Swimming Studies is a wonderful, unique book from the writer and artist Leanne Shapton, author of Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry, with her artwork.

As a teenager, Leanne Shapton trained for the Olympic swimming trials; now an artist, she is still drawn inexorably to swimming, in pools and on beaches across the world. What do you with an all-absorbing activity once it's past its relevance, and yet you can't quite give it up? Is it possible to find a new purpose for its rigours and focus?

Swimming Studies is an original, meditative work that explores what it is like to move from a world of competition and discipline to one of recreation and introspection. Giving a fascinating glimpse into the private realms of swimming, and drawing, Shapton tells an intimate story of suburban adolescence, family ties, and the solitary underwater moments that now ground her artistic habits.

» Read the opening pages of Swimming Studies by downloading the Penguin Taster here

» Visit Penguin Tasters

'Whenever I come across something of Leanne Shapton's, I feel like I have found a hidden treasure' - Amy Sedaris

Leanne Shapton - Swimming Studies

Leanne Shapton talks about her new book Swimming Studies