‘What do we do?' I reply. ‘Well, I thought it was something like a dance around things, around each of us as we get to know each other, that was what I thought I was going to write about.' I halt for a moment. ‘Well, maybe not a dance.' My thoughts focus on the topic of my inner life, how that doesn't see at all like a dance.

The Scent of a Pool is part memoir, part reflection, telling the story of the author's life as a water polo player through anecdotes and philosophical introspection.

"Richard Harper's The Scent of a Pool offers not just a vivid account of the actual experience of practicing a particular sport, water polo, but through that lens a deep sense of how life itself is experienced and remembered, in terms of friendships, relationships, aging, and, above all, the inexorable passage of time itself."

- Charlie Gare, Lacaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts