This Luminous Coast

by Jules Pretty

Over the course of a year, Jules Pretty walked along the shoreline of East Anglia in southeastern England, eventually exploring four hundred miles on foot (and another hundred miles by boat). It is a coast and a culture that is about to be lost not yet, perhaps, but soon to rising tides and industrial sprawl. This Luminous Coast takes the reader with him on his journey over land and water; over sea walls of dried grass, beside stretched fields of golden crops, alongside white sails gliding across the intricate lacework of invisible creeks and estuaries, under vast skies that are home to curlews and redshanks and the outpourings of skylarks.

East Anglia's coastline is as much a human landscape as it is a natural one, and Pretty is equally perceptive about the region's cultural heritage and its "industrial wild": fishing villages and the modern seaside resorts, family farms and oil refineries, pleasure piers and concrete seawalls, cozy pubs and military installations. Through words and photographs, Pretty interweaves stories of the land and sea with people past and present. He is a passionate and sensitive guide to a region in transition, under stress, and perhaps even doomed, as finely attuned to its history as he is to its unique sensory world."

Genres: Nature, Travel, Nonfiction, Natural History

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Jules Pretty OBE

Reviews

[Sophy H]

Original review:

I loved this book!

I have to say I do like me a good book about coastlines, tidal estuaries, liminal spaces, and this offering by Jules Pretty did not disappoint.

The writing reveals random histories, facts, asides, detours and tangents which are fascinating, engaging and entertaining.

East Anglia has such a rich history that there is plenty to delve into and Pretty delves with abandon! It was a pleasure to read.

I think the only thing I couldn't get my head around was Pretty's insistence on the aggressive preservation of the coastline. Coastal land will always be eroded by the sea, that's kind of the sea's job! We can try and slow it down maybe but it will always happen regardless of human intervention. There's not much we can do to completely stop it. And sadly those homes/businesses/buildings located adjacent to the sea will eventually be lost to the powerful beast. Harsh it may be, but an inevitability. I think if Pretty could get his head around this fact, then he wouldn't be so concerned all the time.

A great read on a subject I'm very fond of. Definitely a keeper.

Re-read August 2026:

What she said ⬆️⬆️!!

[Salvatore]

A curious book that meanders through history and legend and literary comments as the author hikes the East Anglian coastline. I sometimes wish it had more focus but it is like an elegy for a land- and seascape that will erode and morph completely by the end of my lifetime.

[Ashley]

A rather charming but very meandering book, but perhaps that's well-suited to a book about marshland, rivers, and coast.

[Hannah Dosch]

Meet the author in my New Nature Writing class, was very nice man and very helpful in giving tips and encouragement to budding writers.

[Alan Fricker]

Very much of its type and crossing the streams with all manner of Essex, estuary, coast, nature , history and randomness texts. Liked it very much. A beautiful book too which adds to the pleasure