More of a manual than a chronicle, Carp Reflections describes 15 years of the author's obsessive search for his quarry. This is not a book for anyone but the most dedicated carp chaser; the style is dense and awkward and the illustrations are in the main confined to rigs and repetitive views of fat fish cradled in the author's arms.

Paul Selman knows a great deal about carp fishing and when he sticks to the technical stuff he writes with great authority. This would have been a better book had it had an editor to keep the author on track and on the whole I found Carp Reflections vaguely dispiriting; a shame, because as a “how-to” book, it would have had real merit. Out of print now, which is not surprising.