Swimming Studies
Swimming Studies by Leanne Shapton, published by Picador on March 25, 2025, is a reflective exploration of the author’s life shaped by the sport of swimming. This edition spans 336 pages and is presented in English. Shapton shares her experiences from joining a swim team at the age of ten in Ontario to training for the Olympic trials, blending her narrative with evocative watercolors and photographs that capture the essence of her aquatic journey.
Readers will find a collection of contemplative essays that delve into the rigorous routines, competition, and personal growth associated with swimming. Shapton’s reflections encompass her adolescence in suburban Canada, the camaraderie of teammates, and the transition from athleticism to artistry. The book examines swimming not just as a sport but as a profound way to engage with time and movement, offering insights into how these experiences influence one’s perspective in various aspects of life.
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Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Observer
Back in print, a “fusion of cool, clear-eyed prose and watercolors, photographs and painted portraits” (Time Out New York) by celebrated author and artist Leanne Shapton, on a sport that has shaped her life.
Intimate with chlorinated space; weightless yet limited; closed off to taste, sound, and most sight; acutely aware of the clock: this is a swimmer’s state. When ten-year-old Leanne Shapton joins an Ontario township swim team with her brother, she finds an affinity for its rhythms—and spends years training, making it to the Olympic trials twice.
Swimming Studies reflects on her time immersed in a world of rigor and determination, routine and competition, pairing together contemplative essays and paintings. Vivid details of an aquatic life appear: adolescence in suburban Canada, dawn risings for morning practice, bus rides with teammates, a growing collection of swimsuits, dips in lakes and oceans. When she trades athletic pursuits for artistic ones, the metrics of moving through water endure.
In these elegant and potent meditations, Shapton renders swimming as a mode of experiencing time, movement, and perspective, capable of shaping our lives in every environment.
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