Swimming in Paris: A Life in Three Stories Audiobook, by Colombe Schneck Play Audiobook Sample

Swimming in Paris: A Life in Three Stories Audiobook

Swimming in Paris: A Life in Three Stories Audiobook, by Colombe Schneck Play Audiobook Sample
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Read By: Hillary Huber Publisher: Penguin Audio Listen Time: at 1.0x Speed 3.67 hours at 1.5x Speed 2.75 hours at 2.0x Speed Release Date: May 2024 Format: Unabridged Audiobook ISBN: 9780593829882

Quick Stats About this Audiobook

Total Audiobook Chapters:

62

Longest Chapter Length:

34:48 minutes

Shortest Chapter Length:

06 seconds

Average Chapter Length:

05:20 minutes

Audiobooks by this Author:

1

Publisher Description

From the award-winning and bestselling French author Colombe Schneck, a woman’s personal journey through abortion, sex, friendship, love, and swimming

At fifty years old, while taking swimming lessons, I finally realized that my body was not actually as incompetent as I’d thought. My physical gestures had been, until then, small, worried, tense. In swimming I learned to extend them. I saw male bodies swimming beside me, and I swam past them, I was delighted, my breasts got smaller, my uterus stopped working. My body, by showing me who I was, allowed me to become fully myself.

In Seventeen, Friendship, and Swimming, Colombe Schneck orchestrates a coming-of-age in three movements. Beautiful, masterfully controlled, yet filled with pathos, they invite the reader into a decades-long evolution of sexuality, bodily autonomy, friendship, and loss.

Schneck’s prose maintains an unwavering intimacy, whether conjuring a teenage abortion in the midst of a privileged Parisian upbringing, the nuance of a long friendship, or a midlife romance. Swimming in Paris is an immersive, propulsive triptych—fundamentally human in its tender concern for every messy and glorious reality of the body, and deeply wise in its understanding of both desire and of letting go.

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Swimming in Paris is a brilliantly written, searingly intimate piece of biographical fiction, the story of a woman experiencing all of life . . . Schneck writes of herself at 17, at 30, at 40, at 50 and beyond with an understanding that is enviable. She unhesitatingly invites the reader into her blunt, beautiful, sometimes terrible thoughts, taking us through her triumphs and losses, and in the end reveals an unparalleled strength and empathy for herself as a woman, a friend, a lover, and a writer.

— Booklist 

Quotes

  • Colombe Schneck writes with a tenderness and ferocity that’s entirely her own. These overlapping novellas are droll, fearless, and shot through with both romance and dread. Schneck offers a periscopic view into bourgeois Paris and captures the terror and truth of love like only a Frenchwoman can. Each time I read her, I swoon.

    — Pamela Druckerman, New York Times Best-selling author of Bringing Up Bébé
  • This is valuable writing. It has immense vitality. You will encounter a female narrator whose direct and bright-eyed stare at the world, and herself, is without shame or faux modesty. At the same time, it is also a deep study of existence, at various ages and stages in life.

    — Deborah Levy, author of Real Estate
  • No American could write this, and every American will relish to read it.

    — Lauren Collins, author of When in French
  • “This remarkable novel is both universal in its description of women’s friendships, and specific and particular in its insights into the French Bourgeoisie, which has always been utterly inaccessible to the English language reader. The experience of reading this book is both gutting and exhilarating.

    — Ayelet Waldman, author of A Really Good Day
  • Colombe Schneck’s work expertly weaves the personal with the political. She deftly examines the cost of pleasure, the loss of adolescence, and the complicated bonds between women. Her writing reminds us of love’s ability to transcend death. She fearlessly reflects on the corporeal, how our bodies limit us and set us free. Swimming in Paris is a must read for anyone with curiosity and compassion.

    — Aline McKenna, showrunner and executive producer of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
  • Swimming in Paris is a deep and devastating pleasure. Colombe Schneck writes with bracing intelligence and lucidity; she sees the world, and herself, with hard won clarity. A brave, beautiful, uncommonly tender book about love, death, sex and survival.

    — Katie Kitamura, author of Intimacies
  • Universal . . . with grace and hard-won knowledge. No pulled punches here, just truth.

    — Kirkus (starred review)
  • Beautiful . . . a gorgeous meditation on the vagaries of being alive.

    — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
  • A dreamy, bruised, and carnal book that pretty much no American would write and pretty much every American will relish reading.

    — Lauren Collins, author of When in French
  • “This remarkable novel is both universal in its description of women’s friendships, and specific and particular in its insights into the French Bourgeoisie, which has always been utterly inaccessible to the English language reader. The experience of reading this book is both gutting and exhilarating.

    — Ayelet Waldman, author of A Really Good Day“The ‘movements’ of Swimming in Paris thrum with life, sparkle with insight. It was an exhilarating read. I’ve never encountered a more perfect depiction of how the world shrinks when you understand that you’re a ‘girl’, rather than a ‘person’. With this book, Colombe Schneck became my Claire Parnet.

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About Hillary Huber

Hillary Huber, a Los Angeles–based voice talent with hundreds of commercials and promos under her belt, was bitten by the audiobook bug in 2005. She now records books on a regular basis and has been nominated for several Audie Awards and won numerous Earphones Awards.