BOOK CLUB BEAT with Sherry Hemingway
The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
Rating :
GLASSES & GLASSES Book Club ( Morgan Hill ) started as a group of Oakwood School moms and teachers . Six years later , the kids are older and the gang is still together . Members ( left to right ): Kristen Barthelman , Sue Cardillo Wilson , Beth McGowen , Lis Power , Stacey Daprile , Alison Talley , Christina Gluhaich , Nusheen Zarnegar , Renie Williams . Missing : Kim Jew , Cathleen Reisenauer , Pat Thompson , Patty Medaglia , Christine Keane , and Gwen Dorcich .
WHAT OTHER BOOK CLUBS ARE READING :
Opinionated Ladies , Morgan Hill – Station Eleven by Emily St . John Mandel
The Girlfriend Book Club , Gilroy – All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
BookSmart Book Lovers Club – The Enchanted by Rene Deerfield
Eagle Ridge # 1 – The Whip by Karen Kondazian
Glasses & Glasses , Morgan Hill – The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant
Books with Dessert , Morgan Hill Library – The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Enriquez
Gilroy Library Book Club – Time and Again by Jack Finney
SHERRY HEMINGWAY spent her childhood after lights out with a book and flashlight under the covers . With degrees from Kent State University and Harvard University , her lifelong career was in journalism and public relations . Her hobbies are travel in ( very ) remote countries , volunteering , and two book clubs .
It was after midnight , and I was asking myself , “ Can this be me , unable to put down a book about rowing ?” This precise sentiment was echoed by the Glasses & Glasses book club in Morgan Hill .
Being in a book club means you frequently read books you would never , ever choose on your own . That wonderment was dawning again reading Boys in the Boat , the true story of nine University of Washington athletes whose stamina and performance embarrassed Hitler in what was supposed to be Der Fuehrer ’ s triumph of German superiority .
Boys in the Boat is an against-all-odds saga about a few dirt poor sons of Pacific Northwest farmers , fishermen and lumberjacks , who counted on rowing to help them get a college education . The story follows Joe Rantz , a youth abandoned by his parents on the Olympic Peninsula during the Great Depression . The boy had survived entirely on his own by illegally poaching salmon and foraging for forest edibles , all the while maintaining good grades in school .
Determined to get money for tuition , Joe tries out for crew because it guarantees a part-time job at the university . Living at the YMCA and wearing the same pathetically shabby sweater every day , Joe takes on the gentlemanly sport of rowing . He and several similarly challenged teammates persevere through grueling tryouts , daily icy waters and winds , and peer ridicule for the honor of vying against rowing teams from some of the most moneyed Ivy-League schools in the country .
The book reads like a heart-racing , come-from-behind Seabiscuit thriller , not what you would expect in a story about nine guys in a rowing shell . Each competition is a page turner , and the historical context of the Depression and rise of Hitler is seamlessly woven throughout .
So far this year , at least four local book clubs , including this month ’ s featured club , have read this book and given it their thumbs up .
If you are interested in reading this non-fiction novel and visiting a book club open to the public , Boys in the Boat is slated for discussion at 7 p . m ., Thursday , June 18 at the Book Lovers Reading Club at BookSmart in Morgan Hill .
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G M H T O D A Y M A G A Z I N E MAY / JUNE 2015 gmhtoday . com