{"product_id":"9780684863306","title":"Rowing Against the Current : On Learning to Scull at Forty","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eRowing Against the Current\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor(s): Barry Strauss\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the midst of the standard, dreary midlife crisis -- complete with wine-tasting courses, yoga classes, and a failed attempt at a first novel -- forty-year-old Barry Strauss falls unexpectedly and passionately in love with rowing, a sport in which a twenty-seven-year-old is a has-been. \u003cbr\u003e Strauss, a professor of classics and history, writes about the unanticipated delights of an affair that, like so many others, begins as a casual dalliance and develops into a full-blown obsession. Drawn to the sport in part because of his affinity for Greek antiquity, he develops a love for old boathouses, a longing for rivers at dawn, a thirst to test himself, and, ultimately, a renewed sense of self-reliance -- as someone who had experienced sports humiliation as far back as Little League suddenly finds himself bursting into athleticism at an unlikely age. \u003cbr\u003e From the awe-inspiring feats of the war-bound Greek triremes with their crews of 172 men rowing on three levels to the solitary pride of finishing a first race in which he gets stuck in the weeds and has to be fished out, Barry Strauss shows us why \"there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half as much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReview(s):\u003cbr\u003eVictor Davis Hanson, author of \u003ci\u003eWho Killed Homer?\u003c\/i\u003e Strauss's dogged pursuit of an ancient craft shows us how exhilarating -- and occasionally terrifying -- rowing, past and present, can be.\u003cbr\u003eJay Parini author of \u003ci\u003eBenjamin's Crossing\u003c\/i\u003e Sometimes a book takes you by surprise...Rowing Against the Current is written with such a wonderfully physical sense of this ancient sport. This is a story about remaking oneself in middle age; as such it overwhelmed me, as it will a large raft of readers. Bravo to Barry Strauss.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eISBN:  9780684863306\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ","brand":"Scribner","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback","offer_id":40964233986254,"sku":"9780684863306","price":13.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0600\/7029\/7806\/products\/O_bf9a7ec9-dc83-4385-912a-6ce33f924088.jpg?v=1646431165","url":"https:\/\/pickwickbookshop.com\/products\/9780684863306","provider":"Pickwick Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}