Then came Spike Island: The Memory of a Military Hospital (2001) and England's Lost Eden: Adventures in a Victorian Utopia (2005), both of which are atmospheric and at times ghostly cultural histories of deep Albion. His non-fiction output has ranged widely in subject matter, beginning with Serious Pleasures: The Life of Stephen Tennant (1990) about the 'brightest' of the 1920s Bright Young People, an aristocratic lover of Siegfried Sassoon who spent 17 years in 'decorative reclusion' after the second world war. I thought: why have I bothered?'įor a long time it seemed Hoare's career was anything but planned. It's really remarkable – the whole of my career planned out at the age of 14. The whale I'd painted in poster paint using my mother's clear nail varnish to make it look slicker and shiny as if it had just come out of the water. 'Alongside the blank verse and stream of consciousness lyrics were doodles: pictures of whales, 70s glam-rock stars, 1920s decadent figures – all of my obsessions. He was surprised to find a blue notebook that had belonged to his father, who worked as a cableman all his life, but had been commandeered by the teenaged Philip. Part memoir, part fantastical travelogue, 'The Sea Inside' takes us on an astounding journey of discovery.A couple of years ago Philip Hoare, now 55, found himself digging around in a sideboard in the semi-detached Southampton house in which he grew up. Along the way we meet an amazing cast from scientists to tattooed warriors from ravens to whales and bizarre creatures that may, or may not, be extinct. Navigating between human and natural history, he asks what these stories mean for us now. From there he travels to the other side of the world - the Azores, Sri Lanka, New Zealand - in search of encounters with animals and people. He begins on the south coast where he grew up, a place of almost monastic escape.

In 'The Sea Inside', Philip Hoare sets out to rediscover the sea, its islands, birds and beasts. Yet caught up in our everyday lives, we barely notice it. It is ceaseless change and constant presence. It gives us life, provides us with the air we breathe and the food we eat. A startling new book, his most personal to date, from Philip Hoare, winner of the 2009 Samuel Johnson Prize for 'Leviathan'.

Serious Pleasures by Philip Hoare