Synopses & Reviews
International Swimming Hall of Famer and Alex Award-winner Lynne Cox's classic sports memoir Swimming to Antarctica is a portrait of rare and relentless drive (Sports Illustrated).Here is the acclaimed life story of a woman whose determination inspires everyone she touches. Lynne Cox started swimming almost as soon as she could walk. By age sixteen, she had broken all records for swimming the English Channel. Her daring eventually led her to the Bering Strait, where she swam five miles in thirty-eight-degree water in just a swimsuit, cap, and goggles. In between those accomplishments, she became the first to swim the Strait of Magellan, narrowly escaped a shark attack off the Cape of Good Hope, and was cheered across the twenty-mile Cook Strait of New Zealand by dolphins. She even swam a mile in the Antarctic.Lynne writes the same way she swims, with indefatigable spirit and joy, and shares the beauty of her time in the water with a poet's eye for detail. And this paperback edition of Swimming to Antarctica expands upon the detail of her extraordinary atheleticism with exclusive photos and maps throughout.
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"Even though readers know she survived to tell the tale, it's a thrilling, awesome and well-written story." Publishers Weekly
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"An awesome study in immersion from long-distance swimmer Cox....An otherworldly existence brought hugely to life." Kirkus Reviews
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"Her wide-eyed idealism may seem a little corny at first, but by the end we're rooting for her, wondering if brave and mostly solitary acts...don't bring us together after all." Booklist
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"[Cox has] done things the rest of us only imagine and she's written a book that helps us to imagine them with clarity and wonder." The Boston Globe
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"More than the story of the greatest open-water swimmer, Swimming to Antarctica is a portrait of rare and relentless drive....Gripping." Sports Illustrated
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"A tale of remarkable physical prowess and heart." Vogue
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"Even a cursory read leaves one shivering for a warm towel." Entertainment Weekly
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"A triumph of a positive outlook, hefty preparation, and raw courage." The Economist
About the Author
Lynne Cox has set records all over the world for open-water swimming. She was named Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year, inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2000, honored with a lifetime achievement award from the University of California-Santa Barbara, and worked for six years as a research librarian in Orange County. She lives in Los Alamitos, California.