Swimming Studies

‘If there is a more beautifully observed examination of the weightlessness, silence, rigor, and delight of what it means to swim, I’ve never read it.’ David Rakoff‘Expresses what it’s like to be haunted by the person one used to be, and the search for how that person exists in the present. Leanne Shapton writes with such curiosity, ruefulness, intelligence, and grace.’ Sheila Heti ‘Her honed attention to detail gives the reader the sensation of watching a meticulous mind watching itself, down to the hundredth of a second.’ New Yorker

Leanne Shapton is a painter and writer. She is the author of several books including Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry, and the children’s book Toys Talking. Swimming Studies won the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. She is currently the Art editor at the New York Review of Books.

Rita Bullwinkel is the author of the novel Headshot (2024), a Pulitzer finalist, and the short-story collection Belly Up.