In this buoyant blend of memoir, cultural history, sports psychology, & travel writing, an award-winning journalist & writer shares her enduring love for swimming. ” Swim” is a celebration of swimming & the effect it has on our lives. It`s an inquiry into why we swim
- the lure, the hold, the timeless magic of being in the water. It`s a look at how swimming has changed over the millennia; it`s an ancient activity
- & how it`s becoming more social than solitary today. It`s about our relationship with the water, with our fishy forebears, & with the costumes that we wear. You`ll even find a few songs to sing when you push out those next laps. From the biology of swimming to the fame of Esther Williams, the best swimming beaches to the training routines of Olympians, from the weird double-jointedness of some swimmers to the best ways to learn so that anyone can avoid the example of the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who lamented, ” Why can`t I swim, it seems so very easy?” When his friend, the biographer Edward John Trelawny, said, ”because you think you can`t”, Shelley plunged into Italy`s Arno River & dropped like a rock. With Swim, you can avoid that happening to you.

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` Swimmer Among the Stars announces the arrival of a writer who is gifted not just with extraordinary talent but also with a subtle, original & probing mind.` Amitav Ghosh An interview with the last speaker of a language. A chronicle of the final seven days of a town that is about to be razed to the ground by an invading army. The lonely voyage of an elephant from Kerala to a princess`s palace in Morocco. A fabled cook who flavours his food with precious stones. A coterie of international diplomats trapped in near-Earth orbit. The stories in Swimmer Among the Stars reveal an extraordinary young storyteller in Kanishk Tharoor, whose tales emerge from a tradition that

Includes:: the creators of the Arabian Nights, Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, Angela Carter & other ancient & modern masters of the fable.

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An interview with the last speaker of a language. A chronicle of the final seven days of a town that is about to be razed to the ground by an invading army. The lonely voyage of an elephant from Kerala to a princess`s palace in Morocco. A fabled cook who flavours his food with precious stones. A coterie of international diplomats trapped in near-Earth orbit. The stories in Swimmer Among the Stars reveal an extraordinary young storyteller in Kanishk Tharoor, whose tales emerge from a tradition that

Includes:: the creators of the Arabian Nights, Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, Angela Carter & other ancient & modern masters of the fable.

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In April 2007, after 66 days, Matthew Mohlke became the first person to swim the Amazon, 3, 272 miles from the Peruvian Andes to the Atlantic shores of Brazil. On this extraordinary journey he dodged piranhas, sharks & river pirates, met indigenous tribes who either revered him as a god or chased him with machetes, & swam from dawn to dusk for 60 miles every single day. Like pioneers before him who first climbed Everest or explored the poles, Martin shifted the limits of human capability. His story
- of endurance, of determination, of dehydration & exhaustion, of illness & blood pressure that reached heart-attack levels
- is an inspiration to people everywhere.

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Deborah Levy`s suspense-laden Man Booker-shortlisted novel explores the devastating effect that depression can have on apparently normal, stable people. Set over a single week, the plot follows a group of tourists on holiday in the French Riviera. Everything seems rosy enough on the surface, but all is not what it seems
- & the trouble seems to be stemming from Kitty French, a beautiful-yet-deranged botanist & aspiring poet. Swimming Home may be short, but it`s already been described as an epic thanks to its deep psychology, sharp wit & adept tackling of issues often shied-away from. Buy your copy today!
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The second novel from the author of Our Endless Numbered Days, which won the 2015 Desmond Elliott Prize & was a 2016 Richard & Judy Book Club Pick. ` Thrilling, transporting, delicately realised & held together by a sophisticated sense of suspense...more than matches the power of Fuller`s debut... Powerful, pleasing & pleasurable.` Sunday Times ` Gil Coleman looked down from the window & saw his dead wife standing on the pavement below.` Gil`s wife, Ingrid has been missing, presumed drowned, for twelve years. A possible sighting brings their children, Nan & Flora, home. Together they begin to confront the mystery of their mother. Is Ingrid dead? Or did she leave? & do the letters hidden within Gil`s books hold the answer to the truth behind his marriage, a truth hidden from everyone including his own children? ...

` Gil Coleman looked down from the window & saw his dead wife standing on the pavement below.` Gil`s wife, Ingrid has been missing, presumed drowned, for twelve years. A possible sighting brings their children, Nan & Flora, home. Together they begin to confront the mystery of their mother. Is Ingrid dead? Or did she leave? & do the letters hidden within Gil`s books hold the answer to the truth behind his marriage, a truth hidden from everyone including his own children? ...

` Having been banned from pools all over London for health & safety reasons, I can only gaze longingly at the sumptuous array of London pools. London swimmers rejoice!`
- Jo Brand London is a city built on water, & ideal for swimmers. Whether you are looking for an early morning dip on Hampstead Heath, want to join the Christmas Day Club at Hyde Park`s Serpentine or are searching for a Lido in Tooting, wherever you are in the Capital, you are rarely more than a paddle away from somewhere to swim. Swimming London is a guide, celebration & history of the 50 best swimming spots in London. From the regal baths at the RAC club to the super-chic rooftop pools at the Berkeley Hotel & Shoreditch House; from the open-water havens at Ham Lake & even the River Thames, to the grand old lidos at London Fields & Parliament Hill there is something for the casual swimmer, the long-distance athlete & the family day out. Drawing on a lifetime of swimming in the Capital & filled with tips & stories from its watery history, Swimming London provides a unique perspective on the city. So whether you`re in search of swim off the Tottenham Court Road, or looking for somewhere to stretch your limbs on a summer`s afternoon, this is the ultimate swimmer`s companion.
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Reproduction from Soho Publishing old swimming poster, size 30 x 40cm (12 x 16 approx.) Please note: Soho prints are supplied flat rather than rolled, with an A3 protective piece of cardboard, so the package will be larger than the standard size letterbox. To see other titles in this series please click on the series link. ...

` Pure genius, gliding lyricism.. . It is, simply, a delight` Independent on Sunday` Vivid with chlorine-bleached swimsuits, & post-match sorrow` Caitlin Moran, Observer, Books of the Year As a teenager, Leanne Shapton trained for the Olympic swimming trials; now an artist, she is still drawn inexorably to swimming, in pools & the sea. What do you do with an all-absorbing activity once it is past its relevance, & yet you can`t quite give it up? Swimming Studies is a lyrical, playful work that explores what it is like to move from a world of competition to one of recreation & introspection, giving a sideways glimpse into memory, adolescence, swimming, drawing, obsession & solitude.` Exquisite.. . brilliant, eccentric & moving
- an immersion in life.. . this enigmatic book is written out of what cannot be fathomed` Observer`A rich account.. . told with the originality & playfulness of an artist.. . Shapton shares Dave Eggers` talent for taking the mundane & making it viscerally new` The Times ` Captures a bittersweet part of the writer`s past as completely as a scent trapped in a bottle` John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Pulphead` If there is a more beautifully observed examination of the weightlessness, silence, rigour & delight of what it means to swim, I`ve never read it` David Rakoff, author of Half Empty
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