Recent Reads: The Boys In the Boat

The current book that my two-women-long-distance-book-club is reading is The Boys In the Boat by Daniel James Brown. I really like this book but I might be biased because I really like rowing. (I was a coxswain for one season in high school and then coxed the men's team at Michigan State for four, since then I have done a little bit of coaching and coxing in an effort to stay involved with the sport.)

I'm only about a third of the way through this book. It chronicles the story of a crew from the University of Washington in the early 1930s as they strive to make and win the 1936 Olympics held in Berlin, Germany under the reign of Adolf Hitler. More than that, it gives the reader a brief history lesson on the Great Depression and World War II.

What I particularly like about the book is the descriptions and history of rowing. Much of the sport's history I did not know and I love learning about one of the things I'm most passionate about. As for the descriptions of rowing, most of it is all things I've learned or experienced in my time with the sport but I still find fascinating to read from someone else's perspective.

The book, for me at least, is definitely a bit of a slow read. Lots of information and descriptions and background information to get through. I'll be honest, I found the first 60 pages a little dull but think it gets much better as you go on.