Lara Maiklem recommends five books about searching for treasure

Lara Maiklem, an author and mudlarker, chooses her five favourite books about fossicking and finding. Her new book, "A Mudlarking Year: Finding Treasure in Every Season", is published this week. 

Derek Jarman's Garden

Derek Jarman, 1995

I have always been a fan of Derek Jarman (I even met him once) and I come back to his books again and again. This was the last he ever wrote and it is a beautiful gathering of thoughts and words on his fossicked garden of beach finds, sculptural stones, driftwood and adopted plants.

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Strands: A Year of Discoveries on the Beach

Jean Sprackland, 2012

Before she left to live in London, Sprackland decided to keep a record of her final year on the beach on which she had spent 20 years walking. It is a poetic and elegantly written ode to beachcombing.

Adrift: The Curious Tale of the Lego Lost at Sea

Tracey Williams, 2022

In 1997, during a storm, a container full of Lego fell off a ship just off Land's End in Cornwall. Ironically, the pieces were sea-themed and more than 25 years later they are still washing up. This book is a fascinating and gentle message about the horrors of plastic pollution.

Treasure in the Thames

Ivor Noël Hume, 1956

Ivor Noël Hume was the godfather of modern mudlarking and this is the first book ever written on the subject. I have a lot of his books and I love the way he writes, but sadly this one is out of print and it took me 15 years of booklarking to find a copy that I could afford!

Stuff

Jerzy Gawronski and Peter Kranendonk, 2018

A photographic catalogue of 13,000 of the roughly 700,000 objects that were found in Amsterdam’s Amstel River during the construction of a new Metro line, between 2003 and 2012, might not sound that interesting, but it's mesmerising – and perfect for relaxing with on a wet Sunday afternoon.