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Sign up todayTo the River
A Journey beneath the Surface
Narrator
Kate Reading
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Length
8 hours 29 minutes
Language
English
Over sixty 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.
Olivia Laing is the author of five acclaimed works of nonfiction and the recipient of the 2018 Windham-Campbell Prize in nonfiction. Her first novel, Crudo, won the 2019 James Tait Black Prize.
Kate Reading is the recipient of multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards and has been named by AudioFile magazine as a “Voice of the Century,” as well as the Best Voice in Science Fiction & Fantasy in 2008 and 2009 and Best Voice in Biography & Culture in 2010. She has narrated works by such authors as Jane Austen, Robert Jordan, Edith Wharton, and Sophie Kinsella. Reading has performed at numerous theaters in Washington D.C. and received a Helen Hayes Award for her performance in Aunt Dan and Lemon. AudioFile magazine reports that, "With subtle control of characters and sense of pacing, Kate’s performances are a consistent pleasure."
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Reviews
“Listeners will enjoy hearing Kate Reading’s crisply pleasant voice as they imagine themselves in author Olivia Laing’s shoes as she walks the length of the Ouse River in Sussex, England…The comfortable pacing of Reading’s narration reflects the tone of Laing’s musings on the river’s power and presence across the centuries…The solitude of this meditative journey is occasionally interrupted by locals, whose accents and vibrancy are deftly portrayed by Reading.”
“Olivia Laing joins the best nature writers…Laing is a brilliant wordsmith and this is a beautifully accomplished book.”
“A beautifully written meditation on landscape.”
“By turns lyrical, melancholic and exultant, To the River just makes you want to follow Olivia Laing all the way to the sea.”
“Laing’s language is supple and saturated, bright and dappled in this gracefully meandering river of words and deeply pleasurable journey across Woolf’s tidal world and the many-storied English countryside.”
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