Rag and Bone : A Family History of What We've Thrown Away

Author(s): Woollett, Lisa,
Binding: Hardback,
Date of Publication: 02/07/2020,
Pagination: 240 pages,
Series: N/A,
Imprint: John Murray Publishers Ltd,
Published By: John Murray Press,
Book Classification: Memoirs, Family history
ISBN13\EAN\SKU: 9781473663961

Description:
From relics of Georgian empire-building and slave-trading, through Victorian London's barged-out refuse to 1980s fly-tipping and the pervasiveness of present-day plastics, Rag and Bone traces the story of our rubbish, and, through it, our history of consumption.

In a series of beachcombing and mudlarking walks - beginning in the Thames in central London, then out to the Kentish estuary and eventually the sea around Cornwall - Lisa Woollett also tells the story of her family, a number of whom made their living from London's waste, and who made a similar journey downriver from the centre of the city to the sea.

A beautifully written but urgent mixture of social history, family memoir and nature writing, Rag and Bone is a book about what we can learn from what we've thrown away - and a call to think more about what we leave behind.