To the River cover art

To the River

A Journey Beneath the Surface

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Thousands of incredible audiobooks and podcasts to take wherever you go.
Immerse yourself in a world of storytelling with the Plus Catalogue - unlimited listening to thousands of select audiobooks, podcasts and Audible Originals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

To the River

By: Olivia Laing
Narrated by: Kate Reading
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

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

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Trip to Echo Spring cover art
Modern Nature cover art
The Outrun cover art
Everyman's England cover art
So Late in the Day cover art
The Easternmost House cover art
On Gallows Down cover art
The Flow cover art
Ring the Hill cover art
To the Island of Tides cover art
Icons of England cover art
Next to Nature cover art
Elena Knows cover art
All stars
Most relevant
What a great book! An unpromising subject woven into a fascinating tapestry of history, geography and canals. Off now to read some Virginia Woolf!

Superb, Scintillating

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This, to me, was a book about existance, death, and how we can find ways to be in this world that we are both destroying and have the capacity to save at the same time. It meandered, like a river, through Olivia’s own thoughts and experiences both during her walk and from other times in her life, the lives of Virginia & Leonard Woolf, Gideon Mantell, Simon de Montfort and Charles Dawson, and some extremely profound thoughts on life and death. 

I found it absolutely mesmerising, deeply moving and know I will be returining to it again and again.

I must also add that Kate Reading's narration was perfect.

A meandering walk through the heart of existence

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A wonderful, intelligent and original book, read by a robot (or so it seems) who insists on pronouncing and emphasizing every sy-lla-ble. Like the early days of speaking computers. I don’t understand why the publisher or author allowed this.

Wonderful book Terrible narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Who chooses narrators for audible? I have abandoned so many as I can’t stand the narration. It seems to me that this woman has been directed to pronounce certain words for the American audience fertle instead of fertile being an example. Also ‘twenty one June’ instead of ‘the twenty first of June’. They never afford us the same privilege when American books are printed or narrated for our market! I feel like she is trying to read in that annoying stilted way poets read their work at performance events and has no feeling for the subject. It detracts from the words which speak for themselves. I would much rather hear the author or just someone reading in a pleasant, gentle voice. Don’t think I will be finishing this either.

What dull narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I’m sorry to say this, but the narration is really off-putting and makes the listen quite hard going and unenjoyable. Monotone and robotic intonation. Please re-record with a different narrator because the book itself is wonderful.

The Narration Isn’t Good

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews