How do you invent an Olympic sport? For Katharine Whitney Curtis, it took the right idea, great talent, some good timing, and the determination to make it happen. The originator of synchronized swimming as we know it today, she even wrote the first book on the subject in 1936. But there was much more to her life and career. After the start of World War II, Curtis became a recreational director in the American Red Cross and followed the troops wherever the course of war took them, serving under Generals Patton and Eisenhower, before becoming a director of travel for the U.S. Army in Europe during the Cold War. Unbound by fear or the narrow expectations of society, this was a woman who lived ahead of her time, making things happen along the way. As her first biography, this book generously features Curtis's own words, selected from more than 2,000 pages of letters, and contextualized by her surviving friends and family members.

'I Found My Tribe is inspiring, humbling and a picture of what love really looks like' Marian Keyes An invocation to all of us to love as hard as we can, and live even harder, I Found My Tribe is an urgent and uplifting letter to a husband, family, friends, the natural world and the brightness of life. Ruth's tribe are her lively children and her filmmaker husband, Simon, who has Motor Neurone Disease and can only communicate with his eyes. Ruth's other 'tribe' are the friends who gather at the cove in Greystones, Co. Wicklow, and regularly throw themselves into the freezing cold water, just for kicks. 'The Tragic Wives' Swimming Club', as they jokingly call themselves, meet to cope with the extreme challenges life puts in their way, not to mention the monster waves rolling over the horizon. 'Fitzmaurice tells her story in sparkling prose that is as sinewy as her new sea-strengthened body, and as admirable and boundless as her spirit', Sunday Times 'Uplifting and life-affirming' Stylist

In The 100 Greatest Swimmers in History, John Lohn profiles some of the biggest names the sport has ever seen, from Mark Spitz and Tracy Caulkins to Katie Ledecky and Michael Phelps. Each swimmer is ranked based on achievements such as Olympic medals, world and European championships, and world records. Lohn provides insight into how these swimmers became the best in their sport by detailing their accomplishments, finest performances, records, and noteworthy biographical information. This new, updated edition contains results from the two most recent World Championships and the 2016 Olympic Games, and while many athletes further cemented their top-100 status, some newcomers also made their way into the rankings-including Katie Ledecky, who launched herself high up the list with her dominating performances. The 100 Greatest Swimmers in History also features a new section highlighting the top coaches in the sport and includes multiple appendixes that serve as wonderful references for information such as world and Olympic medal counts of the profiled swimmers. Fans, coaches, athletes, and sport historians alike will find this an indispensable resource.

Waterman is the first comprehensive biography of Duke Kahanamoku (1890-1968): swimmer, surfer, Olympic gold medalist, Hawaiian icon, waterman. Long before Michael Phelps and Mark Spitz made their splashes in the pool, Kahanamoku emerged from the backwaters of Waikiki to become America's first superstar Olympic swimmer. The original "human fish" set dozens of world records and topped the world rankings for more than a decade. Kahanamoku used his Olympic renown to introduce the sport of "surf-riding," an activity unknown beyond the Hawaiian Islands, to the world. No American athlete has influenced two sports as profoundly as Kahanamoku did, and yet he remains an enigmatic and underappreciated figure: a dark-skinned Pacific Islander who encountered and overcame racism and ignorance long before the likes of Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, and Jackie Robinson. Kahanamoku's connection to his homeland was equally important. He was born when Hawaii was an independent kingdom; he served as the sheriff of Honolulu during Pearl Harbor and World War II and as a globetrotting "Ambassador of Aloha" afterward. In Waterman award-winning journalist David Davis examines the remarkable life of Duke Kahanamoku, in and out of the water.

In 1857 Everard Digby, an extrovert Cambridge scholar, published the first scientific treatise on swimming - and one of the first on any modern sport. Six months later he was expelled from his college, and died in obscurity as a country parson. Nicholas Orme rehabilitates Digby as a great pioneer of the history of sport.

The book opens with a detailed history of swimming in Britain from the Romans to the sixteenth century, which is followed by an account of Digby's life and work and its impact on swimming down to the eighteenth century.

The book also includes the first modern edition of Digby's treatise, in the English version of 1595, with the 43 original illustrations.

'Pleasure beckons at the water's edge.' With these words, Eric Chaline celebrates the physicality and sensuality of swimming - attributes that might have contributed to the evolution of the human species. Chaline's comprehensive account surveys swimming from prehistory to the present day. He decodes the earliest human myths to reconstruct swimming's prehistory and history; he explains its role in religious rituals, trade and manufacture, warfare and medicine, and chronicles its transformation into the leisure activity and competitive sport that together have made it the most commonly practiced physical pastime in the developed world. Swimming is now a cultural marker that stands for eroticism, leisure, endurance, adventure, exploration and excellence, and latterly, like other disciplines that use repetitive movements to discipline the body and still the mind, it is held by wild swimmers to be a lane to spiritual awakening - one stroke at a time. There is no single story of human swimming, but many currents that merge, diverge and remerge towards a future in which our survival may depend on our ability to adapt to life in an aquatic world.

The beautiful locales, exotic plant and sea life, and relaxing environs of dive locations are even more peaceful when you are armed with the expertise and skill to stay safe in any situation.

With self-rescues, buddy rescues, open-water resuscitation, and towing techniques, "Scuba Diving Safety" will become your most valuable diving companion. Covering a full range of underwater environments, as well as dangerous marine life, entanglements, and equipment failures, this vital resource is an essential reference for every underwater enthusiast.

Do not rely on someone else--or chance--to keep you safe. Let "Scuba Diving Safety" help you prepare for the unexpected and provide the confidence to enjoy your underwater adventures to the fullest.

Chris and Chrissy Rouse, an experienced father-and-son scuba diving team, hoped to achieve widespread recognition for their outstanding but controversial diving skills. Obsessed and ambitious, they sought to solve the secrets of a mysterious, undocumented World War II German U-boat that lay under 230 feet of water, only a half-day's mission from New York Harbor. In doing so, they paid the ultimate price in their quest for fame.

Bernie Chowdhury, himself an expert diver and a close friend of the Rouses', explores the thrill-seeking world of deep-sea diving, including its legendary figures, most celebrated triumphs, and gruesome tragedies. By examining the diver's psychology through the complex father-and-son dynamic, Chowdhury illuminates the extreme sport diver's push toward -- and sometimes beyond -- the limits of human endurance.

A new re-issue of the cult swimming classic, a beautiful read filled with detailed description and powerful prose. WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY AMY LIPTROT 'A luminously romantic history of swimming' Guardian Haunts of the Black Masseur is a dazzling introduction to the great swimming heroes, from Byron leaping into the surf at Shelley's funeral to Hart Crane diving to his death in the Bay of Mexico. Bursting with anecdotes, Charles Sprawson leads us into a watery world populated by lithe demi-gods - a world that has obsessed humans from the ancient Greeks and Romans, to Yeats, Woolf, Fitzgerald and Hockney. Original, enticing and dripping with references to literature, film, art and Olympic history, this cult swimming classic pays sparkling tribute to water and the cultural meanings we attach to it. 'This splendid and wholly original book is as zestful as a plunge in champagne' Iris Murdoch

THE ENTHRALLING INSIDE STORY OF THE THAI CAVE RESCUE FROM THE MAN AT THE HEART OF THE MISSION, AS SEEN IN THE SUNDAY TIMES 'The British divers are all heroes' Clive Cussler 'A case study in courage' Ron Howard, Oscar-winning director of Apollo 13 ________ Thailand, July 2018. Twelve boys and their football coach vanish into Tham Luang caves just as the monsoon rains hit. A mile from the surface they are trapped by rising flood waters. All attempts to reach them fail. As hope for their survival fades a retired British firefighter tinkering with homemade cave-diving kit gets a call. Rick Stanton and his dive partner race to the other side of the world. The boys have been missing for days. Each hour, their chance of escape shrinks. Rick must swim, crawl and squeeze through treacherously tight submerged tunnels hunting for them. But that is not the impossible part. Because if by some miracle they're alive then somehow he must bring the boys back out again . . . He doesn't know it yet but all his life he's been training for this very moment . . . ________ 'The riveting, behind-the-scenes story. Captivating' SUNDAY POST 'A definitive view of the rescue. You probably won't read a better-written book about diving this year. I just had to get to the end' DIVER MAGAZINE 'Diver Rick Stanton relives the rescue of the century' SUNDAY TIMES 'Remarkable . . . the chronicle of a man from a humble background who worked devilishly hard . . . and was willing to go anywhere to help people in the most dire cave disasters' WALL STREET JOURNAL THE RESCUE WATCHED BY THE WORLD 'The Thai cave rescue was phenomenally dangerous, and the work of true heroes' iNews '[The rescue] was fantastic, it really was . . .' HRH Prince William 'If it was me stuck anywhere, the one person I would want to come and rescue me is Rick Stanton' Alex Daw, Watch Commander, West Midlands Fire Service 'One of the great stories of our time' Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Oscar-winning co-director of Free Solo 'Rick Stanton is not the most domesticated of men' Sunday Telegraph