By the River: Essays from the Water's Edge

by Amy-Jane Beer, Niellah Arboine, Roger Deakin

What is a river?, asks Amy-Jane Beer, in the opening essay of this collection, which blends nature writing and memoir from some of the most exciting writers of today.

Twelve writers consider the subject of rivers and how they shape us throughout our lives, demarcating cities as well as moulding our creative consciousness. Tessa Hadley revisits Rumer Godden’s The River; Jo Hamya pays homage to Virginia Woolf; Michael Malay goes nightfishing for eels by the river Severn; and Marchelle Farrell revisits the tropical waterfalls of her childhood home in Trinidad.

Tender and astute, By the River explores the cultural, social and psychological significance of the rivers that run through our societies and our minds, bringing together these twelve contemporary writers in a celebration of water and its transformative qualities.

Contributors
Niellah Arboine | Amy-Jane Beer | Roger Deakin
Marchelle Farrell | Tessa Hadley | Jo Hamya
Amy Key | Rebecca May Johnson | Michael Malay
Jamal Mahjoub | Caleb Azumah Nelson | Ellena Savage

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Nature, Contemporary

154 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2024

About the author

Amy-Jane Beer is a biologist and writer. She has written more than 30 books about science and natural history including Cool Nature and The A-Z of Wildlife Watching. She has also edited a number of wildlife publications including Animals, Animals, Animals and Wildlife World magazine.
The natural sciences have been a lifelong fascination for her, and her childhood enthusiasm was formalised at Royal Holloway University of London, where she graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Biology, then spent years squinting down a microscope and fretting over the welfare of a tank full of sea urchin larvae to earn a PhD.

Reviews

[Jacqueline Barba · Rating 3 out of 5]

some of these were lovely and very soothing. the nature descriptions and the insight into the natural world were very calming to read, especially outside! the books biggest downfall is really just that some of this writing was so aggressively british, and we all know how I feel about that.

[Meg Jenkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had enough of rivers now

[Charo Havermans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really loved some of these.
Read by many rivers and the sea in four countries.

[Sanne :) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars! Enjoyed a lot of these :) Very nice if you want to read a short story

[Georgie Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where I read majority of this - the banks of the Glenelg river - added highly to the experience. Water rights are everything x

[Juliana]

”Flowing water moves mountains, it hollows and builds land. It provides the medium in which the chemistry of life recycles and reorganises energy and matter. There’s a river running through you, now.”

I didn’t connect with this as I did with AT THE POND, but there is beautiful writing here.

Favorites:
I Felt Sure She Had Gone Down to the River by Jo Hamya
The Harbour by Amy Key
Falling Out of the Sky by Caleb Azumah Nelson

[Orlaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good, some very bad, most simply fine : a happily quick summer read

[Connor · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was alright, like most short story/essay collections it was mixed.

Some of the stories were genuinely good, "I Felt Sure She Had Gone Down To The River" by Jo Hamya was a moving tribute to Virginia Wolf and The Harbour by Amy Key was touching as well, an essay about her connection to the River Tyne

But these were the first two of the collection and I never really felt as interested in the others, lots of them got lost in a tedious philosophical question like "what is a river?" (We all know what a river is) or quoted lots of statistics about rivers and how much walkable land we have in the UK and how upsetting it is that we can't swim in the rivers anymore. Good and informative of a message this may be, it didn't stop it from being middle class and twee and dull, especially when this happened in multiple essays in a row.

Probably the worst moment is during a story called Night Fishing (I think) where the author compares eels being trapped and blocked from returning home via river to...the Windrush generation being deported by Theresa May (what?) and it kinda lost me there, I tend to just prefer it as a rule of thumb in literature when we don't compare oppressed minorities to...eels.

Anyway! Some stories were fine, some were not, meh/10.

[Rebecca Hordern · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s alright, I prefer the pond one

[Lio Smits · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 a few good essays, mostly mediocre, some really bad

[Ella Ball · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel so settled by this book, so calm.

[Cass · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely delightful. Excellent collection of essays, each one well written and captivating, makes you want to get into a river and swim immediately

[Floortje Van sandick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute, quiet, and calming.

[Rebecca Van Der Veer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A real mixed bag. Some stories are great, others are mheh.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mlle Alice, pouvez-vous nous raconter votre rencontre avec By the River ?
"J'adore cette collection d'essais éditée par Daunt Books, dont mon préféré reste At the Pond, et je saute de joie à chaque fois qu'ils en annoncent un nouveau."

Dites-nous en un peu plus sur son histoire...
"Douze auteurs différents nous parlent de leur rapport à la rivière..."

Mais que s'est-il exactement passé entre vous ?
"Ce qui m'attire par-dessus tout avec cette collection, c'est que c'est varié. Moi qui n'apprécie pas les nouvelles, je trouve au contraire que le format court est parfait pour un essai et j'apprécie qu'un thème unique soit défendu par différentes voix. Je n'aime peut-être pas chaque texte avec la même intensité mais je voyage, je découvre, j'apprends. Et quand le sujet proposé est en rapport avec la nature, c'est la cerise sur le gâteau. Cette fois-ci, j'ai particulièrement aimé l'essai de Jo Hamya qui parle avec tendresse de Virginia Wolf, celui de Roger Deakin qui défend l'accès libre aux rivières pour tous ou encore ceux de Marchelle Farrell et Niellah Arboine qui nous emmènent respectivement à Trinidad et en Jamaïque. Et d'autres encore. Il n'y en a aucun que je n'aurais pas voulu trouver dans ce recueil."

Et comment cela s'est-il fini ?
"J'espère sincèrement qu'ils en publieront d'autres, il y a tant de sujets à explorer ! En attendant, il en manque un à ma collection, il va me falloir y remédier."

http://booksaremywonderland.hautetfor...

[Tim Crowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

By the River is a collection of essays about rivers and more broadly their impact on people, cultures, and nations. There is an overarching theme throughout of the impact of empire and later capitalism on our rivers and how that, in turn, has affected the people who leave near them (almost everybody).

I went into this book expecting to read essays from all around the world. Instead most of the essays are centred on Britain which, as a Brit, didn't affect my personal enjoyment of the book but it probably will sour this book for others. I don't know why these particular essays were selected but it seems like a British editor has collected works from writers they are already familiar with rather than researching further afield to craft a book that is more representative of the entire world rather than just one island.

However, while reading this book I did notice the general trend of each essay being more and more explicitly critical of the causes of the degradation of these environments.

My favourites from this collection are probably: The Harbour by Amy Key about growing up at the mouth of the Tyne; The contradiction of Cities by Jamal Mahjoub about the history of Khartoum, the triple capital; and Nightfishing by Michael Malay about the European eels migration from the Sargasso Sea to Europe and their decline.

If you want some insightful and vivid lessons about rivers I would recommend reading this book.

[saguaros · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

I was confused that, out of all these essay collections (At the Pond, In the Kitchen, In the Garden), this one has the lowest overall rating because it started so strong for me to the point I thought I’d like it more than In the Garden. And in some ways, I did. Unfortunately, the second half of the collection felt less solid and interesting, and it sort of flagged a little for me. I think overall, most essays are interesting, and I think the editors at Daunt Publishing are trying to create short collections that are diverse, in terms of writers obviously, but in terms or style and approaches to the theme, which I appreciate a lot. But like In the Garden, it just so happens that some of the approaches just did not click with me as much, or weren’t as much what I was looking for (which is generally more geared towards nature writing, and art/writing in general).

That said, my fave essays were: I Felt Sure She Had Gone Down to the River by Jo Hamya; An Orange Vision by Rebecca May Johnson; River Mumma by Niellah Arboine; and Approaching the Ichen by Roger Deakin

[Sofia · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was recommended to me by a friend as one of those "I saw this and thought of you" books.
I was very excited to read it and even ordered it after it wasn't available in the bookstore or the local library.

Unfortunately, I was so disappointed that I'm struggling with reviewing it in the first place.
Maybe because I expected something in the lines of Nan Shepherd's "The living mountain" or maybe because the book opens with an essay about Virginia Woolf (whom I don't care for in the slightest, so I'm biased).
The river here could he replaced with anything really, any form of suicide.
Quite a few essays are like this, and I have to admit I skipped those midway through.

There are a few good ones, that weave current issues about rivers, access to blue spaces and the need for conservation of our waterways with personal stories and make for a good read.

Overall, this book should have been split into two separate books and only one of them should have had the title "By the River". But unfortunately, then it would be a rather short book.

[paula. · Rating 3 out of 5]

although i did thoroughly enjoy a lot of these essays, the middle section "crossing the river" also felt thoroughly out of place. whereas "reading the river" and "beyond the river" had clever and insightful contributions, "crossing the river" felt like the editors had too much space and not enough submissions, so they had to settle for "what is a river?" (a painful, boring account of faux-philosophical musings i started to skim and then skip) and "hydraulics" (more a story of expensive healthcare and toothache, with a connection to a river that was such a reach it was almost laughable).

this collection shines in amy key's "the harbour", marchelle farrell's "memory river", and caleb azumah nelson's "falling out of the sky".

3.5/5

[Rebecca Olive · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful book of essays that took me a while to read as I lingered over them. There are some standouts but all of them are beautifully written and easy to linger over. Lots of others have noted Jo Hamya’s opening piece, but for me it was Malay’s ‘Nightfishing’, Savage’s ‘Hydraulics’, and Hadley’s literary reflection that’s offered some real gold about people and water places and colonisation and relations with our multispecies companions. Im not sure why other reviewers have been so middling in their responses? It might that the essays can’t really be rushed in the reading. As with sister book, ‘At the Pond’, I will be thinking about these thought-provoking essays for some time to come.

[Ollie Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

the divine intervention i had with this book was crazy!!!! so hello to the angels and thankyou for coming to visit me. i thought the essays in this were good, but they didn’t blow me away. but i don’t think they were meant to. i think their main use comes by encouraging people to be mindful. should i give it four stars? no i think three is a good rating. unsurprisingly caleb’s essay was the best. i will likely read this book again. and i am definitely now going to be that little bit more appreciative of rivers both when i am in their presence, and when i am not.

[Amy Hazelton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lovely read! My favourite set of short essays were ‘Reading the river’ as these felt more literary. Some of the later essays were more fact/figure based but still interesting. This was really thought provoking and touched on things I’d never even considered.

I really enjoyed ‘Memory river’ by Marchelle Farrell - “Memory flows like a river, and it is through its constant flow that we come into being”

I loved the first essay by Jo Hamya relating to Virginia Woolf.

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eigenlijk zijn essayverzamelingen van verschillende auteurs rond één thema nooit een groot succes. Te veel herhaling in de onderwerpen, dubbeling in benadering, en gekke uitschieters naar boven- en onderkant.

Van deze bundel ga ik Rebecca May Johnson, Amy-Jane Beer, Elena Savage en Caleb Azumah Nelson onthouden. Roger Deakin is altijd goed.

[Tandy Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

A series of essays with the theme of rivers running through them. I appreciated the variety and depth of response and geographical variation too. It reminds me of how much we don’t know about other ways of life and experiences. I am always drawn to stretches of water- coastal or inland and I am clearly not alone in this.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as enjoyable as the others in this lovely series, I found as you do with collections, that some essays worked more than others. I especially enjoyed Tessa Hadley's musings on Rumer Godden's novel The River, River Mumma by Niellah Arbonne and Jo Hamya's investigation of Virginia Woolf's relationship to the Ouse.

[Bethan Latham · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the other books in this series so I thought I’d love this more than I did. Some essays were very good- I Felt Sure She Had Gone Down to the River by Jo Hamya was really brilliant. I also loved River Mumma by Niellah Arboune. The last section was the weakest part for me (though I did like Falling Out of the Sky by Caleb Azumah Nelson). Definitely worth a read for the few gems!

[B M · Rating 4 out of 5]

The good in this is very good (I love reading personal reflections), the more mid stories are also nice, but then the bad is eye-rolling (however, that’s only 2/3 of the 12 stories sooooo)

Overall good time , got some new authors to find more books by x

[Amelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection oscillated from essays that felt like poems with their calm flowing reflection, and those that felt like essays.

I am now inclined to read more essay collections. It is a good way to have bite sized pieces of literature to enjoy while travelling.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Leonor Almeida · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5