Books like River

A woman moves to a London suburb, near the River Lea, without knowing quite why or how long for. She goes on long, solitary, walks during which she observes and describes her surroundings, an ode to nature and abandoned places that is both luminous and menacing. During the course of these wanderings she is drawn into reminiscences of the different rivers she has encountered over the various stages of her life, from the Rhine, her childhood river, to the Saint Lawrence, the Ganges, and an almost desiccated stream in Tel-Aviv. Written in language that is as precise as it is limpid, River is a masterful novel, full of poignant images and poetic observations, which cements Esther Kinsky’s reputation as one of the leading prose stylists of our time.