Fish, Fishing & the Meaning of Life

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JoeNickel
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Fish, Fishing & the Meaning of Life

Post by JoeNickel »

It's getting on for 30 years old, but can't find a mention of it here, and I've just enjoyed it, so thought I'd recommend. Looks like you can still pick up copies for a few quid.

It's a collection of writing, assembled by Jeremy Paxman. Most are a couple of paragraphs long, so there must be several hundred in the book. Some of the authors are historic (Herodotus, Pliny the Elder), some literary (Dickens, Chekhov, Hemmingway, Arthur Ransome, TH White), and some are predictable fishing writers (Izaak Walton, Cholmondeley-Pennell, Dick Walker, 'BB', Chris Yates). Plus an assortment of letters, news clippings and other stuff.

Paxman is mainly a game angler, so there's a predominance of fluff-wafting material. And there's some guff - I skipped over the few chunks of poetry. Some of it's genuinely laugh out loud funny - I've just ordered a book by HT Sheringham, who I'd never heard of, on the basis of a couple of excerpts here.

Particular highlights for me were the accounts by Walker and Yates of their record-breaking Redmere carp - I'd not read these before. And the (apparently true, with photo) story of a 388lb sturgeon, caught from the River Towy in 1933.
The dildo of consequences rarely arrives lubed
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Paddy_R
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Re: Fish, Fishing & the Meaning of Life

Post by Paddy_R »

I'll give it a go. Thanks Joe
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