Swimming Lessons

Swimming Lessons is the rare kind of book that makes you leave a permanent indentation in your reading chair, that you want to draw out and savor (even while turning page after page because you must know what happens), and that brings a tinge of grief when it's over. When Gil Coleman sees his dead wife Ingrid from a bookshop window, the story of his flawed marriage and his long-missing (and presumed dead) wife slowly unravels. Fluidly moving between the perspective of his daughter, Flora, carefully buoyed between hope and grief over her mother, and Ingrid's own letters, which Gil discovers tucked into aptly titled editions within his vast collection of books, the story left this reader hoping that perhaps a few books on my own shelf housed a clue or two to answer life's tangled questions.