J. G. Ballard, Day of Creation

Not one of Ballard's best, but it does take place almost entirely in midstream.

David Blackbourn, The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape, and the Making of Modern Germany

Linda Butler, Yangtze Remembered: The River Beneath the Lake

An album of stunning and melancholy black & white photographs.

Richard Adams Carey, The Philosopher Fish: Sturgeon, Caviar, and The Geography of Desire

The sturgeon is the quintessential river dweller, having survived in the flow of time for so long. Its only peer is the wels, the giant catfish of the Danube, which, at least according to legend, is capable of consuming a human child.

Bruce Chatwin, “The Volga”

Julio Cortázar, “Relato con un fondo de agua”

Siv Cedering Fox, “White and the River”

Edward Gargan, The River's Tale: A Year on the Mekong

Paul Goodman, “The Lordly Hudson”

Peter Hessler, River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze

Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat

Claudio Magris, Danube

Joseph Mitchell, Up in the Old Hotel

Especially “The Rivermen”

Sy Montgomery, Journey of the Pink Dolphins

Ernst Neweklowsky, Die Schiffahrt und Flosserei im Raume der oberen Donau (“Navigation and Rafting on the Upper Danube”)

Redmond O'Hanlon, In Trouble Again: A Journey Between the Orinoco and the Amazon

William Shakespeare, Hamlet

(because of Ophelia, naturally)

Various authors, The Rivers of America series

Sandy Denny, “The Ballad of Easy Rider”

Bob Dylan, “Watching the River Flow”

Sleepy John Estes, “Floating Bridge”

Joni Mitchell, “River”

Planxty, “Sweet Thames Flow Softly”

Pete Seeger, “Sailing Down My Golden River”