Lara Maiklem Explained

Lara Maiklem FSA (born 1971)[1] is a British author, editor and publishing consultant, known for her writing and speaking on mudlarking. She has been mudlarking since 2012. She was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2022.

Personal life

Maiklem grew up on a dairy farm in Surrey. She read sociology and social anthropology at Newcastle University before moving to London where she worked in publishing. She now lives with her partner and children on the Kent coast[2]

Mudlarking

During her childhood Maiklem was fascinated by the past in the form of pottery shards, glass bottle stoppers, fossils and clay pipes, which she found in the garden and fields of the family's farm.[3] After moving to London she began to mudlark on the tidal banks of the River Thames where she scavenged for objects that had been lost and dropped into the river. Some of Maiklem's most treasured discoveries are a Tudor shoe, a medieval pilgrim badge, a complete Iron Age pot, a Roman auxiliary soldier's sword scabbard chape and a 16th-century sword.

Media

In August 2019, Maiklem's first book Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames was published by Bloomsbury in the UK, Australia and New Zealand and under the title Mudlark: Searching for London's Past Along the River Thames by Liveright in the US and Canada. Mudlarking appeared in a cartoon by Nick Newman in Private Eye.

The Guardian called it "A fascinating insight into the discarded objects and lost things that wash up on the foreshore".[4] The Daily Telegraph considered her description of the fog to be "worthy of Dickens or Joseph Conrad".[5] Literary Review described it as "A lovely, lyrical, gently meandering book, filled with fascinating diversions and detail".[6]

On publication it became a Sunday Times Bestseller and was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week in August 2019. Mudlarking was Book of the Month at Foyles, an Observer Book of the Year 2019, a Daily Express Greatest Read 2019 and an Apple Books pick for 2019. Mudlarking won the 2020 Indie Award for Non Fiction.[7]

In 2021 Maiklem Bloomsbury published her second book A Field Guide to Larking: Beachcombing, Mudlarking, Fieldwalking and More, an illustrated guide to how to search for lost objects and how to identify what you find.

Maiklem has made radio and television appearances on the BBC, Smithsonian Channel, Travel Channel, Channel 5, NPR and ABC Australia. Maiklem did a TED Talk in October 2019 and a Google Talk in September 2019. She wrote a short series about mudlarking for BBC Radio 3, has written articles for the Guardian,[8] the Telegraph, the Financial Times, Daily Express, BBC Countryfile and The Spectator[9] and has spoken on mudlarking at private events and festivals.

Publications

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: 'I'm obsessed': mudlarking for treasure along the Thames . the Guardian . 12 July 2021 . en . 22 August 2019.
  2. Web site: House . Christian . The Daily Telegraph . PressReader . 13 July 2021.
  3. Web site: Lea . Richard . 'I'm obsessed': mudlarking for treasure along the Thames . the Guardian . 13 July 2021 . en . 22 August 2019.
  4. News: Mudlarking by Lara Maiklem review – lost and found on the River Thames. Wilson. Frances. 16 August 2019. The Guardian. 4 December 2019.
  5. News: Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames by Lara Maiklem, review: the swirling mess of underwater history. Lewis. Roger. 5 August 2019. The Daily Telegraph. 4 December 2019.
  6. Web site: Neil Armstrong - A Real Muck Raker. Literary Review. en. 2020-01-10.
  7. Web site: Booksellers Association - Indie Book Awards 2020: winners announced. 2021-12-27. The Booksellers Association of the United Kingdom & Ireland Limited.
  8. News: London's history in mud: the woman collecting what the Thames washes up. Maiklem. Lara. 2016-09-14. The Guardian. 2020-01-10. en-GB. 0261-3077.
  9. Web site: A river of lost souls: the extraordinary secrets of the Thames. 2019-12-14. The Spectator. en-US. 2020-01-10.