To the River - (Canons) by Olivia Laing (Paperback)

About the Book

To the River is the story of the Ouse, the Sussex river in which Virginia Woolf drowned in 1941. One idyllic, midsummer week over sixty years later, Olivia Laing walked. Woolf's river from source to sea. The result is a passionate investigation into how history resides in a landscape and how ghosts never quite leave the place they love.

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

A gentle, wise and riddling book--ROBERT MACFARLANE

Magical . . . By turns lyrical, melancholic and exultant, To the River just makes you want to follow Olivia Laing all the way to the sea--PHILIP HOARE "Daily Telegraph "

About the Author

Olivia Laing is a widely acclaimed writer and critic. Her work appears in numerous publications, including the Guardian, Observer, New Statesman, Frieze and New York Times. She's a Yaddo and MacDowell Fellow and was 2014 Eccles Writer in Residence at the British Library. To the River was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the Dolman Travel Book of the Year. Her second book, The Trip to Echo Spring was shortlisted for the 2013 Costa Biography Award and the 2014 Gordon Burn Prize, and The Lonely City has been shortlisted for the 2016 Gordon Burn Prize. She lives in Cambridge.