Customer Reviews

Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer (Alex Awards (Awards))

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Lynne Cox is such an inspirational writer that the reader concentrates on her exceptional accomplishments, both physical and mental, rather than the extreme pain and struggle it took to accomplish them. From her early teens, Cox has eliminated almost everything else from her life to dedicate herself to open-water swims in treacherous and freezing waters, including crossing the Bering Straight between Alaska and the Soviet Union, and swimming a mile in the Antarctic Ocean.

What I really loved about this book is the way Cox struggled not only with the physical challenges of the swims but also struggled to make the swims mean something more to the world at large. For example, the Bering Straight swim took something lik 16 years of meetings and negotiations to arrange, hundreds of donors and volunteers. But in the end that swim stood as a testament and metaphor for the improving connections between nations. Everywhere she goes, Cox seems to have inspired anyone fortunate enough to witness her. That this has come with a great deal of personal sacrifice--money troubles, social limitations, significant nerve damage--is humbly underplayed in the book. She has a kind of determination and self-confidence that transcends a particular athletic endeavour.

That Cox does not *look* like anyone's idea of an endurance athlete just adds to the inspiration -- she's 45 and she's swimming to Antarctica...so what's MY excuse?

I started reading Swimming to Antarctica at 8 pm and I couldn't put it down till I finished it after midnight!

Her book, her adventures, her swims, and especially Lynne herself - are all fantastic! Not only did she set and achieve personal goals, she did it keeping in mind her involvement with those around her - family, coaches, fellow swimmers, the community, and even those non-swimmers who cheered on her achievements!

I can't stop using exclamation marks because I admire and am thrilled by everything Lynne has done!

I wish the book had photographs! I wish I read Lynne's book or heard about herin high school - it might have inspired me to do more over the years.

The writing is engaging and you feel you are right in the stormy, foggy ocean or in the murky slime of the Nile or in the icy, freezing water of Antarctica. Lynne rates as high as Thor Heyerdahl (Kon Tiki) as a modern adventurer. When I saw a photograph of her in People Magazine - it was wonderful to put that smiling face to the smiling voice that comes through clearly in her writing!

I will read and re-read this book many times over the years.

As a chubby nine-year-old, Lynne Cox was the slowest kid in the pool. But she loved swimming, so she kept plugging away at it. When the coach ordered her class out of the water because a storm was brewing, she got permission to keep swimming. When hail started falling, Cox kept swimming-alone-in a pool full of ice.

Scientists would later determine that her unique ratio of muscle to body fat made her anomalously suited to swimming long distances in water so cold, it would kill an ordinary swimmer within minutes. At 15, Cox swam the English Channel, breaking the world record. The next year, she went back to England and broke the record again.

It would be a mistake to think that Cox's new autobiography, Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer, is of interest only to swimmers. In fact, the book has more in common with heroic literature of the ancient world-like Beowulf and The Odyssey-than with the typical athlete's success story. Like those ancient heroes, Cox isn't satisfied with races that have a designated course. Instead, she looks for unique athletic challenges that only she can overcome. That's why, at 17, she fell out of love with channel swimming and, instead, took on the unknown-swimming icy lakes, straits and channels that had been thought impossible for a swimmer to breach. Her famous 1987 swim across the Bering Sea from Alaska to the Soviet Union took 10 years to plan, and the water, in August, was barely above freezing.

Although Cox isn't a professional writer, she has a keen eye for details that turn an important life experience into an entertaining story. Readers will be amused, for instance, by the English cab driver who told Cox she was too fat to swim the Channel-as he was driving her to the beach for that express purpose.

While other athletes were wooed by corporate sponsors, Cox had to finance her own projects. Her story is a powerful account of clinging hard to a bigger dream.

As an avid swimmer and reader,this book was a bit of a disappointment for me. I truly admire the author's determination and swimming prowess but her character emerges as one dimensional, which I'm sure it is not. There is little reference to her non-swimming life. Am I to believe, for example, that she never had any romantic relationships all those years? Was her life entirely about long distance swimming? Where is she today, in her mid-forties?
I was also disappointed by the fact that there are no photos or maps ! How is that possible in such a book?
Also, I feel that least 50 pages of the current edition could have been dropped. I would like to have read more about Ms. Cox's training, nutrition, etc. I don't even know what she looks like (height, weight).
In short: good story, bad editor.

I was hooked by the first few pages of this book. The author captures you and takes you on an adventure with her swims around the world. She shares insight, doubts, fears, goal setting and a burning desire to stick to her goals, no matter what may arise to detour her. She has the ability to make you feel as though you can share the image as she did with swimming through rain and hail: "I felt as if I were swimming through a giant bowl of icy tapioca." The imagery of swimming at night in cold and darkness is chilling. There is no other swimmer in the world that can swim in 32 degree water wearing only a swimsuit. She is courageous and inspiring with the details of her swims.

The book is not just for swimmers; it is for all of us that have dreams we would like to pursue, but lack the tenacity to push the limits of what we think we can accomplish.

I have read many books about extreme accomplishments and loved the excitement of the adventure, but cringed at the narcissism of the adventurer. Lynne Cox's book is full of first-rate thrills, but her character is just as remarkable. (In her first major swim from Catalina Island to the California shore, she waits for her fellow teenaged swimmers to catch up because they had agreed to finish together. How many elite athletes do you know who would sacrifice the opportunity to set a record because of a promise to friends?) Swimming to Antarctica is a fantastic read, as well as inspiring. I recommend it highly.

Ya' know, I'm not a swimmer. As a matter of fact, I don't even like to swim. But I loved this book. I received it as a gift from a friend. I thought the cover/title was just a metaphor for ambition or goals or drive, certainly not thinking, by any means, that the author swam Antarctica.
Boy, was I surprised! Not only that I was wrong but that I was also right! Written in an "easy to read style"this book is about heart, focus,achievement, doing what you're destined for in spite of adversity, using what society dictates is your shortcomings to your advantage, and most importantly, trying to make a difference.
Read it. You'll be as surprised and consumed as I was. Everyone that I've recommended it to has been.

While I gave this highly interesting and readable work four stars based on its literary merit, its author, Lynne Cox is a spectacularly amazing and inspiring woman. The story of her career as a long-distance swimmer who has broken countless records, and achieved worldwide recognition for her unique ability to brave frigid waters, is told in a simple, no-frills manner. There are some passages where the prose transcends bare description and achieves a lyrical and even spiritual quality, most particularly when she describes the heightened sense of natual beauty, and communion with creatures such as dolphins and penguins, that she experiences during several memorable swims. But the point of this book is not the writing but the human being, a woman who is determined yet humble, gracious and appreciative of the many who contribute to her success, capable of enduring almost unbelievable physical hardship (I laughed out loud when she described karate-chopping a thick slab of ice with her totally numb hand as "fun"), and motivated by a desire to bring about international peace and understanding. Of particular interest to me were her descriptions of how she maintained a state of internal calm by thinking through her fears and doubts, and never succumbing to panic, even as she was frantically swimming in waters so shockingly cold that they would kill the average person in ten minutes. I suspect that I will often look to Ms. Cox's story for inspiration and direction when confronting obstacles in the future. Isn't that the definition of a spiritual leader?

Readers who enjoy comprehensive biographies and autobiographies won't find Swimming to Antarctica to their liking. Lynne Cox largely avoids emotions, trivia, sentimentality and similar extraneous materials to deliver a very tightly focused account of her remarkable accomplishments in cold-water ocean swimming. She easily could have gone into accounts of her personal life and fundraising activities, just to name a couple of topics, but elects instead to concentrate on her swims - and that focus, in my view, elevates this book ahead of most contemporary autobiographies. As for the accounts of the swims, suffice to say that I found them gripping even though it's the sort of activity in which I otherwise have little interest. Surely that alone is a strong sign of a well-written book.

Lynne Cox has masterfully weaved a powerful and inspiring tale with "Swimming to Antarctica." From the first page, I hung on every word and found it hard to put down this book (Lynne, thanks for keeping me up late at night!). At times, I was near tears as Lynne recounted stories of her youth and obstacles that she had overcome in order to become one of the most prolific long-distance swimmers in the world.

You need not be a swimmer or an endurance athlete to appreciate this book. Any reader who is in search of an ample dose of inspiration is in for a treat with "Swimming to Antarctica." Kudos to Lynne Cox not only for her awe-inspiring swimming feats, but also for having the clarity to share her life with us so vividly.