award winning novelist and journalist David Profumo comes a dazzling work about the restorative power of nature and finding joy in simple pleasures. The Lightning Thread takes the reader on a journey of unexpected delight, personal pleasure and profound discovery. From angling with his father on a spating burn at the height of the Profumo Affair to knocking back mojitos while hunting for Permit, ‘the Robocop of the sea’, off the coast of Cuba. Much more than just another book about fishing, The Lightning Thread is an exploration of joy and a celebration of simple pleasures in a too complicated world. The significance of angling, as David writes about it, far transcends the mere catching of fish. It is about the extraordinary places he has visited, the remarkable people he has met and the great happiness pursuing his life’s passion has brought him. Written with warmth, wit and lightly worn erudition, his references range from Ted Hughes to Wittgenstein, from W.C. Fields to Milton, and always hovering in the background is the spectre of Isaak Walton’s TheCompleat Angler, the Ur-text of halieutic literature. 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.