I have Diana Nyad's books and Swiimming to Antarctica, Penny Deans Open Water Swimming, Marcia Cleveland's Dover Solo and a few more basic training books. I like Diana's best but for planning/training information I haven't found anything I liked yet but maybe you have?
Which are your favorite training books and which are your favorite inspriational stories?
Neat idea for a thread. I've been reading swimming books since I was a kid and got a copy of Don Schollander's biography(Deep Water--I still have it but haven't looked at it in 30 years).
Haunts of a Black Massuer is the most literary swimming book I know of and is worth reading. Very different from most other books about swimming but enjoyable for the perspective it brings, and the quality of the writing.
The best swimming book for learning about high level competing from the inside, or at least right alongside is, in my opinion, PH Mullen's book, Gold in the Water. Very well done. There are a couple other similar books that aren't as well done, about multiple swimmers aiming for an olympic team.
There are actually quite a few enjoyable books around, which generally fall into the single swimmer biography school. For example, Breaking the Surface--about Greg Louganis. I know he was a diver, but he swam in SD CIF champs when he was in high school so I'm going to count it. The Crossing about Matthew Webb--by Kathy Watson--is very interesting. He was the first to swim the English Channel, and led an interesting, and ultimately tragic life seeking fame and fortune.
You can order from Australia several interesting books about Australian open water icons, Des Renford and Shelly Taylor-Smith. The former is Nothing Great is Easy, which I enjoyed. As he neared 40, after being a pretty mediocre swimmer as an age grouper, he discovered his aptitude for swimming the English Channel, and did so 19 times. For those of us who are masters swimmers with a pretty mediocre pool career, his story resonates. The latter, Dangerous When Wet, is an interesting story about Shelly Taylor-Smith's swim career. She was a grown-up for most of the book, and an open water champion, so its a more interesting read than the usual sports biography about teenagers.
If you haunt used book stores, or search on line, you might be able to find Long Distance Swimming by Gerald Forsberg. Forsberg was an English open water swimming great and reading his book, which was published in the 1950s, gives you a great perspective on open water swimming. It will make you want to try to find Morecambe Bay and swim there.
A recently published book about the history of open water swimming, which I prefer to some others, is History of Open Water Swimming, by Tim Johnson. It has a nice history of open water swimming, and talks quite a bit about the history of Manhattan swimming as well as many other swims. He also includes a list of successful crossers of Catalina so you can see people you know in a book. If you know anyone who has done the crossing. Nicely done.
Except for the Renford book and the Shelly Taylor Smith book, a very good place to get swimming books is the Swimming World website, www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/.../shop.asp. Those two books were available through Paul Ellercamp's website, Oceanswims.com, but he seems to have gotten out of the book business. Both of them are available at
www.biblioz.com/main.php, which is an Aussie used book website. I have never used it so can't vouch for anything about it other than its apparent existence.
Neat idea for a thread. I've been reading swimming books since I was a kid and got a copy of Don Schollander's biography(Deep Water--I still have it but haven't looked at it in 30 years).
Haunts of a Black Massuer is the most literary swimming book I know of and is worth reading. Very different from most other books about swimming but enjoyable for the perspective it brings, and the quality of the writing.
The best swimming book for learning about high level competing from the inside, or at least right alongside is, in my opinion, PH Mullen's book, Gold in the Water. Very well done. There are a couple other similar books that aren't as well done, about multiple swimmers aiming for an olympic team.
There are actually quite a few enjoyable books around, which generally fall into the single swimmer biography school. For example, Breaking the Surface--about Greg Louganis. I know he was a diver, but he swam in SD CIF champs when he was in high school so I'm going to count it. The Crossing about Matthew Webb--by Kathy Watson--is very interesting. He was the first to swim the English Channel, and led an interesting, and ultimately tragic life seeking fame and fortune.
You can order from Australia several interesting books about Australian open water icons, Des Renford and Shelly Taylor-Smith. The former is Nothing Great is Easy, which I enjoyed. As he neared 40, after being a pretty mediocre swimmer as an age grouper, he discovered his aptitude for swimming the English Channel, and did so 19 times. For those of us who are masters swimmers with a pretty mediocre pool career, his story resonates. The latter, Dangerous When Wet, is an interesting story about Shelly Taylor-Smith's swim career. She was a grown-up for most of the book, and an open water champion, so its a more interesting read than the usual sports biography about teenagers.
If you haunt used book stores, or search on line, you might be able to find Long Distance Swimming by Gerald Forsberg. Forsberg was an English open water swimming great and reading his book, which was published in the 1950s, gives you a great perspective on open water swimming. It will make you want to try to find Morecambe Bay and swim there.
A recently published book about the history of open water swimming, which I prefer to some others, is History of Open Water Swimming, by Tim Johnson. It has a nice history of open water swimming, and talks quite a bit about the history of Manhattan swimming as well as many other swims. He also includes a list of successful crossers of Catalina so you can see people you know in a book. If you know anyone who has done the crossing. Nicely done.
Except for the Renford book and the Shelly Taylor Smith book, a very good place to get swimming books is the Swimming World website, www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/.../shop.asp. Those two books were available through Paul Ellercamp's website, Oceanswims.com, but he seems to have gotten out of the book business. Both of them are available at
www.biblioz.com/main.php, which is an Aussie used book website. I have never used it so can't vouch for anything about it other than its apparent existence.
