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mirandaaaa's review against another edition
informative
relaxing
slow-paced
4.75
This was such an interesting read, I have honestly learnt so much about swimming. The writing style was accessible, with lots of facts through in there but not in a dense off-putting way it was perfect. The topics were broken down well, ranging from the Greeks and Romans to the history of the swimsuit all of it I lapped up and repeatedly stopped the book in order to mention a fact I had just read. I feel it might have been interesting to add a section on the history of para-swimming, as there were casual mentions of records broken by Paralympians etc but no set chapter on it. It was also a little bit American centric, would be interesting to look properly at other non-western cultures, which like para-swimming was only touched on briefly. Although that being said I feel Means covered a broad ground in an impressive space and time.
It was so interesting and concerning that the segregation in America is the route of why many African-Americans are not high profile swimmers today. Means raised points to the surface that I had never before even considered, and it was truly eye opening.
Also the fact that there was a real issue over modesty and women’s costumes used to have lead weights in them in order to preserve modesty, what?? Also, about 85% of Bikinis never touch water. And the lane markers in pools are built to disperse the waves swimmers make in the pools as well as separating swimmers. These are some of my favourite facts but there were many.
Overall, fully one of the best non-fiction books I’ve read this year.
It was so interesting and concerning that the segregation in America is the route of why many African-Americans are not high profile swimmers today. Means raised points to the surface that I had never before even considered, and it was truly eye opening.
Also the fact that there was a real issue over modesty and women’s costumes used to have lead weights in them in order to preserve modesty, what?? Also, about 85% of Bikinis never touch water. And the lane markers in pools are built to disperse the waves swimmers make in the pools as well as separating swimmers. These are some of my favourite facts but there were many.
Overall, fully one of the best non-fiction books I’ve read this year.
vanessammc's review against another edition
3.0
Some chapters better than others. Ultimately I just wasn’t all that interested in swimming.
abookolive's review against another edition
My review is in the Christian Science Monitor.
annemaries_shelves's review against another edition
I've decided to DNF this - at least for now.
As an avid swimmer (who sadly hasn't swum in 2.5 years because of the pandemic), I was really interested in this.
The writing is engaging but he used some more outdated terms/phrases in the early stages of the book to describe people, locations, art, etc. as primitive, exotic, etc. which made me side eye him a bit.
In the first 80 pages (which is what I read), it was also weighted quite heavily to Europe. There was a section where he spoke about how the Islamic world wasn't ignorant of swimming (or science, math, education in general) compared to the Dark Ages/Medieval Europe but he didn't expand enough before jumping right to 16-17th century Europe.
I don't know, there's just something about the author's vibes I didn't love... but I may come back to it eventually.
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