Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer » (Large Print)

LYNNE COX has set records all over the world for open-water swimming. She was named a Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year, inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame, and honored with a lifetime achievement award from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of Swimming to Antarctica, which won an Alex Award. She lives in Los Alamitos, California.

Newly Illustrated with Photos and Maps Throughout (format to separate this phrase from copy)

Here is the joyful, inspirational memoir of swimmer Lynne Cox. By age sixteen, she had broken all records for English Channel swims, so she set her goals even higher: She became the first to swim the Strait of Magellan, narrowly escaped a shark attack off the Cape of Good Hope, and was cheered across the twenty-mile Cook Strait of New Zealand by dolphins. Her daring eventually led her to the thirty-eight-degree waters of the Bering Strait, which she crossed in her usual outfit—just a swimsuit, cap, and goggles. She has even swum (LYNN - right verb??) a mile in the iceberg-choked waters of the Antarctic. With a poet's eye for detail, Cox shares the beauty of her time in the water in this new classic of sports memoir.

"[Cox has] done things the rest of us only imagine—and she's written a book that helps us to imagine them with clarity and wonder."—The Boston Globe

"More than the story of the greatest open-water swimmer, Swimming to Antarctica is a portrait of rare and relentless drive. . . .Gripping."—Sports Illustrated

"A tale of remarkable physical prowess and heart."—Vogue

"Fetching and pitch-perfect . . . Full of perilous, preposterous-if-they-weren't-true scenes." - Outside Magazine

"An instant classic of adventure writing."—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"The only things more impressive than her heroics are her magnanimous spirit and ability to bring people together."—Miami Herald

"Even a cursory read leaves one shivering for a warm towel."—Entertainment Weekly

"A triumph of a positive outlook, hefty preparation, and raw courage."—The Economist

"So compelling and immediate that even a non-swimmer can almost feel as if he'd been a participant."—Philadelphia Inquirer

LYNNE COX has set records all over the world for open-water swimming. She was named Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year, inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2000, and honored with a lifetime achievement award from the University of California—Santa Barbara. She lives in Los Alamitos, California.

Publishers Weekly

Cox, one of the world's leading long-distance swimmers, has been a risk-taker ever since she was nine and chose the freezing water of a New Hampshire pool in a storm over getting out and doing calisthenics. After her family moved to California so she and her siblings could train as speed swimmers, she discovered long-distance ocean swimming. Her first open-water event, a team race across the Catalina Channel, convinced her to train for the English Channel. At 15, she broke the Channel record, and decided she needed a new goal. Up to this point, Cox's story reads like a fairy tale of hard work, careful planning and good support, crowned with success. It isn't until she competes in the Nile River swim that the tale turns ugly-she's swimming in raw sewage and chemical waste, fending off the dead rats and broken glass, so sick with dysentery she lands in the hospital. Undeterred, she plans more ambitious swims-around the shark-infested Cape of Good Hope, across Alaska's Glacier Bay-to prepare for her big dream, a swim from Alaska to the Soviet Union across the Bering Strait. While offering herself to researchers studying the effects of cold on the human body, her political goals are even larger: to bring countries and peoples together, using swimming "to establish bridges between borders." Cox ends her story with her swim to Antarctica, where she finishes the first Antarctic mile in 32-degree water in 25 minutes. Even though readers know she survived to tell the tale, it's a thrilling, awesome and well-written story. (Jan.) Forecast: Knopf plans lots of media for this inspirational book, including a nine-city author tour, a profile in Biography magazine, an appearance on NPR, ads in USA Today and features in women's, sports and travel magazines. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Prologue: A Cold Day in August 1

Beginnings 7

Leaving Home 14

Open Water 27

Twenty-six Miles Across the Sea 40

English Channel 57

White Cliffs of Dover 69

Homecoming 95

Invitation to Egypt 102

Lost in the Fog 124

Cook Strait, New Zealand 134

Human Research Subject 146

The Strait of Magellan 160

Around the Cape of Good Hope 177

Around the World in Eighty Days 194

Glacier Bay 204

Facing the Bomb 224

The A-Team 234

Mind-Blowing 248

Debate 265

Across the Bering Strait 282

Success 302

Siberia's Gold Medal 307

Swimming to Antarctica 314

Afterword 358