When it’s 90 + degrees in the shade the idea of jumping into a swimming pool sounds great. Some people really love swimming–like my Mom and my brother. Then there are people like me who swim like rocks. I’d rather go to the dentist than to a public swimming pool. Reading about swimming is a perfect compromise! Crank up the AC to about 69 degrees and dive into a great new pool book!
Fiction
Breathless by Jennifer Niven j is included here as it has a swimming pool on the cover, but it is that modern [and to me appalling] right of passage that is key to the story: having sex for the first time. A coming-of-age story in the 21st century with much more to the story. I’ve got this one on my TBR.
Thank you to blogger Emily Talks About Books for introducing me to this book.
Members Only: A Novel by Sameer Pandya. What can one racist joke do? In this members-only club–a lot!
I’ve pre-ordered this–it drops on July 7th.
What better to read poolside than a who-done-it with a drowning while “sea bathing” [swimming]? Deadly Primrose by Suzette A. Hill.
Nonfiction
Admit it, this cover now scares you to death, right? Where are their masks? Why aren’t they social distancing? Should that pool even be open? Lido: A Dip into Outdoor Swimming Pools by Christopher Beanland
I love this cover!! Splash! 10,000 Years of Swimming By Howard Means is perfect for an introvert like me who despises going to public swimming pools!
“Why We Swim is propelled by stories of Olympic champions, a Baghdad swim club that meets in Saddam Hussein’s palace pool, modern-day Japanese samurai swimmers, and even an Icelandic fisherman who improbably survives a wintry six-hour swim after a shipwreck.” [Amazon]
Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui
When Elizabeth Beisel watched the Olympics on television for the first time, she was seven years old in her parents’ living room. She decided right then and there she would compete at the Olympic Games one day. Eight years later, she made her first of three Olympic Teams as a fifteen-year-old. (Amazon)
Few people spend more time in the pool than Olympic swimmers! Had the 2020 Tokyo Olympics not been canceled, this book would have gotten a lot more attention, I’m sure.
Silver Lining by Elizabeth Beisel
For Children of All Ages
Pool Party! at Farmer Brown’s! But will the cows join in? I love the Click, Clack books!
Want to add more titles? Leave me a comment with the new pool/swimming books you’ve come across. Or link to your review!
For more pool and swimming books, see:
The Three-Year Swim Club by Julie Checkoway. My review is here (scroll down to see the review).
Summer House With Swimming Pool by Herman Koch. My review is here.
Diving Pool: Three Novellas by Yoko Ogawa. My review is here.
Hopewell's Public Library of Life 
My thoughts on swimming are similar to yours — no pool books that I know of, BUT Dreamland, which I read in the past few years, talks a lot about the community pool in the Ohio town it focuses on. That was really memorable.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I read Dreamland–the huge pool in Portsmith [down the road about an hour from me]. Alcoa built that town. It’s a dump now. Shawnee State University was developed on some of that former company land.
LikeLike