Book of the month.....May 2008

The Great Swim, by Gavin Mortimer
(Click on title to check availability.)

Why would anyone want to swim the English Channel?? Well – this book is about 4 women who, during the summer of 1926 –just after World War I – battled each other in a race to be the first woman to swim across that Channel. The 4 American women – Gertrude Ederle, Mille Gade, Lillian Cannon and Clarabelle Barrett – were each backed by various American newspapers from New York to Boston – and these newspapers made the most of the publicity that a woman, in a bathing costume on the front page of a national newspaper would produce.

Mr. Mortimer uses a great variety of sources to reconstruct the excitement and drama that accompanied an event that captured the heart of people on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Check the library's catalog for The Great Swim. Meg