David Profumo has fished everywhere man and boy, and come back with his creel crammed with adventures and misadventures - a memoir for every fisherman's bookshelf.' Tom Stoppard 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 he 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. 'With wit, quiet craft, and a lifetime's store of piscatorial wisdom, Profumo draws us into his paradise.