To the River

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. To prepare for this weeklong summer walk, Laing studied maps, newspaper clippings, and reports from coroners' offices and commissioners of sewers. The comfortable pacing of Reading's narration reflects the tone of Laing's musings on the river's power and presence across the centuries. She also addresses various people associated with the river, including Virginia Woolf, who drowned herself in it in 1941, and Gideon Mantell, who made paleontological discoveries along its banks. The solitude of this meditative journey is occasionally interrupted by locals, whose accents and vibrancy are deftly portrayed by Reading. M.J. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine