Awards
- Winner of Portico Prize for Literature: Non-fiction 2012
- Winner of Portico Prize for Literature: Non-fiction 2012.
Overview
Featured on Radio 4 Book of the Week in 2012. This is the ultimate beachcomber's book from a prize-winning poet and natural storyteller. Think Robert Macfarlane and Roger Deakin. Strands describes a year's worth of walking on the ultimate beach- inter-tidal and constantly turning up revelations- mermaid's purses, lugworms, sea potatoes, messages in bottles, buried cars, beached whales and a perfect cup from a Cunard liner. This is a series of meditations prompted by walking on the wild estuarial beaches of Ainsdale Sands between Blackpool and Liverpool, Strands is about what is lost and buried then discovered, about all the things you find on a beach, dead or alive, about flotsam and jetsam, about mutability and transformation - about sea-change.
Full Product Details
Author: Jean Sprackland
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
Imprint: Vintage
Dimensions:
Width: 13.00cm
, Height: 2.00cm
, Length: 19.80cm
Weight: 0.225kg
ISBN: 9780099532439
ISBN 10: 0099532433
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 06 June 2013
Audience:
General/trade
,
Professional and scholarly
,
College/higher education
,
General
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.
Reviews
Compelling ... well-contextualised, sharply-observed, clued up, environmentally aware and deeply researched Independent With clarity and candour, in the natural voice of a modern storyteller, she tells what she sees at the intersection of herself and whatever is delivered to her by the tide The Times Sprackland has a wonderfully curious eye Financial Times Simply gorgeous ... One of the finest piece of writing, nature or otherwise, to emerge this year Big Issue If a book can have the appeal of a really good long walk, this one does Daily Mail
Compelling . well-contextualised, sharply-observed, clued up, environmentally aware and deeply researched Independent With clarity and candour, in the natural voice of a modern storyteller, she tells what she sees at the intersection of herself and whatever is delivered to her by the tide The Times Sprackland has a wonderfully curious eye Financial Times
A fine book… Transparent, undeceived prose -- Kate Kellaway * Guardian * Compelling … well-contextualised, sharply-observed, clued up, environmentally aware and deeply researched * Independent * With clarity and candour, in the natural voice of a modern storyteller, she tells what she sees at the intersection of herself and whatever is delivered to her by the tide * The Times * Sprackland has a wonderfully curious eye * Financial Times * Simply gorgeous ... One of the finest piece of writing, nature or otherwise, to emerge this year * Big Issue *
Simply gorgeous ... One of the finest piece of writing, nature or otherwise, to emerge this year * Big Issue * Sprackland has a wonderfully curious eye * Financial Times * With clarity and candour, in the natural voice of a modern storyteller, she tells what she sees at the intersection of herself and whatever is delivered to her by the tide * The Times * Compelling ... well-contextualised, sharply-observed, clued up, environmentally aware and deeply researched * Independent * A fine book... Transparent, undeceived prose -- Kate Kellaway * Guardian *
Author Information
Jean Sprackland is the author of five poetry collections, including Tilt, which won the 2007 Costa Poetry Award. She has also published two works of non-fiction, Strands- A Year of Discoveries on the Beach, which won the 2012 Portico Prize, and These Silent Mansions- A Life in Graveyards in 2020. Her forthcoming titles are Night Vision, a non-fiction exploration of darkness, in November 2025, and Goyle, Chert, Mire, her latest poetry collection, in April 2026.
