 "Disappointed fan of Halberstam" | 2008-07-19 |
| - Reviewed By User: AKQ8PUWYIDE6W |
| I am a big fan of David Halberstam. Like his other books, this one was well written, but I just could not get into the subject matter. The main characters that he follows were uninteresting and pretty one dimnesional in their rowing obsession. Halberstam seems to worship their dedication to a sport that few care about, but I find their masochistic pleasure in continuous pain and lonely training quite odd and certainly not anything heroic. I think that if I had been a rower at some point in my athletic career instead of a track athlete and soccer player, I would have enjoyed this book more. We've all heard the term "too much inside baseball." For me this book was too much "inside rowing" and did not translate into a broader experience for fans of other sports. |
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 "Great writing, sad story" | 2008-05-25 |
| - Reviewed By User: AQLX6JMIJXM8C |
| Really well written, but a depressing story. I finished the book without any happy illusions about the sport, or sports in general. Nevertheless, a valuable story about the human spirit. |
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| "A way to see into rowing and the people who do it" | 2005-01-21 |
| - Reviewed By paxber |
For someone who's not a rower, Halberstam gets most of this right - the technique, the atmosphere, the obsessiveness (which is common to all levels of rowing, just intensified among Olympians). In some ways the selection for the '84 Olympics was a crux point in the US rowing system, and Halberstam shows just why. If you want to get a view into a sport most people ignore, written by a top author, this is a good place to do it - same if you just want a peek in the mind of world-class athletes. If you want to really learn about the 84' Olympics selection camp, I'd recommend reading this in combination with Brad Lewis' "Assault at Lake Casitas", for a another viewpoint from one of the main actors (and the '84 doubles gold medalist).
Incidentally, the movie Rowing Through was based on The Amateurs. It's quite divergent from the book, but not too bad if you can ignore a good bit of gratuitous sex and some hardly-Olympic-caliber rowing in the scenes on the water. |
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 "top 2 rowing books ever" | 2004-12-16 |
| - Reviewed By mr_secret_squirrel |
| halberstam is very engaging in not merely following the story of the 1976 Olympic US rowing scullers, but in relentlessly digging into their lives for historical details of their rowing past, psychological stabs at what drives them, and their social interaction with their teammates. this book was quite well known in the 1980's, but seems to have been forgotten by many in the rowing community - what a shame!! i expect every serious rower today would still find this an extremely compelling and interesting story, and for those of us who read it 20 years ago, i can testify that it is very well worth a re-read. and the other top rowing book? virtually unknown and quite hard to find, brad alan lewis' `assault on lake casitas' is just as great as `the amateurs', and a fantastic companion to it!! |
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| "Another great book from David Halberstam" | 2004-09-30 |
| - Reviewed By gwfeds0 |
I read this book in spite of the facts that I have no interest in rowing and know nothing about it. I read it only because it was written by David Halberstam, and I've loved everything I've ever read by him.
This book was no exception. Even though I still know very little about the sport, I now appreciate how grueling it is, and how much training these guys do.
You can't go wrong with a David Halberstam book, and this one's no exception. |
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| "A great Recommendation to anyone" | 2004-08-03 |
| - Reviewed By rocktroy |
| After being recommended to read this book, I know recommend it to anyone with an interest in any sports or great literature. I do crew and mountain biking and only wish I had read this book earlier. The book follows a few oarsmen on their path to the Olympics and describes the hidden world of crew and its politics unbelievably well. What you can take away from this book is an undeniably better mental toughness in whatever you do from crew to paper pushing, this book will make you better at it. |
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| "A Look at a lonely calling" | 2003-03-27 |
| - Reviewed By bookscd11 |
| Someone recommended this book to me one day during the Olympics. I read it straight through at one setting. It is the story of a lonely sport, rowing, and the men who endure incredible pain and sacrifice just for the chance of competition. These are not men who party at night, sleep late and wave to the cameras. No, they are dedicated, serious students who have been called to wield an oar. The author shares a trait with Paul Johnson and Daniel Boorstin- that is the art of intertwining personal tales within the plot of his story in such a way that both complement each other. If you want a good beach book, this is the one. |
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| "Rowing as peak experience" | 2002-03-08 |
| - Reviewed By jjoss |
With the Summer Olympics coming up, this book should be read and savored for its extraordinary writing quality and insights.
As a college oarsman (single sculls, then coxswain, bow and stroke of an eight), as a persnickety reader since childhood and as a writer of 20+ books, I approached the work of non-rower Halberstam with skepticism, reluctance to be touched by him. Was I wrong!
Rowing is one of the most unusual and difficult sports, and it seems remote to outsider, almost mechanized. Insiders know the real world under that surface: the loneliness of training, the necessity for precise skills and relentless focus, the gut-wrenching pre-race [jitters] and fear that vanishes at each start, the sense of being asked to perform brutal acts on one's own body, the appalling effort (especially for stroke) of trying to stage an attack or recover from being in arrears, the ectasy and elation of winning, the soul-searing agony of losing with its message of inadequacy, of being bested by a superior human or group of humans, the need to get back and try harder, to push the body further and further into pain.
Halberstam captured it all, and went deeper, into the minds and hearts of some of the greatest oars the U.S. has produced, to bring back a masterpiece of reporting. He managed to show the idiosyncratic nature of dedicated single-scull oarsmen, and the way these loners look at their lives and chosen sport.
As a rower, I was consumed by this book. As a critical reader, I was entirely satisfied. As a writer, I was envious of Halberstam's skills. My only regret is that rowing is not perceived as the great participant and spectator sport that it is, and that too few of us have the chance to enjoy it in either sense. |
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| "Excellent, Fast Moving, Makes you want to pull hard@!" | 2001-01-15 |
| - Reviewed By ratagonia |
| I always wondered why some people I know at school were totally into crew. All that training, winter on the rivers, getting up really early - why? Now I know. Yes, I live to climb and climb to live. But rowing is unbelievably more intense. David Halberstam sure brings it alive. Not only the pain, the training, the loneliness and solitude at the top of an elite and obscure sport, but also the intense clash of personalities - the limited glory, the pain of loss, the pain of not even getting to row. Who would think that one of the best books I've ever read is about rowing? Now all I want to do is go out and row, row, pull, pull, harder, harder... |
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| "a true rowing portrait" | 1999-12-04 |
| - Reviewed By ki_ho |
| It is incredible that David Halberstam, a non-rower and outsider to the cliquish or solitary types found in boathouses, was able to write such a penetrating and accurate picture of the amateurs in this book. His descriptions of the feeling of rowing, of ``swing,'' and of the bizarre politics of single sculling are right on the money. They are recognizable to long-time rowers and comprehensible to those who have never rowed before. His character depictions are at times almost frighteningly dead-on. To put it succinctly, Halberstam gets everything right in this book. If you are a rower or any other sort of athlete, or if you want to read a masterfully told story of competition, read this book. |
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