Shortlisted for the Richard Jefferies Award 2022

Growing up in Shetland with its myriad lochs and burns, Malachy Tallack and his brother would roam the island in search of trout, and in so doing discovered a sense of freedom, of wonder - and an abiding passion.

But why is it that fishing - or the mere contemplation of catching a fish - can be so thrilling and so captivating?

Why is it that time spent beside water can be imprinted so sharply in memory?

Why is it that what seems a simple act - of casting a line, waiting and hoping - can leave so much room for mystery?

Here award-winning author and singer-songwriter Malachy Tallack tells the story of his own infatuation with fishing, a pastime that has brought him joy (and frustration) since early childhood. And in bringing together memoir, nature writing and reflections on culture and history, he explores why angling means so much to so many.

Beautifully written and hugely engaging, it is a book about attention, about nature, and that sense of wonder; it is about a way of engaging with the world, of reaching out - and feeling it reach back.

Malachy Tallack writes as deftly as he casts a fly. This book is illuminated by water, but also by philosophy, experience and a profound sympathy for the natural world. A delight. -- LUKE JENNINGS, author of the Killing Eve novels
A love letter to still, dark lochs and sparkling trout rivers; an account of a fascination and that deep-down draw we feel towards the water's edge. Tallack's beautiful book is full of interest, passion, and rich, buttery description. Wade into it, and let it flow through you. -- CAL FLYN, author of Islands of Abandonment
A masterfully told fisherman's tale, which gets closer than most to grasping that slippery thing beyond the fish itself: the reason we are drawn to water, and what fishing can teach us. -- JEREMY WADE, author and presenter of 'River Monsters'
A memoir with a difference, beautifully evocative, suffused with the calm of many days spent fishing and thinking in tranquillity. The perfect gift for anglers everywhere. -- GAVIN FRANCIS, author of Island Dreams
A beautifully meandering meditation on the mysterious allure of fishing. From windswept lochs to sluggish canals, Malachy Tallack grapples with big ethical issues about our place in the natural world as deftly as he does the fish. -- LEE SCHOFIELD, author of Wild Fell…
Attempting to explain the draw of fishing to anyone - even anglers - is like trying to explain the concept of infinity to a toddler, but Tallack combines his extensive experience on (and in) the water with an extraordinary knowledge of the history, literature and science of this most liminal of pursuits in this beautiful and engaging book. -- SHAUN BYTHELL, author of The Diary of a Bookseller
I loved it . . . I loved its attentiveness to place and animal, its elucidation of the unseen spirits of water and fish and it made me want to pick up a rod for the first time since I was a teenager. Tallack has written one of those books that transcends its niche subject. -- STEPHEN RUTT, author of The Seafarers
In Illuminated by Water Malachy Tallack captures the true spirit of wild angling; where the twin pull of a magical location, and just the possibility of a fish, are what keeps anglers returning to cast throughout their lives. Truly, a beautifully drawn and thoughtful book. -- WILL MILLARD, author of The Old Man and the Sand Eel
A marvellous immersive reflection on the act and idea of fishing. The alchemy of angling acts as a springboard to explore our relationship with water, memory, the natural world, and trout, in stunning prose which put me in mind of Chris Yates and Alice Oswald. As Richard Brautigan once wrote of a man who had 'a way of describing trout as if they were a precious and intelligent metal' so Malachy Tallack's passion and writing cast a golden spell. A questing, vibrant, thoughtful book which delights in the beauty and mystery of its subject.' -- DAN RICHARDS, author of Outpost
Both a fitting tribute to what Malachy Tallack calls "this deep attentiveness to time and place", and a vivid new species that glitters among the shoals of books about angling. As a non-angler, I was startled by his notion of "the peculiar idea that beauty might have something to do with fishing, or that fishing might have something to do with beauty". By the end of the book, I had the peculiar idea that the same could be true of writing about fishing. -- JIM CRUMLEY, author of Lakeland Wild

Malachy Tallack is the award-winning author of three books. His first, Sixty Degree North (2015) was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and short-listed for the Saltire First Book Award. His second, The Un-Discovered Islands (2016), was Stanford Travel Writing Awards' Illustrated Book of the Year, while his debut novel, The Valley at the Centre of the World, was shortlisted for the Highland Book Prize and longlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize. He received a New Writers Award from the Scottish Book Trust in 2014, and the Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship in 2015. He is a founding editor of online magazine The Island Review and, as a singer-songwriter, he has released four albums and an EP, and performed across the UK. Malachy Tallack grew up in Shetland and currently lives in central Scotland.