Lifelong swimmer and award-winning television journalist Lynn Sherr’s new book, SWIM: Why We Love the Water is a joy to read … and re-read.

Tides of swimming history and unreported back stories and photos from the chlorine jungle to open bodies of water the world over fill each and every page. Her prose educates readers with a lighthearted enthusiasm and provides numerous little known secrets of the aquatic past.

Her stories span exploits and engagements from the Roman Empire to the incomparable Lynne Cox and other courageous soloists throughout history; the tales are fuel that can ignite hours of cocktail banter among swimmers of all ages, backgrounds and abilities.

Words of advice from Benjamin Franklin, observations from Bruce Wigo, and descriptions of her own open water swim across the Hellespont are interspersed throughout the fun-filled book like buoys along a tropical swim.

The hardback 190-page book touches upon celebrities of the silver screen like Johnny Weissmuller and Esther Williams as well as aquapreneurs like Simon Murie and Terry Laughlin. Each chapter moves smoothly and swiftly like the swimming strokes of the most graceful aquatic heroes and heroines.

Looking down on each page of Lynn’s book is similar to swimming over a coral reef: you are not quite sure what you are going to come across next, but you are sure enough to enjoy it when you do. Lynn literally covers thousands of years of history, along with nearly 100 photos, engravings and images that like perfectly placed currents gently pushing the reader towards the end of an extraordinarily well-written and deeply researched page turner.

Copyright © 2012 by Open Water Source