Author(s): Amy-Jane Beer

Nature | Nature Writing | Grief

'A true masterpiece.' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
'Simply beautiful.' STEPHEN MOSS
'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.

Review: A true masterpiece; generous, elegant, acute, tender and furious. -- Charles Foster * Times Literary Supplement *
The perfect commingling of deep research with sparkling observation and quiet eddies of feeling, helmed by a lifelong kayaker, biologist and all-round adventurous soul... small wonder The Flow is such a knockout. I loved it. * author of All Among the Barley *
A rich mix of history and mythology, of science and nature writing at its very best. -- PD Smith * The Guardian *
Our 2023 Nature Book of the Year winner is regrettably very topical, and every judge absolutely loved the book. The glorious detail and personal experiences, all written in such elegant and beautifully poetic language, was unparalleled. -- Alastair Giles * Director of the James Cropper Wainwright Prize *
A quietly courageous, open-hearted exploration of Britain's becks, bourns and streams. -- Patrick Barkham * author of The Butterfly Isles *
Lyrical, wholehearted and wise, The Flow is a hymn for the rivers of Britain. -- Lee Schofield * author of Wild Fell *
Honest, raw and moving, Amy's prose is as captivating as the rivers she describes. I thought I knew what rivers were, but this stunning book is a powerful reminder of their infinity, their mystery, and their bewildering complexity. -- Sophie Pavelle * author of Forget Me Not *
The Flow moves deftly between deeply touching personal experience and carefully-researched erudition. It is a book of wit, of wonder and of wisdom. -- Nick Acheson, naturalist and conservationist
The Flow is an extraordinary book by an extraordinary author.
In a golden age for nature writing, this stunning book is one of the very best. -- Ben Hoare * BBC Countryfile *
A gutsy biologist with webbed feet, Amy-Jane Beer plunges the reader into rivers the length and breadth of Britain. We emerge bathed in wonder and full of fresh understanding. -- Derek Niemann * author of Birds in a Cage *
Part memoir, part celebration of the many rivers and waters of Britain, The Flow is passionately alive - a work of tremendous range and scope by one of our finest writers about the living world. -- Caspar Henderson * author of The Book of Barely Imagined Beings *