15 December 2025

By Göran R Buckhorn

HTBS helps you to find books for a rower’s Christmas stocking or to fill a spot under the Christmas tree.

It has become a somewhat HTBS tradition that we help you readers find rowing books for Christmas. While we do review books on HTBS, it’s impossible to review and write about all the books that have come out during the year.

Some of the following books may or may not have been mentioned on HTBS previously. Let’s start with some biographies.

Joe Burk: An American Ideal (2025) by Edward J. Woodhouse. Besides John “Jack” B. Kelly, Joe Burk was the most successful American sculler in the first half of the 20th century. While Kelly won three Olympic gold medals, in 1920 and 1924, Burk managed to collect two victories that eluded Kelly – the Diamond Challenge Sculls at Henley Royal Regatta, in 1938 and 1939. Burk was aiming for the Olympics in 1940, but as we know, World War II put a stop to both the Games in 1940 and 1944. During the War, Burk served as a Commander of a PT boat in the Pacific, where he was awarded the Navy Cross. After the War, Burk coached at Yale and later at Penn. His crews won several championships in the U.S. and the Grand at Henley in 1955. Woodhouse has had access to the Burk Family papers and memorabilia and has written a splendid biography on Joe Burk.

Driven by Demons: Bipolar Olympian (2025) by Tim Crooks. Crooks competed in five World Rowing Championships, two Olympic Games, and he won seven Henley Regatta titles, including the Diamond Sculls while at the same time battling intense mood swings. He had an exceptional talent for rowing and sculling with which he tried to keep his depression at bay. But for years, his life was chaos and his unpredictable and often offensive behaviour worried his crewmates. Crooks struggled without understanding the true nature of his condition. Eventually, he married Annie, who, he writes, “has been my anchor, and […]  saved me.” He did seek help and is now coping with his illness. This is an important book, both when it comes to rowing history, but also that it shines a light on mental illness. Tim Crooks was brave to write this book.

A Mid-Life Less Ordinary (2025) by Peter Wright with Steve Wright. So, if you have run the London Marathon, hobbled 100 miles through the Amazon rainforest, sign up to row the Atlantic (only to have to be rescued by the RNLI off the coast of Jersey), almost died in the Arctic, run a marathon while dragging a car, of course you decide to have another go at rowing the Atlantic Ocean. That is what Peter Wright did with his friend Steve Hayes, another crazy adventurer. Now Peter Wright, together with his brother Steve, has written a book about his life as a buccaneer, who has been taking on several other daring exploits. Read his book and be amazed.

Titan of the Thames: The Life of Lord Desborough (2024) by Sandy Nairne and Peter Williams. This biography tells the story of William Henry Grenfell, Lord Desborough, who was, Chris Dodd, wrote in his HTBS review of the book, “a sportsman par excellence, indulging in fencing, cricket, tarpon fishing, game shooting, swimming, running, rowing, punt racing, boxing, tennis, drag hounds, harriers, wrestling, croquet, stické, cricket, athletics, mountaineering, bartitsu, four-in-hand carriage driving, fishing… and the greatest of these were pulling an oar, punting by pole or pointing an épée. [- – -] The good Lord’s story has been a long time coming, but Nairne and Williams have cleverly knitted together quotes, chapter notes, footnotes, appendices, chronology and narrative into a detailed but highly readable volume.” Read Chris’s full review here.

Water’s Gleaming Gold – The Story of Hugh ‘Jumbo’ Edwards (2023) by Gavin Jamieson. “As laid down by Jamieson, the pull of the narrative is both gentle and strong.  Whether Jumbo is sitting in a boat, soaring over European skies, or coursing through any of the many challenges he overcame, the author utilizes a compelling narrative current to propel his protagonist through the text, never calling ‘Way enough’ for long enough to leave the reader caught in an idle eddy. Often leaping in enthusiastic spurts, the pace of the book in any event rarely falls below that of a brisk paddle, and the ‘swing’ of the story, as related by Jamieson, is mesmerizing. [- – -] I heartily recommend Water’s Gleaming Gold, not just to those who enjoy rowing history, or good biography, but also to those who feast upon good writing. Kudos to Gavin Jamieson for this gift bestowed upon us, and may we see more such works flow from his pen in the years to come,” Tom Weil wrote in his favourable review.

Jack Beresford: An Olympian at War (2019) by John Beresford. “John says that his book is the story that his Father never wrote (although he had discussed Chris Dodd writing his biography). It is also a narrative with a delicious (if vicious) irony; the German bullets that wounded 19-year-old 2nd Lieutenant Beresford in 1918 led to him abandoning rugby and taking up rowing. Eighteen years later, the German favourites to win the Olympic Double Sculls paid the price of Jack’s change of sport as, in the final’s last 100 metres, Dick Southwood and Jack Beresford rowed them to a standstill to win Olympic Gold,” Tim Koch wrote in his review.

More Power – The Story of Jurgen Grobler, The Most Successful Olympic Coach of All Time (2018) by Hugh Matheson and Chris Dodd. More Power is the story of a coach whose crews won at least one event in the Olympic regattas that they took part in between 1976 and 2016. It is a story that is not yet finished as Grobler is still coaching. However, Matheson and Dodd chronicle his first 40 years of Olympic victories – but also look at the less happy aspects of a remarkable career. When Germany was reunited in October 1990 and the East German national sports administration collapsed, Grobler moved to Britain, initially to coach Redgrave and Pinsent at Leander. He claims that ‘I wanted to leave Germany because I wanted to prove I could succeed in a different system’. He soon settled in England and showed his assimilation by dropping the umlaut in ‘Jürgen.’ GB Olympic Gold came with the pair in 1992 and 1996, with the four in 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012, and with the four and the eight in 2016. “It is a splendid achievement by the authors, Hugh Matheson and Chris Dodd, the literary equivalent of the pairing of Redgrave and Pinsent or Bond and Murray – More Power to their elbows!,” Tim Koch wrote in his review of the book.

A Yank at Cambridge – B.H. Howell: The Forgotten Champion (2015) by Göran R Buckhorn. “Göran Buckhorn, esteemed editor of esteemed Hear The Boat Sing, has written a biography of Benjamin Hunting Howell, an American educated at Cambridge University who became an English tyro of oar. I say English because although of American nationality, Howell did all his rowing with Trinity Hall, CUBC, or Thames RC and it never crossed any British mind in that he was a foreigner, or any American mind that he was an oarsman. [- – -] Buckhorn’s A Yank at Cambridge was inspired by the late Hart Perry of the National Rowing Foundation (NRF) when it was given an album of Howell’s rowing photographs. Buckhorn tells the story of Howell’s episodic, plucky rowing life meticulously – a sporting life which ended with Howell’s return to the U.S. and his business of electronic components. It is copiously illustrated from the photo album and elsewhere, and resonates with both social realism of the 1890s and arguments exercising rowers and their blazerati,” Chris Dodd wrote in his review of the book.