Non-fiction find

This week I asked a librarian for recommendations on books to read and she came up with "Swimming to Antartica" by Lynne Cox. It is an autobiographical account of the author's experiences as a long-distance swimmer.

Now, I am not much of a swimmer myself. I owned a house with a pool in Arizona (where it gets hot enough to melt most solids, including me) and I went in that pool a grand total of about three times in three years. It was great for the resale value and for my two dogs, but I just wasn't into it. It was also a major pain in the ass, especially when you don't even use it: balancing chemicals, vacuuming, skimming. Like I don't have enough to do without maintaining a 10,000 gallon bacteria breeder. I grew snails in the thing at least once. I finally wised up and paid someone else to deal with it.

So, when the librarian suggested it, I was a bit skeptical as to whether I would like it. But the librarian seemed like she really enjoyed it (and I'm such a guy (brainless automaton) whenever an attractive female tells me anything...I once roller-bladed my shins into a railing at some ungodly speed and limped home with lumps the size of walnuts because a cute skater passing the other way said "the hill is not so bad" when she saw me inching my way down the hill while holding a railing).

Well, it turned out to be a really great book. I wasn't familiar with the author, but she broke the men and women's world record for swimming across the English Channel when she was 18. She then proceeded on a series of impressive self-invented accomplishments, some of which had never been done by a woman, and many that had simply never been done (like swimming across the Straits of Magellan in insanely cold water and conditions that sink ships). The author has a great writing style, and a really vivid memory of all of the experiences she relates, which is understandable when you consider that most of them would kill an ordinary human, and regularly do.

Highly recommended reading.