it's difficult for me to review this book, but i'll try:

context: i love pools, i've been learning to swim the past few days so i spend a lot of time in them, and i am always curious about the places i spend time in.

content: the photos were so gorgeous. the pools were so pretty, i wanted to actually do a little tour of all the pools covered in them. the information about them, i devoured (as much as possible)

editorial/visual: the content itself is right up my alley. but the editing for this book was horrendous. all the text was blurry on my tablet device and on my laptop. every page had a "copyright" written on it, which makes sense of course, but it was over the text, making it basically unreadable. one thing (blurriness) or the other (the word 'copyright' written over it) made it extremely annoying to read (even though i really wanted to absorb everything).

Extraordinary Pools is as the title implies all about unique or unusual pools. I am not sure what the criteria was for choosing different pools but there are various pools both private and public. Some have been used for international Olympics, others for modern hotels. I love that one is used by penguins in the London Zoo. I think this leans more to architectural interests than coffee table books, as there is good information about the background and significance of pools that are included. Most of the pools are in Europe and North America but there is representation for other continents.

As a traveler I’ve only seen the pool in the zoo but recognized a couple others from movies. I did like the locations were included in the back if someone wanted to visit the pools in person. While I personally wouldn’t need to own the book I would gladly check it out from a library. I thought the book overall was informative and the photos beautiful. This is one of those books that if you are interested in the topic you’ll probably enjoy it.

This was an amazing book that showed many different and awesome pools. Thank you for this advance reading copy!

Hmmmm. There is a lot of good in this book, but I do think that I was not expecting quite the history and architecture lesson that I got. I went into this book expecting some really beautiful pools, and there are some stunning ones, but I felt like it missed the mark on the truly extraordinary visually. Is this a coffee table book? Probably not, because it just doesn't quite have the photographic wow factor you would expect from a cover of a suspended pool. That's not to say that the pools weren't all lovely, but they were more historically or architecturally important than visually impactful. There were a few pools towards the end that did capture some of the awe and shock that I was hoping for in reading this.

From a history and significant event perspective, a lot of the pools featured have some interesting back stories. Whether it's their location, their moment in history or their representation of an artist/architect's skill. And the text that accompanies the photos does a good job of capturing the information in an interesting way.

All in all, if you are looking for a book about the design of pools and some of the history behind pools around the world, this is a good read.. If you are looking more for a book to thumb through and look at some stunning pools, probably not the right fit for you. I will say that the thing I liked bast was that every pool was listed in the back along with their locations so you could technically do a tour of the public pools featured.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this free ARC in exchange for an honest review. Pub date: May 13, 2025

Honestly picked this up only expecting some pretty photos. It delivered beautiful photography as well as in depth history and stories behind swimming and pools in general as well as the individual pools featured. A gorgeous book just waiting for your coffee table!