One Last Swim

One Last Swim By: RL Monsheimer John’s life is one marked by obstacles. Even his parents, before he was born, were faced with the obstacle of overcoming their different religious backgrounds—Roman Catholic and Conservative Judaism—to get married and start a life. In school, John longs to pursue his passion for swimming, but his parents think his dream is silly and wish he would focus more on getting better grades and less time on some Olympic medal pipe dream. When a significant injury threatens his swimming career, John must decide to give up his goals or keep moving forward, defying everyone’s expectations of what he can accomplish.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the Booker Prize–winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December comes a literary master class on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about ourselves—and our world today. LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR, Time, San Francisco Chronicle, Esquire, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Town & Country, The Rumpus, Electric Lit, Thrillist, BookPage • “[A] worship song to writers and readers.”—Oprah Daily For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. In his introduction, Saunders writes, “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art—namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?” He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.

Priya and Tanuja meet at a swimmer’s camp in Pune. Soon the pressure to win the swimming championship turns them into arch rivals. Misunderstandings lead to heated arguments and one morning Tanuja is found murdered in the pool. Circumstantial evidence leads the police to identify Priya as the prime suspect. Inspector KP Singh who has reluctantly travelled to Pune to oversee the security of this swimming camp suddenly finds himself in the middle of a dastardly homicide. Can Singh unravel the mystery lurking beneath the blue waters? The Last Swim is a gripping thriller that will leave you stunned!

Amrith comes to terms with his sexuality in this sweeping coming-of-age story set against the stormy backdrop of monsoon season in 1980s Sri Lanka. For fans of Call Me By Your Name. Shyam Selvadurai’s brilliant novels, Funny Boy and Cinnamon Gardens, have garnered him international acclaim. In his first young adult novel, he explores first love with clarity, humor and compassion. The setting is Sri Lanka, 1980, and it is the season of monsoons. Fourteen-year-old Amrith is caught up in the life of the cheerful, well-to-do household in which he is being raised by his vibrant Auntie Bundle and kindly Uncle Lucky. He tries not to think of his life “before,” when his doting mother was still alive. Amrith’s holiday plans seem unpromising: he wants to appear in his school’s production of Othello and he is learning to type at Uncle Lucky’s tropical fish business. Then, like an unexpected monsoon, his cousin arrives from Canada and Amrith’s ordered life is storm-tossed. He finds himself falling in love with the Canadian boy. Othello, with its powerful theme of disastrous jealousy, is the backdrop to the drama in which Amrith finds himself immersed.

In this standalone companion short story to Spirit's Key, Edith Cohn's debut novel, readers learn how a family on a small southern island came to be haunted by hurricanes. Tuckitor Hatterask had a fierce desire to go for a swim, even though a storm was brewing and he knew it wasn't a good idea to go into the water. But the forces pulling him toward the ocean were much stronger than he ever could had imagined. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

For more than a decade, top coaches have turned to one resource time and time again. Collecting the wisdom, insights, and advice from the sport’s legendary instructors, The Swim Coaching Bible immediately established its place in the libraries of swim coaches around the globe. Coaches, it’s time to make room alongside that classic for a new resource! The Swim Coaching Bible, Volume II, picks up where the original left off, providing more instruction, guidance, and expertise on every aspect of the sport. Inside, you’ll learn the secrets, strategies, and philosophies of 27 of today’s most successful coaches, including these legendary leaders: • Jack Bauerle • George Block • Mike Bottom • Bob Bowman • Sid Cassidy • John Urbancheck • Bill Rose • Vern Gambetta • David Durden • Brett Hawke • Gregg Troy • John Leonard • Dick Shoulberg • David Marsh • Teri McKeever • Bill Sweetenham From developing swimmers to building a winning program, teaching the nuances and refining stroke techniques to applying the latest research to training and conditioning programs, it’s all here. Endorsed by the World Swimming Coaches Association, this new collection is another landmark work in competitive swimming. If you coach the sport or want a competitive edge, The Swim Coaching Bible, Volume II, is a must-own.

Longlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2021 The outcast in a family of former competitive swimmers must prepare for the end of her mother’s life in this sharp, sparkling debut from a bold New Zealand talent. 'Intense, moving, and darkly comic' New Zealand Herald When an affair ends badly and takes her career down with it, 26-year-old Erin leaves Auckland to spend the holiday weekend with her aunt, uncle, and terminally ill mother at their suburban family home. On arrival she learns that her mother has decided to take matters into her own hands and end her life – the following Tuesday. Tasked with fulfilling her mother’s final wishes, Erin can only do her imperfect best to navigate difficult feelings, an eccentric neighbourhood, and her complicated family of former competitive swimmers. She must summon the strength she would normally find in the water as she prepares for the loss of the fiery, independent woman who raised her alone, and one last swim together in the cold New Zealand Sea.