A beautifully written, elegant and subtle debut ― Financial Times

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

A beautifully written meditation on landscape ― The Sunday Times

Wonderfully allusive . . . The book's subject and structure fuse pleasingly, weaving and meandering, pooling into biographical, mythical or historical backwaters ― Observer

Without wanting to sound gushing, her writing at its sublime best reminds me of Richard Mabey's nature prose and the poetry of Alice Oswald . . . Laing seems to lack a layer of skin, rendering her susceptible to the smallest vibrations of the natural world as well as to the frailties of the human psyche ― The Times

Has a Sebaldian edge to it that lifts it out of memoir and biography and into something far more tantalizing and suggestive ― Guardian

This hugely accomplished first book draws on local lore and history, a vast range of research and some soaring lyrical writing ― Sunday Times

Olivia Laing joins the best nature writers . . . Laing is a brilliant wordsmith and this is a beautifully accomplished book ― Independent

Brave, distinctive, and deeply intelligent . . . The book has an intense, humming, cumulative effect ― Literary Review