Summer's finally here! With the sun in the sky and the sea warming up, many of us are donning our bathers and splashing in. Whether for wellbeing, sport, or just for fun, swimming is more popular than ever both in Guernsey and further afield.
Take a deep dive into the world of swimming with these 10 fantastic books, including novels, memoirs, and a 'waterbiography'. Click the titles to dip your toe in!
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1. Why We Swim – Bonnie Tsui
Join writer and swimming Bonnie Tsui as she explores the unique skill of swimming from the five angles of survival, wellbeing, community, competition and flow. Propelled by stories of polar swim champions, a Baghdad swim club, Olympian athletes and modern-day samurai swimmers, Why We Swim takes us around the globe in a remarkable, all-encompassing account of the world of swimming. This is a joyous meditation on our innate connection to water and a true celebration of the wonders of swimming.
2. Sea Pools: 66 Saltwater Sanctuaries from Around the World – Chris Romer-Lee
Chris Romer-Lee selects 66 of the most beautiful and culturally significant sea pools from around the world, including the 25-metre cliffside Avalon Rock Pool in new South Wales, Australia, the sublime Pozo de las Calcosas in Spain that is shrouded in volcanic rock, and Ireland's historic Vico Baths to name but a few.
Sea Pools also includes four insightful essays: Nicola Larkin looks to the next generation of ocean pools in her exploration of how we can conserve, protect and regenerate the coastline; Therese Spruhan testifies to the healing and transformative benefits of ocean swimming; Freya Bromley discusses her odyssey to swim in every sea pool in Britain; and Kevin Fellingham on the importance of sea pools in South Africa.
The book is illustrated throughout with beautiful colour photography, as well as fascinating archive material to give an insight into the provenance of these vital sanctuaries.
3. The Ladies’ Midnight Swimming Club – Faith Hogan
When Elizabeth's husband dies, leaving her with crippling debt, the only person she can turn to is her friend, Jo. Soon Jo has called in her daughter, Lucy, to help save Elizabeth from bankruptcy. Leaving her old life behind, Lucy is determined to make the most of her fresh start.
As life slowly begins to return to normal, these three women, thrown together by circumstance, become fast friends. But then Jo's world is turned upside down when she receives some shocking news.
In search of solace, Jo and Elizabeth find themselves enjoying midnight dips in the freezing Irish Sea. Here they can laugh, cry and wash away all their fears. As well as conjure a fundraising plan for the local hospice that will bring the whole community together...
4. Florence Adler Swims Forever – Rachel Beanland
Atlantic City, 1934. Every summer, Esther and Joseph Adler rent their house out to holidaymakers and move into the apartment above the bakery they own. The apartment is where they raised their two daughters, Fannie and Florence, and, despite the cramped quarters, it still feels like home.
Now Florence has returned from college, determined to spend the summer training to swim the English Channel, and Fannie, pregnant again after recently losing a baby, is on bedrest, leaving her seven-year-old daughter Gussie in Esther’s care. After Joseph insists they take in Anna, a young woman whom he recently helped emigrate from Nazi Germany, the apartment is bursting at the seams. Esther wants nothing more than to keep her daughters close and safe but some matters are beyond her control: there’s Fannie’s risky pregnancy—not to mention her always-scheming husband, Isaac—and the fact that Stuart Williams, the heir of a hotel notorious for its anti-Semitic policies, seems to be in love with Florence.
When tragedy strikes during one of Florence’s practice swims, Esther makes the shocking decision to keep the truth about Florence’s death from Fannie—at least until the baby is born. She pulls the rest of the family into an elaborate web of secret keeping and lies, forcing to the surface long-buried tensions that show us just how quickly the act of protecting those we love can turn into betrayal.
5. Splash! 10,000 Years of Swimming – Howard Means
From the first recorded dip into what's now the driest spot on earth to the recreational swimmers in your local pool, humans have been getting wet for 10,000 years. And for most of modern history, swimming has caused a ripple that touches us all.
Splash! dives into Egypt, winds through ancient Greece and Rome, flows mostly underground through the Dark and Middle Ages (at least in Europe), and then re-emerges in the wake of the Renaissance before taking its final lap at the modern Olympic Games. Along the way, it kicks away the idea that swimming is just about speed or great feats of aquatic endurance, revealing how its history spans religion, fashion, architecture, public health, colonialism, segregation, sexism, sexiness, guts, glory and much, much more.
6. A Boy in the Water – Tom Gregory
Eltham, South London. 1984: the hot fug of the swimming pool and the slow splashing of a boy learning to swim but not yet wanting to take his foot off the bottom. Fast-forward four years. Photographers and family wait on the shingle beach as a boy in a bright orange hat and grease-smeared goggles swims the last few metres from France to England. He has been in the water for twelve agonizing hours, encouraged at each stroke by his coach, John Bullet, who has become a second father.
This is the story of a remarkable friendship between a coach and a boy, and a love letter to the intensity and freedom of childhood.
7. Leap In: A Woman, Some Waves, and the Will to Swim – Alexandra Heminsley
Alexandra Heminsley won a legion of fans with her effervescent Running Like a Girl, her manifesto-cum-memoir for anyone who has looked on with sadness at their running shoes lying discarded in the hall.
Now Heminsley weaves the same magic in Leap In, her spellbinding account of challenging our basic fears of the water and rediscovering an almost spiritual new realm.
From her all-too-accurate struggle to get into her first wetsuit to a triumphant swim from Kefalonia to Ithaca, the author's enthusiasm and sense of discovery (both of place and her own internal journey) is resolutely infectious, inspiring even the most land-locked of readers to dip their toe into the water.
8. Find A Way: One Untamed and Courageous Life – Diana Nyad
In the 1970s, Diana Nyad was widely regarded as the greatest long-distance swimmer in the world. She record after world record, circling Manhattan Island and crossing the 102.5 miles between the Bahamas and Florida. But one record continually eluded her: becoming the first woman to swim between Cuba and the Florida Keys without a shark cage. Finally, in September 2013, Diana completed the crossing.
Millions of people watched, cried and cheered for her tenacity and courage. Find a Way recounts this astonishing and hard-won triumph – and Diana's monumental courage in the face of failure. She failed, failed and failed again, but never gave up. With unwavering belief in the face of overwhelming odds, this is a story of perseverance, tenacity and commitment on an epic scale
9. Swell: A Waterbiography – Jenny Landreth
These days, swimming may seem like an egalitarian pastime, open to anyone with a swimsuit – but this wasn’t always the case. In the 19th century, swimming was almost exclusively the domain of men. Women were (barely) allowed to swim in the sea, but even into the 20th century they could be arrested if they dared dive into a lake. It wasn’t until the 1930s that women were reluctantly granted equal access. This is the story of the swimming suffragettes who made that possible; women who took on the status quo, and won.
Swell celebrates some amazing achievements, some ridiculous outfits and some fantastic swimmers who challenge the stereotypes of what women are capable of. It’s also the story of how Jenny eventually came to be a keen swimmer herself.
10. The Wednesday Morning Wild Swim – Jules Wake
Ettie is trying to figure out her future. Dominic’s just trying to forget his past.
But with the help of some unlikely friends, young and old, a secret lake hidden in the grounds of a beautiful estate and a scruffy dog, a new community is formed – right when they all need each other the most.
Looking for more reading inspiration? Check out more from our book blog here.
