Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames - Tapa dura

Enchanting. It made even a capsized cynic like me feel more sentimental about the Thames. In fact, I am quite tempted to join Maiklem on the riverbed looking for treasure (Sunday Times)

Mudlarks are river scavengers, but Lara Maiklem is more like a time traveller. Her prose has none of the self-conscious sensibility that defines contemporary nature writing; her thoughtful sentences read as though she were talking to herself. There is a great deal to learn from these pages, not least the insight that finding lost things is the best way of losing yourself. It is, above all, her wisdom that makes Lara Maiklem such restful company (Guardian)

A lovely, lyrical, gently meandering book, filled with fascinating diversions and detail (Literary Review)

Lara Maiklem reveals to us the fascinating and poignant micro-world of London's history; the fragments of life deposited on the tidal shores of the Thames. Mudlarking is a flowing river of human stories; beautiful, wondrous and eternal (Hallie Rubenhold)

A hybrid of personal memoir, London history and literary cabinet of curiosities (Telegraph)

This book is as great a treasure as any of the fascinating and eclectic finds that the author has unearthed along the Thames over the years. The narrative ebbs and flows like the river itself, revealing London's rich history, its modern day landscape and a wealth of poignant personal reflections. One of the best books I've read in years (Tracy Borman)

Maiklem has an infectious love of linking the present with the past. It is historic detail like this that makes Mudlarking much more than just a lengthy list of discarded bric-a-brac. Lara is a romantic, motivated primarily by the human stories behind the objects. Curiosity may kill the cat, but it is the making of many an author. And Lara has it in spades (Daily Mail)

Whoever buys it is blessed. I love the fact that [Maiklem] makes herself the centre of this huge, timeless, endless story that reaches from the distant past and flows past all our consciousnesses out to a place far beyond the reach of the estuary. Lara is such a natural writer; every page just tingles with her imagination. It is a love letter to life itself (Ian Mortimer)

A beautifully written memoir of one woman's relationship with the sacred Thames and the ghosts of its past. Lara Maiklem's book on mudlarking is as deep and as rich as the Thames and its treasures. Fascinating (Stanley Tucci)

Maiklem's knowledge and skill are evident and unarguable. [She] leaves the door open for the rest of us: with a bit of luck and patience you too, she suggests, could spot something interesting on the foreshore, ask around, take it to a museum and end up owning a little bit of history. What a thrill (Caught by the River)