Swimming Studies
Swimming Studies by Leanne Shapton, published by Daunt Books in August 2025, is a meditative memoir that intricately explores the world of swimming. This edition, comprising 224 pages, features a new introduction by Rita Bullwinkel and presents a unique blend of prose, watercolors, photographs, and portraits. Shapton recounts her journey from joining a swim team at the age of ten to competing in the Olympic trials, capturing the essence of a swimmer’s experience and the profound impact it has on her life.
Readers will find a vivid portrayal of Shapton’s life, marked by the rigors of training, the camaraderie of teammates, and the quiet moments spent in water. The memoir delves into themes of routine, competition, and the transition from athleticism to artistry, illustrating how the experience of swimming shapes one’s perception of time and movement. With its elegant writing, Swimming Studies offers insights into the personal and transformative nature of sport, making it a noteworthy addition to the genres of biography and personal memoir.
Official synopsis Publisher
With a new introduction by Rita Bullwinkel
A brilliantly original, meditative memoir, a ‘fusion of cool, clear-eyed prose and watercolours, photographs and portraits’ (Time Out New York), that explores the world of swimming.
Intimate with chlorinated space; weightless yet limited; closed off to taste, sound, and most sight: this is a swimmer’s state. When ten-year-old Leanne Shapton joins a swim team, 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 rigour and determination, routine and competition. Vivid details of a life spent largely underwater emerge: 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 elegant, spare writing, Shapton renders swimming as a mode of experiencing time, movement, and perspective, capable of shaping our lives in every environment. The result is captivating and profound: a modern classic of sport writing and memoir from a singular talent.
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