Book Reviews

The Boys In The Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

by Daniel James Brown

This book kept getting recommended to me and I finally had the chance to read. This is by far, one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. I could not stop reading it. I read at night. I read it while working out on my bike. And occasionally I’d stop working and read it during the day.

It’s a true story which made it even better for me.

Here was a bunch of working class boys in Washington State, some very poor, who competed in a sport that was, and still is, more for the  affluent society. The lead boy, Joe, has a heart wrenching story which only makes you want to root for him more. Throw in that Hitler was using the Olympics to fool the world into thinking Germany was wonderful and welcoming to all, and the story just keeps getting better.

All I can say is, “Read it. You won’t regret it”.

Having now lived in the greater Waterville / Winslow Maine area since 1984, I have driven by this blockhouse from 1754 for 30 years. I’ve climbed in it with the kids and was devastated when the April Fool’s Day flood of 1991? washed it down the Kennebec. Fortunately they found much of the blockhouse down river and put it back together with a flood stabilizing design. It is the oldest blockhouse in the U.S.

This is the first book to actually pull together the wonderful history of this fort and the importance of it to the development of the area. Settlers were not coming to this area without some protection and the Brit’s in Boston wanted more control of the area from the French in Quebec.