A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

A wonderful book … This book is a delight … I love the warmth with which he writes about this teaching, and agree wholeheartedly … All this makes Saunders’s book very different from just another “how to” creative writing manual, or just another critical essay … One of the pleasures of this book is feeling his own thinking move backwards and forwards, between the writer dissecting practice and the reader entering in through the spell of the words, to dwell inside the story -- Tessa Hadley * Guardian *
Saunders is such a wise and amiable teacher ... A page-turner -- Robert Webb
Luminously perceptive * Guardian *
A masterclass in how to be human ... unfailingly, often thrillingly illuminating … Published any time, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain would be a joyous reminder that fiction is “the most effective mode of mind-to-mind communication ever devised”. Published now, it feels like vital and civilising corrective to the pretend certainties of public life – and, increasingly, of our personal lives too * Telegraph *
One of the most accurate and beautiful depictions of what it is like to be inside the mind of a writer that I’ve ever read * New York Times *
The Russian greats truly shine in this account; but Saunders is the real star. His way of expressing himself is simultaneously supremely intellectual and jovially down-to-earth. It’s rare to read a book and love it so much that you think it’s simply perfect. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is that book -- Viv Groskop * Spectator *
Joins a long tradition of using Russian literature as a guide to life … Practical and playful … it also probes exactly how narrative techniques make us more alert, attentive and sympathetic in reading books and the world around us * i news *

By the end Saunders is wondering if there is indeed any point in writing at all. I won’t spoil his conclusion.
Suffice to say, the hairs on the back of my neck were alert

* The Times *
Suffused with wry humour … Not an academic interpretation, but a reader’s companion. I was pleasurably absorbed from start to finish * Evening Standard *
The Booker-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo considers the art of fiction through seven classic Russian short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy and Gogol * Guardian, 2021 in Books *
The combination of Saunders’s piercing mind and the Russian subjects being Anton Chekhov, Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy and Nikolai Gogol promises to be a highbrow treat for fans of literature, and a book offering deep insights into storytelling and how narrative functions * Independent, The books to look out for in 2021 *
A literary masterclass * Evening Standard, A look ahead to the best new books in 2021 *
But the real star of A Swim isn't Chekhov or Turgenev or Tolstoy or Gogol - it's Saunders himself ... This book will quite simply make you a better, more observant and more understanding reader * Big Issue *
Part intro to Russian literature, part musings on craft, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is all pleasure * Financial Times *
A worship song to writers and readers * O, The Oprah Magazine *
His warmth, enthusiasm and homespun metaphors – all part of that “writerly charm” – banish any sense of the chilly, mechanistic Fiction Lab ... Gleefully overshoots its brief as a technical manual or how-to guide … A Swim in a Pond in the Rain generates more fun, more wit, more sympathetic sense, than we have any right to hope for from a 400-page critical study * Arts Desk *
There should be more books like this -- Sameer Rahim * Prospect Podcast *
A masterclass from a warm and engagingly enthusiastic companion * Guardian, 50 hottest new books everyone should read *
A masterclass in short fiction by one of the finest teachers alive… It is a joyously civilised primer on how to write – and live – better * Daily Telegraph *
Warm, playful and acutely perceptive -- Ian Leslie * New Statesman, Books of the Year *
Not just astute, humane lit crit but an inspirational manifesto for the art of fiction -- Boyd Tonkin * Spectator, Books of the Year *
A masterclass in writing … a real treat -- Naomi Alderman * Spectator, Books of the Year *
[I] loved George Saunders’s A Swim in a Pond in the Rain … Genial, generous and illuminating ... He is a great teacher as well as a great practitioner, and makes you see more * Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year 2021 *
A tin of caviar sort of a book … Saunders guides, prods, nudges, urges you to disagree … It will stay with you and transform how you read story by story, sentence by sentence * Sunday Times, 24 best fiction books 2021 *