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Haunts of the Black Masseur
"Charles Sprawson - himself an obsessional swimmer and diver - explores the meaning that different cultures have attached to water. He gives the reader glimpses of the great swimming heroes- Byron leaping dramatically into the surf at Shelley's beach funeral; Hart Crane, swallow-diving to his death in the Bay of Mexico; Ulysses, Leander, Weismuller, Spitz and a host of others."
Haunts of the Black Masseur
In a masterful work of cultural history, Charles Sprawson, himself an obsessional swimmer and fluent diver, explores the meaning that different cultures have attached to water, and the search for the springs of classical antiquity. In nineteenth-century England bathing was thought to be an instrument of social and moral reform, while in Germany and America swimming came to signify escape. For the Japanese the swimmer became an expression of samurai pride and nationalism. Sprawson gives is fascinating glimpses of the great swimming heroes: Byron leaping dramatically into the surf at Shelley’s beach funeral; Rupert Brooke swimming naked with Virginia Woolf, the dark water “smelling of mint...
The Ukrainian Night
A vivid and intimate account of the Ukrainian Revolution, the rare moment when the political became the existential What is worth dying for? While the world watched the uprising on the Maidan as an episode in geopolitics, those in Ukraine during the extraordinary winter of 2013–14 lived the revolution as an existential transformation: the blurring of night and day, the loss of a sense of time, the sudden disappearance of fear, the imperative to make choices. In this lyrical and intimate book, Marci Shore evokes the human face of the Ukrainian Revolution. Grounded in the true stories of activists and soldiers, parents and children, Shore’s book blends a narrative of suspenseful choices with a historian’s reflections on what revolution is and what it means. She gently sets her portraits of individual revolutionaries against the past as they understand it—and the future as they hope to make it. In so doing, she provides a lesson about human solidarity in a world, our world, where the boundary between reality and fiction is ever more effaced.
Swimming to Antarctica
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this extraordinary book, the world’s most extraordinary distance swimmer writes about her emotional and spiritual need to swim and about the almost mystical act of swimming itself. Lynne Cox trained hard from age nine, working with an Olympic coach, swimming five to twelve miles each day in the Pacific. At age eleven, she swam even when hail made the water “like cold tapioca pudding” and was told she would one day swim the English Channel. Four years later—not yet out of high school—she broke the men’s and women’s world records for the Channel swim. In 1987, she swam the Bering Strait from America to the Soviet Union—a feat that, according to Gorbac...
Take Me to the Source
Colourless, tasteless, odourless, ageless: water is both the simplest thing on earth and the most complex. We cannot live without it yet it kills six thousand children a day. It is the ultimate renewable resource but we pollute it without thinking twice. Why, if water is so valuable does nobody want to pay for it unless it comes in a designer bottle? Is it really the oil of the twenty-first century? Will we all soon be fighting over it, or can it lead countries into co-operation rather than conflict? In this enthralling voyage of discovery, Rupert Wright sets out to discover exactly what water is and why it plays such an important role in history, culture, art and literature. Part reportage and part personal journey, Take Me to the Source is the fascinating story of the substance that makes life on earth possible.
RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR
Rich and strange from the tip of its title to its deep-sunk bones’ Robert Macfarlane From the author of Leviathan, or, The Whale, comes a composite portrait of the subtle, beautiful, inspired and demented ways in which we have come to terms with our watery planet.
The Swimming Drill Book, 2E
The best-selling drill book in the sport is now updated, expanded, and improved. More than 175 drills, accompanied by detailed illustrations, will help coaches and swimmers master every skill. Drills for strokes, starts, turns, and finishes, as well as for buoyancy and body balance, breathing and kicking, and sculling, are bolstered by new chapters on poolside strength training and open-water swimming.
Mindfulness in Wild Swimming
Mindfulness in Wild Swimming explores how swimming in rivers, lakes and seas is the epitome of conscious living, guiding the reader through practical mindful exercises and technique tips, and reveals how wild swimming can be the ultimate physical meditation.
An Indian Englishman
John Travers Mends (Jack) Gibson was born on March 3, 1908 and died on October 23, 1994 at the age of 86.In some ways, Jack was the last Indian Englishman. He came ten years before independence and stayed on 47 years after it, rendering dedicated service to the country of his adoption for 57 years. Jack's journey started as a school teacher at The Doon School. He was the last English Principal of Mayo College and the last English President of the Himalayan Club. He was the last, and for most of the time the only English resident of Ajmer. He must have been just about the last Englishman to have been honored by both the British and Indian Governments.Brij Sharma is a journalist based in Bahrain. He spent much of his childhood and youth in Dehra Dun, and while not a product of The Doon School, he has known its campus, the surroundings of the city and much of the mountainous terrain described in Gibson's letters.http://www.jtmgibson.com
On Roads
In this history of roads and what they have meant to the people who have driven them, one of Britain's favourite cultural historians reveals how a relatively simple road system turned into a maze-like pattern of roundabouts, flyovers, and spaghetti junctions. Using a unique blend of travel writing, anthropology, history and social observation, he explores how Britain's roads have their roots in unexpected places, from Napoleon's role in the numbering system to the surprising origin of sat-nav. Full of quirky nuggets of history, such as the day trips organised to see the construction of the M1 and the 2.5m Mills and Boons used to build the M6 Toll Road, On Roads also celebrates innovators whose work we take for granted, such as the designers of the road sign system. On subjects ranging from speed limits to driving on the left, and the 'non-places where we stop to the unwritten laws of traffic jams, these hidden stories have never been told together, until now.
