{"product_id":"9780684863306-rowing-against-the-current-on-learning-to-scull-at-forty","title":"Rowing Against the Current","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOn Learning to Scull at Forty. Synopsis coming soon. In 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\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41048602050657,"sku":"9780684863306","price":11.21,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/3d4a1eaf7c4d096aee9de37b233b30b7.png?v=1699536835","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9780684863306-rowing-against-the-current-on-learning-to-scull-at-forty","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}