Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River

by Beth Kephart

Book Overview

From acclaimed writer Beth Kephart, author of A Slant of Sun, comes a short, imaginative telling of the life of the Schuylkill River, which has served as the source of Philadelphia's water, power, industry, and beauty for the city's entire life. Before that, it fed the indigenous people who preceded William Penn, and has since time immemorial shape our region.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1592136362
• ISBN13: 9781592136360
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Length: 120 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.6" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

FLOW is the amazing

Beth Kephart is a remarkable writer and poet. Writing the history of the river from the point of view of the river is not only creative but ingenius. It is so much more than just history; it is inspirational.

Poetic history of a river

I think that The Philadelphia City Paper best described FLOW when it wrote: "Kephart's well-researched essays provide historical nuance...a prescient contemporary account of the city's history. But it is the narrative poetry, in the taut female voice of the river, which makes this a book to descend into, slowly, with all senses at the ready....Kephart is a master not only of descriptive memory, but of constructing an existential vocabulary." I would have given it six stars if I could!

Soul of the Schuylkill

I'm lucky enough to spend a lot of time on rivers--fishing, hiking, watching the currents. But I've never read a more original or interesting portrait of any place (water or land) than FLOW. The short sections (written from the point of view of the Schuylkill)are so detailed they function like stories or lyric essays. This is a book that made me really *feel* the Schuylkill, and I also got to bask in the history of the region, which just made reading the book that much more enjoyable. I think Beth Kephart may have invented her own genre here: the river autobiography. FLOW is a book that will influence outdoor/nature writers for a long time to come.