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As she experimented with memoir, biography, and novels that contained elements of each, [Woolf] noticed that the process by which events are converted into history is inevitably distorting, for the past acquires in the telling a shape and coherence that is absent from the present. It's an observation that she expressed sharply when she came to write of her brother's death...

I could hear the water lapping almost at my heels, a flood tide rushing to glut the river. It rises and it falls, that flood, and in time it will have the barbastrelle and the brown-eared bat; it will have the Oak Eggar and the Garden Tiger; it will have the peregrine and the clattering jacks.

A marriage is a private business, even for people who leave behind them such a vast litter of diaries, letters and third-party gossip. What occurs at its centre, what bonds maintain it, are not always visible, or even guessable, to the outsider's greedy eye. The sense that arises from this residue of words is of an abiding love, comprised in equal parts of affection and intellectual stimulation. My inviolable centre, Virginia called Leonard...

#StorySettings #River

Laing‘s walk down the River Ouse, looking at the roles the river has had through history. This is also the river that Virginia Wolf drowned herself in

Laing decided to take a walk along the River Ouse, the river where Virginia Woolf was found drowned. As she walks she describes the landscape she is walking in, but also looks at what have happened in the past along this river.

I enjoyed this, but must confess that I excepted more Woolf than what I got based on the blurb.

#BookReport

I finished To the River

I read Flush, Jane and Prudence, and volumes 2 and 3 of Orange.

I‘ve just started Islands of Abandonment

#WeeklyForecast

Continue reading To the River

I want to finish Flames. I want to read August Blue and hopefully start From the Wreck. This might be a little too ambitious since I have plans this week.

I also want to continue with my audio, but I have seems to have trouble with that.

There also seems to be a blue cover theme at the moment.

#BookReport

I finished Fire Rush and Dinner in Rome. And I read The Dead in the Vaulted Arches.

I‘m currently reading To the River and Flames

I relatively early report from me today since I‘m off to meet some colleagues for lunch.

Such high expectations and such a letdown. Some pretty sentences, and interesting history, but such tedious descriptions of every plant and bug along her walk. She even writes about how many steps a bird took before flying off, and conversations she overhears that had nothing to do with anything. I wonder how she could even remember such trivial things word for word.

I did appreciate the history, and found some value, but otherwise, meh.

Currently reading

Finally got around to reading this book. Like the River Ouse itself, this travelogue meanders through the British countryside allowing its dual narratives to unfold. The first and briefest one recounts Laing‘s own adventures in the river. The second supplies us with a variety of historical events that are linked to the river itself. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Finally finished my first nonfiction read of the year! I haven‘t been feeling super motivated to read lately so this one took me much longer than it normally would, but I really enjoyed it. Laing‘s writing is beautiful and her nature descriptions are so vivid. I liked all the history of the landscape that was interwoven with her journey.

The language of this book is so breathtakingly beautiful. I love landscapes and nature and the way Laing describes them makes them seem otherworldly. Really enjoying this so far.

One of my big 2019 reading goals is to read more nonfiction, because I currently read none, so I‘m starting with this one! This one called to me because I‘m drawn to anything relating to water (I‘m a Pisces so duh) and because I wrote my thesis on Virginia Woolf. Excited for this new adventure!

#TBRTemptation

At a painful juncture in her life, Olivia Laing took it upon herself to walk the Sussex Ouse from source to sea. The resulting book is a powerful meditation on how the past dwells in landscape and is part memoir, part biography (Virginia Woolf is a recurring presence) and part natural history. She definitely doesn't take the Roman road approach: she meanders, to her own and her reader's advantage. She has a fine turn of phrase, too. #reread

I'm really enjoying this re-read! Though now seems like a good moment to switch to Serial Reader for a while to catch up with Ulysses. (I've fallen behind with it as it's not exactly my favourite book.) #readathon

This looks good! #TBRsomeday

Great book about the author's journey along an English river. #bookinvolvingtravel #popsugarchallenge

TBR addition