Books by Tom Fort

What has been the dish of kings, the subject of myths and the traveller of epic and mysterious journeys? The eel.Beginning life in the Sargasso Sea, the eel travels across the ocean, lives for twenty or so years, and then is driven by some instinct back across the ocean to spawn and die. And the next generation starts the story again. No one knows why the eels return, or how the orphaned elvers learn their way back. One man discovered, after many adventures, the breeding ground of all eels - and he is the hero of this book.Eels were being caught and consumed 5000 years before the birth of Christ - Aristotle and Pliny wrote about them; Romans regarded them as a peerless delicacy; Egyptians accorded them semi-sacred status; English kings died of overeating them. There are many strange practices among eel fishers all over the world, and many great fortunes based upon the eel harvest.The Book of Eels, a combination of social comment, biography and natural history, is also a fascinating and witty account of Tom Fort's obsession with the eel, his journeying to discover the eel in all its habitats, and the people he meets in his pursuit.

The story of one of the country's most loved - and loathed - roads.

Peer into the secret, silent world of the freshwater fish and explore evolution of the art and industry of fishing in Britain's rivers and streams.

The Village News is a whimsical, funny and informative travelogue by pedal power of a variety of villages across our nation that encapsulate, or showcase, all the best elements of what could be seen as the English village.

It was along and by these rivers that Fort travelled around Eastern Europe meeting its people and immersing himself in its culture. Since that trip though, much has changed and in more recent years around one million Poles have settled in Britain.

Travelling partly on foot and bicycle, but chiefly in a plywood fifteen foot punt, Fort journeyed through the unsung heart of Middle England, showing him the unseen face of his own country.

Contains two interlocking strands: the story of those who sought to know and understand our weather; and the story of its impact on us - our history, our culture, the way we think and behave. This work focuses on the people who volunteered and toiled for the cause, telling their stories by tracking them down to the places.

Ahumorous, discursive, utterly absorbing journey from Dover to Land's End, along the English Channel shore, the busiest waterway in the world