A Really Good Book: The Boys In the Boat

It is such a pleasure to be writing this blog post. For me, personally, this is some BIG BOOK NEWS. And it started last spring...

My friend Pat was coming to Iowa for a visit. She lives in Olympia, Washington

Pat and I share a love of reading, and we enjoy comparing books. During her visit, I arranged for our Book Club event at the Decker Hotel with Carol Bodensteiner, who wrote Go Away Home.

And, Pat recommended The Boys in the Boat. I'd never heard of it --

I'm pretty sure everybody in the State of Washington has read it.  AND it's the 2015 All-State-Read book for Maryland

From Amazon:

Daniel James Brown’s The Boys in the Boat is the kind of nonfiction book that reads like a novel. Centered around the life of Joe Rantz—a farmboy from the Pacific Northwest who was literally abandoned as a child—and set during the Great Depression, The Boys in the Boat is a character-driven story with a natural crescendo that will have you racing to the finish. In 1936, the University of Washington’s eight-oar crew team raced its way to the Berlin Olympics for an opportunity to challenge the greatest in the world. How this team, largely composed of rowers from “foggy coastal villages, damp dairy farms, and smoky lumber towns all over the state,” managed to work together and sacrifice toward their goal of defeating Hitler’s feared racers is half the story. The other half is equally fascinating, as Brown seamlessly weaves in the story of crew itself. This is fast-paced and emotional nonfiction about determination, bonds built by teamwork, and what it takes to achieve glory. —Chris Schluep

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A month after Pat's visit -- I went into my local library and saw the CD audio version of The Boys In The Boat was on the shelf.  RITALUCK, EH??  So, of course, I snatched it up -- and it was a WONDERFUL book to listen to.  I loved it, loved it, loved it. 

On the very day I finished listening to the book -- this happened...