"The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Olympics" by Daniel James Brown *****

• Non-Fiction
• US author
• Stewart Place Book Club Selection
• Originally published in 2013
• Names:
• Joe Rantz.....abandoned by family
• George Pohock.....shell builder and philosopher
• Vocabulary:
• swing:  achievement of perfect spiritual and physical synchrony
• repechage:  (in cycling and rowing) a last-chance qualifying heat in which therunners-up in earlier heats race each other, with the winner advancingto the finals.
• Epigraph: 
•  "It's a great art, is rowing,it's the finest art there is.  It's a symphony of motion.  An when you're rowing well, why it's nearing perfection.  And when you near perfection, you're touching the Divine.  It touches the you of yous,  Which is your soul."--Pohock
• "{But I desire and I long every day to go home and to look upon the day of my return....for already I have suffered and labored at so many things on the waves,)...Homer
• Quotes:
• p.1--Well, there must be some beauty which ordinary men can't see, but extraordinary men do."...Pocock..."In a sport like this--hard work, not much glory, but still popular in every century
• p.37..."The trick was to recognize a good thing when you saw it, no matter how odd or worthless it might at first appear, no matter who else might just walk away and leave it behind."
• p.39..."Competitive rowing is an undertaking of extraordinary beauty preceded by brutal punishment."
• p.40..."It is not a question of whether you will hurt, or of how much you will hurt; it's a question of what you will do, and how well you will do it, while pain has her wanton way with you."
• p.46..."......if you wanted to keep her on an even keel, you had to part your hair in the middle and divide your chewing tobacco evenly between your cheeks."...re: one of the old style shells
• p.48..."And he came to understand how those almost mystical bonds of trust and affection, if nurtured correctly, might lift a crew above the ordinary sphere, transport it to a place where nine boys somehow became one thing---a thing that could not quite be defined,, a thing that was so in tune with the water and the earth and the sky above that, as they rowed, effort was replaced with ecstasy.  It was a rare thing, a sacred thing, a thing devoutly to be hoped for........George Pocock had quietly become its high priest."
• p.53....."The enemy, of course, is resistance of the water, as you have to displace the amount of water equal to the weight of men and equipment, but that very water is what supports you and that very enemy is your friend.  So is life:  the very problems you must overcome also support you and make you stronger in overcoming them."
• p.87..."They were state-of-the-art, so elegant 
• streamlined that people liked to say they seemed to bee in motion while still on the racks."...Pocock's boats
• p.173..."A boat is a sensitive thing, an eight-oared shell, and if it isn't let go free, it doesn't work for you."
• p.177..."Rowing is, in a number of ways, a sport of fundamental paradoxes."
• p.178..."Rowing is like a beautiful duck.  On the surface it is all grace, but underneath the bastard's paddling like mad!"...favorite quote
• p.275..."Therein lies the secret of successful crews:  Their 'swing', that fourth dimension of rowing, which can only be appreciated by an oarsman who has rowed in a swinging crew, where the run is uncanny and the work of propelling he shell a delight."...Pocock
• p.308..."Mr. Brundage...has reached his destination, the Utopia of sportsmanship and good-will, where Nazi beer and Jewish blood flow freely--where Hitler made root torment and persecute the living dead...For two months the dead will be buried.  But with the conclusion of the Olympics in September, their graves will be desecrated...and dead men once more will walk the streets of Germany."...NY Times editorial
• p.343..."Men as fit as you, when your everyday strength is gone, can draw on a mysterious reservoir of power far greater.  Then t is that you can reach for the stars.  That is the way champions are made"...Pocock
• p.357..."Harmony, balance, and rhythm.  They're the three things that stay with you your whole life.  Without them civilization is out of whack."...Pocock
• Notes:
• Inspired by conversation between the author and one of the participants
• Incredible the way Joe Rant coped with abandonment...thank goodness for Joyce
• I would love to ride in one of the rail observation cars that ran alongside the race
• the parallel events in Germany were juxtaposed perfectly
• "pull your own weight"...originated in rowing?
• abandonment of self to team
• Yoo Hoo Girls....funny name
• loved it when Pocock christened the Olympic shell with sauerkraut juice "to get it used to Germany"
• Joe Louis v. Max Schmeling....Aryan v. Negro
• Team visit to Hyde Park was wonderful
• Bobby Moch, coxswain, finding out he was Jewish....incredible
• Nazi re-creation of Berlin as a veritable movie set was incredible
• I like it when the American crew responded with "Heil Roosevelt"
• Hugh Laurie, actor, crewed at Oxford
• Awful moment at start of gold medal race when starter spoke in french
• a mere 28 miles of actual racing, yet 4000+ mile training amongst them
• Review: You know that feeling of wishing a really wonderful story would just go on and on?  Well I have never felt that way about a work of non-fiction until now.  This is absolutely fantastic!  The story itself has all the elements of drama, suspense, and memorable characters, set against the historical backdrop of the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression, and the rise of Nazi Germany.  However, I believe that the crowning achievement here is the writing.  Brown is able to wax philosophical and poetic without sounding the least bit artificial.  His ability to pain the context of the national and international within which these young men rose to such glory is truly impressive.  He interweaves personal biographical details with multiple social perspectives. I new the outcome of the gold medal race, yet found myself holding my breath, in part because I felt like I knew the crew members personally by the end of the book. I could hardly put the book down. Outstanding!