Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
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.

Leanne Shapton is an author, artist, illustrator and publisher based in New York City. She is currently the art editor at The New York Review of Books. She is the co-founder, with photographer Jason Fulford, of J&L Books. Shapton is a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. She grew up in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Shapton is the author of nine books: Toronto; Was She Pretty?; Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry; Native Trees of Canada; Sunday Night Movies; Swimming Studies; Guest Book: Ghost Stories; In Cars and Toys Talking, a children’s book. Swimming Studies won the 2012 National Book Critic’s Circle Award for autobiography, and was long listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2012.

Leanne Shapton's profile page