
This is a wonderful book about place, and how it’s history can shape it, as well as us. Laing follows the history of the River Ouse as it meanders through the county of Sussex, and the people that witnessed it. We spend a lot of time with Virginia Woolf and how she was drawn to the river in life, and also, how she used it in her death. But the historical figures, and authors specifically, that Laing references are many, and I loved dipping into the aspects of their lives through the river. A beautifully lyrical ode to one of the natural features of the earth that we live our lives parallel too, and a reminder of how much they influence us. ~ Reviewed by Becky Doherty