This book kept me company through a cold late winter and spring, easing me through green waterways and onward toward more and more pure experience. Reading it, I felt as if I were lying somewhere sylvan, watching light flicker through leaves. Deakin's prose is so infused with his appreciation of the natural world that the reader breathes it in and feels more relaxed and, well, at one with the world. His vignettes of the quirky people who practice wild swimming are great mini-essays, too, more gentle and sympathetic than, say, Bill Bryson's. I for one will miss his voice sorely.