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Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer | 
 enlarge | Author: Lynne Cox
Publisher: Harvest Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $6.82
You Save: $7.18 (51%)
New (4) Used (9) from $4.77
Avg. Customer Rating:  47 reviews
Sales Rank: 491308
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.3 x 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 797.21092
ASIN: B0013L8AQQ
Publication Date: March 7, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
Just about every other person in the world seems like an unfocused dilettante compared to long-distance swimming legend Lynne Cox. Soon At the age of 14, after several years of training hard in pools and the open sea, she was swimming the 26 mile stretch from Catalina Island to the coast of California. A year after that, she surpassed a lifelong goal by not only swimming the English Channel but setting a new men's and women's record in the process. Rather than be satisfied, Cox aimed still higher, conquering the Cook Strait in New Zealand, the Strait of Magellan and, the Cape of Good Hope, none of which had been swum before. Being the first to swim the Bering Sea from Alaska to what was then the Soviet Union is perhaps Cox's most impressive achievement, requiring a phenomenal amount of physical strength and endurance to withstand the chilly waters and diplomatic persistence to gain permission from Gorbachev during the Cold War. Swimming to Antarctica is Cox's remarkably detailed account of her major swims and all that went right and wrong with them. While there are plenty of highs, as one might expect in a memoir by so impressive an athlete, all is not sunshine and roses for Cox. She overcomes extreme physical hardship, predatory sharks, and a swim through a sewage-soaked Nile while suffering from dysentery. There is plenty in Swimming to Antarctica to encourage even non-swimmers to work hard to achieve the seemingly impossible, but Cox, a skilled and highly readable writer, sticks to the swimming, leading the reader by example. For thrills and inspiration, it's hard to find anyone better than Lynne Cox. --John Moe
Product Description
Now in paperback, with photos and maps added especially for this new edition, here is the acclaimed life story of a woman whose drive and determination inspire 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. She has accomplished yet another feat--writing a new classic of sports memoir.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 42 more reviews...
 Inspiring! September 24, 2008
This book was great... an awesome person who has done amazing things. You cant get over the crazy abilities the author has and the determination to succeed!
Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer by Lynne Cox September 15, 2008
The most exotic descriptions of planetary waters ever experienced by a human female...Cox writes of swimming through Icelandic waters that stream from volcanic fissures and mix with glacial melt so that it feels as if her body is moving across liquid guitar strings...swimming through 38 degrees into 90 degrees then back into 38....Remarkable, astounding ferocity of will...fiercely visionary in her solo quests to swim all flavors (and terrors) of open waters and call forth the highest aspects of human nature...connectivity without borders of any kind. Maybe her greatest strength. Lynne Cox absolutely refuses to acknowlege pseudo human imposed limits, boundaries.....anywhere, anytime. Xtreme swimming adventures that are breathtaking in scope, risk and accomplishment.
 Engaging story of setting and achieving personal goals May 5, 2008
This story is not only impressive in the athletic achievement; it is noteworthy that she refuses to abandon her goals even when faced with the impenetrable wall of the Kremlin's closed border mindset.
Well worth reading.
 Rather disappointing March 8, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Based on the other reviews, I was quite excited about reading this book as I generally enjoy books about athletic exploits by unusual athletes. However, Lynne Cox never quite explained why she was doing what she did. By the time she was swimming to Antarctica, I was left asking why??
Unlike, say, Lance Armstrong's book, Lynne lacked a central goal, and so the book was really a series of short stories about the various swims she tackled. As one other reviewer pointed out, it became somewhat repetitive. The early stories about swimming in California and the English Channel were to me more interesting simply because it was the first time I heard the tale.
The book isn't bad, but it's also not great.
BRRRR February 26, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
For the first 150+ pages I was intrigued with Ms.Cox's swims.....her amazing endurance and determination. But then...page after page after page....more or less the same....far more than I ever needed or wanted to know about long distance swimming particularly in icy cold waters. When.....at the last chapter...she actually did swim in Antartica waters, although I was sitting in my warm office, I shivered.
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