Chris Baker at Gleebooks - 'Swimming Sydney: A Tale of 52 Swims'

Chris Baker is a lifelong educator, writer and swimmer. It was a delight to get to speak with him at Gleebooks in early December about his 'Swimming Sydney'. 

This beautiful book has many strands – it has chapters that detail 52 different places to swim in Sydney but it’s also a collection of reminiscences about Chris’s family history and wonderful details that bring to life the social history of different areas in Sydney.

At its centre, this book is a kind of love letter to the beautiful obsession of swimming, and an invitation to look at and think differently about all the wonderful swimming spots in Sydney and what they reflect about who we are and how we live. 

The book ponders why we Sydney siders take to the water as we do and it celebrates and explores the act of swimming itself.

You can listen to the conversation below.