THE GOSPEL OF THE EELS A FATHER, A SON AND THE WORLD’S MOST ENIGMATIC FISH

PATRIK SVENSSON, TRANS AGNES BROOME Picador, 240pp, £16.99, ebook £8.99

Swedish journalist Patrik Svensson, still reeling from the global success of his first book, excitedly outlined to the Observer why eels are so fascinating: we have no real idea how they reproduce except that they travel thousands of miles to the Sargasso Sea to do it. ‘You can call it a mystery, but it’s also just a crazy fact. No one has ever seen eels breed, and no one has ever seen eels in the Sargasso. It becomes a philosophical question: how do we know the things we do?’

In the Bookseller, Caroline Sanderson loved ‘a captivating blend of memoir and nature writing, Svensson recalls fishing for eels with his late father, who introduced him to the ways and wiles (and taste!) of this most elusive of creatures. It sparks a journey to discover all he can about the extraordinary life-cycle of the European eel, taking in science, literature, folklore and much more besides.’ Joe Shute in the Daily Telegraph found ‘a stillness to Svensson’s writing that perfectly suits the eels and his enigmatic father, a road paver. “I can’t remember us ever talking about anything other than eels and how to catch them,” the author writes. This is a book about tenderness, slime and savagery.’ And in the Times, James Mcconnachie was full of praise for the ‘unshowy but potent’ writing. ‘“Every eel seeks its place in the world without a guide,” Svensson comments, “without inheritance or heritage and existentially alone.” The same, he implies, is true of a working-class boy who becomes a writer.’