13 December 2024

By Göran R Buckhorn

Here are some more suggestions for rowing books to put on your wish list to Santa.

Shamelessly, I’m starting with The Greatest Rowing Stories Ever Told (2023), the rowing anthology I put together which has slightly more than 40 articles, essays, poems and an excerpt from a play – all connected to the sport we love. Among the authors are 12 regular and irregular HTBS writers. Find the full content here.

“The Greatest Rowing Stories Ever Told comprises perhaps the most diverse and multifaceted rowing book I’ve ever encountered. Readers can dip in and out of this collection rather than read it in a linear fashion, and the best pieces can (and should) be re-read often,” Michael J. Socolow, the author of Six Minutes in Berlin: Broadcast Spectacle and Rowing Gold at the Nazi Olympics (2016), wrote in his review on HTBS. Find Socolow’s review here.

Another book that came out last year was Gavin Jamieson’s brilliant biography of Jumbo Edwards, Water’s Gleaming Gold – The Story of Hugh ‘Jumbo’ Edwards. Gavin, who is married to Edwards’s granddaughter, received well-earned praise from rowing historian Tom Weil, who in his review of the book wrote: “A life as colorful as Jumbo’s cries out for a radiant selection of hues in its portrayal, and Jamieson does not fail to meet the challenge. His writing is engaging and alluring. From his choice of expressive words to his crafting of gripping sentences, the author easily threads his way through the sinuous and crowded tapestry that illustrates Jumbo’s life.” Read Tom’s review here.

In yesterday’s article, I mentioned that rowing journalist and writer Chris Dodd came out with a novel earlier this year. Another famous rowing writer, however, on this side of the pond, has also made his debut as a novelist. In 2023, Daniel Boyne published a crime story where he kills off an unsympathetic Harvard coxswain in his Body of Water. I wrote a lengthy review of Dan’s book in which I congratulated him for “a smart and well-crafted debut novel in the crime genre.” Read the review here.

As I mention Chris Dodd, his biography of Thor Nilsen, the dynamic Norwegian coach, who came to spread his thesis around the world, is worth its space on your bookshelf. Chris’s book Thor Nilsen: Rowing’s Global Coach (2020) shows that the international rowing community at large had Thor Nilsen to thank for almost everything. My review of Chris’s book on Nilsen, another extensive piece, in two parts, can be found here (part I) and here (part II).

In 2021, Bill Lanouette, also known from these pages, launched his book The Triumph of the Amateurs: The Rise, Ruin, and Banishment of Professional Rowing in the Gilded Age. Bill Miller wrote in his review that the book has “a wonderful collection of historical details about an era in rowing history that is just about all forgotten: the professionals. Few people realize that professional rowing was huge in the 19th century.” However, it was the skullduggery behind the scenes that killed professional rowing. Bill Miller wrote in his review that “Bill [Lanouette] weaves all these events into a great picture of what professional life was like as a rower, and how the public became disgusted with their antics. Finally, the public turned their backs on the professional rowers and the gambling that supported their livelihood. In its place, amateur rowing grew and captured the public’s interest along with other sports such as baseball. Collegiate rowing was growing rapidly. Read the review here.

As I started this article with a HTBS-related book, allow me to wrap it up with two books that HTBS published in 2015 and 2016: A Yank at Cambridge – B.H. Howell: The Forgotten Champion (2015) written by yours truly and A Sea to Row By – Poems (2016) written by HTBS’s own poet, Philip Kuepper.

A Yank at Cambridge – B.H. Howell: The Forgotten Champion covers the rowing years of Benjamin Hunting Howell, of New York, who began studying at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University, in the autumn of 1894. Howell had not previously rowed in America, but at Trinity Hall, he soon found himself out boating on the River Cam. During his years at Cambridge, 1894-1898, Howell took a heap of medals and trophies on the Cam and cups at Henley Royal Regatta (the Grand Challenge Cup in 1895 and the Diamond Challenge Sculls in 1898) and the Wingfield Sculls on the River Thames in 1898. After his studies, Howell became a member of Thames Rowing Club on the Tideway. In the colours of Thames RC, he would win another Diamonds in 1899, and the same year take another victory in the Wingfields. A Yank at Cambridge also tells the stories of the American’s contemporaries: ‘Old Blues’ of Oxford and Cambridge, amateur and professional scullers, legendary coaches and rowing writers. Read Chris Dodd’s review here.

Philip Kuepper doesn’t need an introduction to HTBS’s readers. Almost every Sunday since March 2010, Philip has graced these pages with a poem. By now, hundreds and hundreds of poems coming from his pen/keyboard have been published on HTBS. The first lines in his first HTBS poem, “The Race”, reads:

All that year, he rose,
just after dawn broke
light across the sky.
laid it on the water,
and slipped quietly,
effortlessly, into rowing.

In May 2016, I wrote an article about Philip’s first book signing. Read it here.

All these books can be ordered on Amazon around the world. Or order a copy from your local book shop.

If you need more ideas for rowing books to receive or give away to the rower in your life, please click on the link for “Rowing Books” on top.