21 December 2025

By Göran R Buckhorn

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

For Part III, which is the last article of recommendations for this Christmas (and a bit late, I’m afraid), we recommend some rowing books written by women.

The Long Win: The Search for a Better Way to Succeed (2020; 2nd ed. 2024) by Cath Bishop. Three-time Olympian (silver, 2024) and World Champion in the coxless pair in 2023 (and silver, 1998) Cath Bishop was a diplomat who worked on policy and negotiations, specializing in stabilization policy for conflict-affected parts of the world, including Bosnia and Iraq. About her book, she writes: “The book explores our cultural obsession with winning and how it affects the way we approach work, sport, education and beyond. Through a combination of my own personal story and others’ stories, research and interviews I look at some of the consequences of a win-at-all-costs approach and propose a new way of redefining success.” The 2nd edition contains updated text, a new chapter with short stories and snapshots of “Long Win leaders” across business, education, sport and public life. In a review, Neil Rollings wrote: “This book will be of interest to all involved in sport, business and education.  The central premise is that winning is a deeper achievement than scoring more goals than an opponent on a single occasion, and that it is not a zero-sum game.  It will inspire educators to investigate further what winning means to them, and how the answer to this question shapes all programmes and processes.” Read also what Chris Dodd wrote about Bishop’s book here.

Alice Milliat, La femme olympique (2025) by Sophie Danger. In her review, HTBS’s Hélène Rémond wrote: “More than a century ago, [Alice Milliat] successfully led women’s inclusion in the Olympic Games, while the 2024 Olympic Games have achieved parity with equal numbers of women and men athletes for the first time. Sophie Danger’s book reports on the way Alice Milliat was a pioneer of women’s sport. Yet, young Alice had done everything in her power at school to escape the boredom of hygienic gymnastics classes. A keen sportswoman – she was a swimmer and hockey player – it’s during a stay as a nanny in London, at the age of 18 that she discovered rowing on the Serpentine in Hyde Park and fell in love with the sport. She married in England before coming back to France, in Nantes and then in Paris, where she used her strength of conviction to unite the fledgling women’s sports movement, before embarking on the battle of her life: women’s access to the Olympic Games. Having lost her husband who died unexpectedly, it was a shattering blow but she followed her work in favor of sport, all the more so as ‘sport, and more specifically rowing, helped her to cope with horror’, writes Sophie Danger.” Read Hélène’s full review here.

Unsinkable: My Untold Story (2014) by Silken Laumann with Sylvia Fraser. In my review of Laumann’s autobiography, I wrote: “A true picture of female heroism in the sport of rowing is when Canadian sculler Silken Laumann crossed the finish line at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics to take a bronze medal. Ten weeks earlier she had had her right calf muscles shredded when a men’s pair had crashed into her single sculls during warm-up at a World Cup regatta in Essen, Germany. With enormous courage and willpower, she fought her way back, despite pain and her doctors’ advice not to go back to elite competitive rowing so soon. Before she could even walk, she was out sculling to make it to the 1992 Olympic single sculls final.” In her autobiography, Silken Laumann writes about the verbal and physical abuse inflicted upon her by her troubled mother, while her father turned a blind eye to the problems. She also writes honestly about the anorexia she suffered from in her teens, and her partner’s and her difficulties having two children with special needs. She is a brave woman, Silken Laumann.

Dreams Do Come True: The Autobiography (2013; 2nd ed. with the title The Autobiography, 2016) by Katherine Grainger. After winning three Olympic silver medals, Grainger won an Olympic gold medal at the 2012 London Games in the double sculls with Anna Watkins. For the 2016 Olympics, at age 40, she joined Vicky Thornley to take a silver medal in the double sculls. To this can be added her six World Championships. Grainger – now Baroness Katherine Grainger – published her autobiography the year after her Olympic gold medal telling the story of her road to becoming Olympic champion. After continuing her rowing career, now with Thornley, she writes in the updated 2nd edition about the highs and lows of their attempt to qualify for Rio 2016 and eventually their row to a silver medal. During her athletic career she succeeded in combining it with her education. She now has degrees from Glasgow and Edinburgh universities and a PhD from London, in subjects as diverse as law, philosophy and homicide. The foreword is written by Sir Steve Redgrave.

Part I is here.
Part II is here.