TY - BOOK AU - Amy-Jane Beer TI - FLOW: :Rivers, Water and Wildness SN - 9781472977403 U1 - 551.48 PY - 2022/// CY - London PB - Bloomsbury KW - Natural sciences KW - Earth sciences & geology KW - Geology, Hydrology Meteorology KW - Surface features of the earth KW - Rivers; Lakes N1 - WINNER OF THE 2023 JAMES CROPPER WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING 'Unparalleled.' THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 'A true masterpiece.' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT 'A tour de force.' GUY SHRUBSOLE 'Quietly courageous.' PATRICK BARKHAM 'Lyrical, wholehearted and wise.' LEE SCHOFIELD 'A knockout. I loved it.' MELISSA HARRISON 'Honest, raw and moving.' SOPHIE PAVELLE 'An extraordinary book by an extraordinary author.' CHRIS JONES 'A book of wit, wonder and of wisdom.' NICK ACHESON 'Beautiful.' NICOLA CHESTER A visit to the rapid where she lost a cherished friend unexpectedly reignites Amy-Jane Beer's love of rivers setting her on a journey of natural, cultural and emotional discovery. On New Year's Day 2012, Amy-Jane Beer's beloved friend Kate set out with a group of others to kayak the River Rawthey in Cumbria. Kate never came home, and her death left her devoted family and friends bereft and unmoored. Returning to visit the Rawthey years later, Amy realises how much she misses the connection to the natural world she always felt when on or close to rivers, and so begins a new phase of exploration. The Flow is a book about water, and, like water, it meanders, cascades and percolates through many lives, landscapes and stories. From West Country torrents to Levels and Fens, rocky Welsh canyons, the salmon highways of Scotland and the chalk rivers of the Yorkshire Wolds, Amy-Jane follows springs, streams and rivers to explore tributary themes of wildness and wonder, loss and healing, mythology and history, cyclicity and transformation. Threading together places and voices from across Britain, The Flow is a profound, immersive exploration of our personal and ecological place in nature. Table of Contents Prologue: Only water, moving on Chapter 1: Fresh and yet so very old Eddy: Snow dome Chapter 2: Torrent Eddy: Hollowing Chapter 3: Oak-water Eddy: Groundwater Chapter 4: Fly while we may Eddy: Dark water Chapter 5: Lines upon the land Meander: Bath toys Chapter 6: The meanings of water Eddy: Otter Chapter 7: The Bell Guy and the Gypsey Chapter 8: A willow grows aslant a brook Eddy: Minus seven Chapter 9: The cry of the Dart Meander: Flow Chapter 10: Trespassers will Eddy: Summer on the Nene Chapter 11: Chalk stream dreaming Eddy: Heron Chapter 12: Land covered by water Eddy: High water Chapter 13: Ouroboros Meander: Ghosts in the willows Chapter 14: The silver fish Chapter 15: Light and water Eddy: Damnation Chapter 16: Anadrome Chapter 17: Riverwoods Eddy: Flowover Chapter 18: Confluence and influence Meander: A river released Chapter 19: The Mucky Beck Eddy: Withow Gap Chapter 20: Rodents of unusual size Eddy: The narrow bridge Chapter 21: Heartland Chapter 22: A descent into Hell Gill (and out the other side) Epilogue ER -