{"product_id":"rowing-against-the-current-on-learning-to-scull-at-forty-9780684863306","title":"Rowing Against the Current: On Learning to Scull at Forty","description":"In the midst of the standard, dreary midlife crisis -- complete with wine-tasting courses, yoga classes, and a failed attempt at a first novel -- forty-year-old Barry Strauss falls unexpectedly and passionately in love with rowing, a sport in which a twenty-seven-year-old is a has-been. \u003cbr\u003e Strauss, a professor of classics and history, writes about the unanticipated delights of an affair that, like so many others, begins as a casual dalliance and develops into a full-blown obsession. Drawn to the sport in part because of his affinity for Greek antiquity, he develops a love for old boathouses, a longing for rivers at dawn, a thirst to test himself, and, ultimately, a renewed sense of self-reliance -- as someone who had experienced sports humiliation as far back as Little League suddenly finds himself bursting into athleticism at an unlikely age. \u003cbr\u003e From the awe-inspiring feats of the war-bound Greek triremes with their crews of 172 men rowing on three levels to the solitary pride of finishing a first race in which he gets stuck in the weeds and has to be fished out, Barry Strauss shows us why \"there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half as much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBarry Strauss is a professor of history and classics at Cornell University, The Corliss Page Dean Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a leading expert on ancient military history. He has written or edited several books, including \u003ci\u003eThe Battle of Salamis\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Trojan War\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Spartacus War\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMasters of Command\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Death of Caesar\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eTen Caesars\u003c\/i\u003e. Visit BarryStrauss.com.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Scribner Book Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50412801753362,"sku":"9780684863306","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_87fc0423-ee53-4ada-a14e-6639f744bad7.jpg?v=1729329080","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/rowing-against-the-current-on-learning-to-scull-at-forty-9780684863306","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}