Rating: 
Summary: The personal saga empowers the rower and the reader.
Review: I was surprised by how much I loved Barry Strauss's Rowing Against the Current. Although it's not meant to be the main course, I was smitten by the personal saga interwoven with the passionate and scholarly initiation into the history and technique of rowing and the unfolding drama of the powerful tug of the water's spell. This little book scrapes the clay off the feet of men and women who approach mid-life athletics with the same trepidation that anchored them to the sidelines in elementary school sports, the last to be chosen for any team. As the story progresses, the reader roots for the middle aged loosening of the harness of schoolyard gender constrictions as the athletic leftover of a boy becomes the multifaceted man. Strauss is a generous and complex writer who invites you into his childhood athletic struggles as seemingly effortlessly as he accompanies you to the boathouse, drinking in the sounds and smells at dawn, or ushers you into an art gallery brimming with images of boats on water- all in support of sharing his passion for sculling and the process of becoming a rower. Skillfully linking the modern rowers tensions and relational harmony with ancient male bonding rituals, Strauss translates the stories of Greek rowers in poetry as if anyone could. But he comforts the aspiring athlete in each of us who has participated as a beginner in any sport that looks so easy when done by the pros when he confesses: "Rowing was not simple for me. I nodded whenever the instructor made a point, as if I understood, but I could as easily have assembled the space shuttle as repeated the moves she was explaining." Strauss's self deprecating humor may be the slice of this book that resonates with many of our own armored adult convictions of who we are, but his reverence for the pull of the water and unsentimental questioning of his own niche in the world as well as his writer's eye and often lyrical prose not only make his book an experiential and compelling read, but an offering of who we may yet become. Even for those of us who have no proven intention of working out before daybreak, pledging our souls to the water or losing our balance in a long skinny shell, the reader closes the book with a smile and the feeling that the doors of possibility have opened.
Rating:
Summary: A witty and heartfelt story about conquering vulnerability.
Review: Rowing a single scull is the essence of vulnerability: you're perched atop a rolling seat in a featherweight hull, above the waterline and facing backwards! Now try to move this contraption forward (it seems backwards) without swamping the boat or ramming into something. Now try to do all this in a race down a river that meanders for several miles. Strangely, it's possible to learn to do all this -- and to enjoy it.Barry Strauss, in a witty and heartfelt story, shares with his readers all the appeal and fear that sculling creates. He weaves his own motives and impressions with a rich history of rowing that reaches back to the ancient Greeks -- whose culture he celebrates as a history professor. And he constantly surprises his readers with insights and observations: about life, America's sports culture, family and friendships, and the special world of "messing about in boats." In my spare time, I row and also write about the sport so I appreciate Strauss's spirited approach to both rowing and writing. His odyssey is a masterpiece!
Rating:
Summary: This book will make you think
Review: Rowing Against the Current is one of those books that grabs you. I'm not sure whether its the mixture of gritty reality and academic pondering, the ability of the writer to bring to life the minutia of coming to and mastering a new sport, a wake up call to the 40 something who feels they can do more, or just the ease of writing style that pulls you along. I am a fan of the short book, and this one I enjoyed. Don't read it because you have any expectations, read it because you need a fresh view on a man's ability, attitude, and discovery of a new love. This is not a book about rowing, there's much more to it than that.
Rating: 
Summary: How Old Dogs Can Learn New Tricks at the Oar
Review: Rowing surprised me. I expected the blisters and the hard work but I didn't expect to be moved. Yet I was moved. I thought that learning to row would be like boot camp for a new sport, but it turned out to be a look in the mirror too. Rowing offered a graceful and gentle way to understand that I was middle-aged. Before, I had seen myself as a superannuated college student. Now I learned that I had moved on in life, and that there is a reason for the expression, "you can't teach an old dog new tricks." Well, you can teach an old dog, in fact, but it takes more time than it would to teach a puppy. As an old dog I could have growled about the slowdown, but in the process of learning my way around an oar, I realized that in truth I enjoyed taking things slowly. Was this the secret fruit of middle age: the self-confidence to take on new challenges and the patience to enjoy them? Having built a career and a family, I found myself at a stage in life when understanding becomes more important than winning, when there is as much pleasure in mastering a craft as in becoming master of the universe. So I learned to row. And so I wrote this book. It too represents a new trick for an old dog. All the books I wrote before are works of historical scholarship. Rowing Against the Current is a memoir. It includes some thoughts on rowing history, from ancient Greece to Gilded-Age America, but my own experience is the heart of the story. I had tried writing personal essays in the past but with little success: the wrong time of life, I guess, or maybe I was just too uptight. Suddenly, the prose just flowed, like a good rowing stroke after practice upon practice. I hope the book inspires you to try the sport that I have come to love. Or maybe it will encourage you to take on some other new challenge instead. Nor would I mind if the book changes the way that you look at being middle aged.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: The subject of this book has much promise--an elegant sport with a respectable history, the search for a physical activity that satisfies without wear and tear, mastery of a young person's game in middle age, and the solitary, contemplative, rather Zen act of drawing lines in the early morning water. Perhaps I expected too much, but the book did not live up to its promise. The story of his initiation into rowing and his first race were well written and interesting. The disquisition on Greek navigation was out of place and just seemed a recycling of some old article from a journal of classical studies, offering little of particular interest to the subject at hand. The book ends, not "raking the moon from out the sea," but in a smelly gym with a tedious blow by blow of his progress on the ergometer, how his times on it improved, how each part of his body felt, blah, blah, blah. Perhaps some readers enjoy hearing how Tuesday's workout differed from Wednesday's. I found it more tedious than inspiring.
Rating:
Summary: A real treat!
Review: This thoroughly engaging book is an elegantly written ode to the sport of rowing and the people who row -- from the ancient heroes of Greece to the modern everyman. Strauss makes it clear that for him rowing is a passion, in good times and in bad. I loved the historical setting, the descriptions of his dedication to the sport and his determination to conquer the water.
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