The Swimmer: the Wild Life of Roger Deakin

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Best Book of 2023 in “The New Statesman” and “The Observer”.


”'The Swimmer' is a wonderful, original achievement; teeming with stories, glittering with images, and experimental in form and tone” (Robert Macfarlane

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Roger Deakin, author of the immortal “Waterlog”, was a man of many parts: maverick ad-man, cider-maker, teacher, environmentalist, music promoter and filmmaker. But, above all, he was the restorer of ancient Walnut Tree Farm in Suffolk, the heartland where he wrote about all natural life – with rare attention, intimacy, precision and poetry.



Roger Deakin was unique, and so too is this joyful work of creative biography, told primarily in the words of the subject himself, with support from a chorus of friends, family, colleagues and lovers. Delving deep into Deakin’s library of words, Patrick Barkham draws from notebooks, diaries, letters and recordings to conjure his voice back to glorious life in these pages.



“A rich, strange and compelling work of creative memoir that beautifully honours and elevates the life and work of its subject” (Alex Preston, “The Observer”)


Patrick Barkham is an award-winning author and natural history writer for “The Guardian”. His books include “The Butterfly Isles”, “Badgerlands”, “Islander” and “Wild Child”.

Ross MacFarlane is an archivist who has over twenty years’ experience working on the history of science and medicine.