Climate Reads: Why We Swim with Leanne Shapton
For the December Climate Reads, author Leanne Shapton leads a discussion of Bonnie Tsui’s Why We Swim. Shapton will be in conversation with Anna Weber and Lidia Yuknavitch.
We swim in freezing Arctic waters and piranha-infested rivers to test our limits. We swim for pleasure, for exercise, for healing. But humans, unlike other animals that are drawn to water, are not natural-born swimmers. We must be taught. Our evolutionary ancestors learned for survival; now, in the twenty-first century, swimming is one of the most popular activities in the world.
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. New York Times contributor Bonnie Tsui, a swimmer herself, dives into the deep, from the San Francisco Bay to the South China Sea, investigating what it is about water that seduces us, despite its dangers, and why we come back to it again and again. This conversation will be lead by author Leanne Shapton, and will include the NRDC's Anna Weber and acclaimed author Lidia Yuknavitch.
Leanne Shapton is an artist and author of several books, including Swimming Studies (winner of the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography), Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, and a coauthor of The New York Times bestselling Women in Clothes. She is also the cofounder of J&L Books, a nonprofit publisher of art and photography books. She lives in New York City.
As a member of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Water & Climate Team, Anna Weber researches and advocates for policies that advance equitable adaptation to climate change. The team works to incorporate the current and future effects of flooding, sea level rise, and other climate-driven hazards into local, state, and national decision making and to ensure that adaptation policies benefit those on the front lines of climate change. Prior to joining NRDC, Anna spent ten years at The Cadmus Group, where she supported U.S. Environmental Protection Agency projects related to water quality, environmental health, and resilient infrastructure. She holds a bachelor’s degree in geology and a master’s of public health in environmental health science.
Lidia Yuknavitch is the nationally bestselling author of the novels The Book of Joan, The Small Backs of Children, and Dora: A Headcase, and of the memoir The Chronology of Water. She is the recipient of two Oregon Book Awards and has been a finalist for the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize and the PEN Center USA Creative Nonfiction Award. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Please register for this free Zoom event. Registered audience members will receive a Zoom link prior to the event. Purchase Why We Swim from our bookselling partner Greenlight Bookstore here for in-store pickup or direct-to-home shipping!
Climate Reads is made possible in part with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
For the December Climate Reads, author Leanne Shapton leads a discussion of Bonnie Tsui’s Why We Swim. Shapton will be in conversation with Anna Weber and Lidia Yuknavitch.
We swim in freezing Arctic waters and piranha-infested rivers to test our limits. We swim for pleasure, for exercise, for healing. But humans, unlike other animals that are drawn to water, are not natural-born swimmers. We must be taught. Our evolutionary ancestors learned for survival; now, in the twenty-first century, swimming is one of the most popular activities in the world.
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. New York Times contributor Bonnie Tsui, a swimmer herself, dives into the deep, from the San Francisco Bay to the South China Sea, investigating what it is about water that seduces us, despite its dangers, and why we come back to it again and again. This conversation will be lead by author Leanne Shapton, and will include the NRDC's Anna Weber and acclaimed author Lidia Yuknavitch.
Leanne Shapton is an artist and author of several books, including Swimming Studies (winner of the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography), Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, and a coauthor of The New York Times bestselling Women in Clothes. She is also the cofounder of J&L Books, a nonprofit publisher of art and photography books. She lives in New York City.
As a member of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Water & Climate Team, Anna Weber researches and advocates for policies that advance equitable adaptation to climate change. The team works to incorporate the current and future effects of flooding, sea level rise, and other climate-driven hazards into local, state, and national decision making and to ensure that adaptation policies benefit those on the front lines of climate change. Prior to joining NRDC, Anna spent ten years at The Cadmus Group, where she supported U.S. Environmental Protection Agency projects related to water quality, environmental health, and resilient infrastructure. She holds a bachelor’s degree in geology and a master’s of public health in environmental health science.
Lidia Yuknavitch is the nationally bestselling author of the novels The Book of Joan, The Small Backs of Children, and Dora: A Headcase, and of the memoir The Chronology of Water. She is the recipient of two Oregon Book Awards and has been a finalist for the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize and the PEN Center USA Creative Nonfiction Award. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Please register for this free Zoom event. Registered audience members will receive a Zoom link prior to the event. Purchase Why We Swim from our bookselling partner Greenlight Bookstore here for in-store pickup or direct-to-home shipping!
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