To the River Audiobook By Olivia Laing cover art

To the River

A Journey Beneath the Surface

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To the River

By: Olivia Laing
Narrated by: Kate Reading
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Over 60 years after Virginia Woolf drowned in the River Ouse, Olivia Laing set out one midsummer morning to walk its banks, from source to sea. Along the way, she explores the roles that rivers play in human lives, tracing their intricate flow through literature, mythology, and folklore.

Lyrical and stirring, To the River is a passionate investigation into how history resides in a landscape - and how ghosts never quite leave the places they love.

©2019 Olivia Laing (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Art & Literature Authors Ecosystems & Habitats Environment Literary History & Criticism Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Science
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The beautiful writing is perfectly matched with the beautiful voice. The experience is completely captivating.

Virginia Woolf Serves as a Walking Companion

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such a beautiful account full of historical and botanical information. I highly recommend this book.

beautiful account and historical story

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I expected this to be a peaceful, relaxing narrative about nature, but this was the darkest, most depressing book since Nabokov’s “The Overcoat”. I don’t recommend listening to it if you are already feeling down.

Dark and depressing

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Fantastic narrator! The book is great too! Very interesting and I could listen over and over. Thank you!

Fantastic narrator! Great story!

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I could listen to Kate Reading read the classified ads but the story is great also.

Wonderful

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I’m flabbergasted to hear this reader, with her mesmerizing voice and British English pronunciation of what is obviously a British English text, read some words and expressions as if American. Very puzzling. For example, dates are read without the (perhaps unwritten but definitely colloquial “th”) and “noughty” years without their “and”. And “sYmultaneous” - nails screeching down a blackboard!

Which English?

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This is one of the most lovely books I’ve ever read. There is so much more here than can be contained in a cover blurb—or in any reader review. First rate narration elevates this gorgeous prose.

So much beneath the surface

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A wanderer myself, I’m transported along with every intimate step. Liang weaves literary and natural history into a long poem.

Flows flawlessly

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