Lynne Cox & Mark Kurlansky

*Here are my two latest "beach read" suggestions. Oh, how I cringe at that label, but "when in Rome... ."

Grayson 

by Lynne Cox

From the Jacket: Grayson is Lynne Cox's first book since Swimming to Antarctica ("Riveting"—Sports Illustrated; "Pitch-perfect"—Outside). In it she tells the story of a miraculous ocean encounter that happened to her when she was seventeen and in training for a big swim (she had already swum the English Channel, twice, and the Catalina Channel).There's something frightening, and magical, about being on the ocean, moving between the heavens and the earth, knowing that you can encounter anything on your journey.

Excerpt from Chapter One:

The stars had set. The sea and sky were inky black, so black I could not see my hands pulling water in front of my face, so black there was no separation between the sea and the sky. They melted together.

It was early March and I was seventeen years old, swimming two hundred yards offshore, outside the line of breaking waves off Seal Beach, California. The water was chilly, fifty-five degrees and as smooth as black ice. And I was swimming on pace, moving at about sixty strokes per minute, etching a small silvery groove across the wide black ocean.

Usually my morning workouts started at 6 a.m., but on this day, I wanted to finish early, get home, complete my homework, and spend the day with friends, so I had begun at 5 a.m.

There were vast and silent forces swirling around me: strong water currents created by distant winds and large waves, the gravitational pull of moon and sun, and the rapid spinning of the earth. These currents were wrapping around me like long braids of soft black licorice, and I was pulling strongly with my arms, trying to slice through them.

As I swam, all I heard were the waves, rising and tumbling onto shore, the smooth rhythm of my hands splashing into the water, the breaths that I drew into my mouth and lungs, and the long gurgling of silvery bubbles rolling slowly into the sea. I slid into my pace, and I felt the water below me shudder.

It wasn't a rogue wave or a current. It felt like something else.

Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World 

by Mark Kurlansky

About the Author

Mark Kurlansky has written articles for the New York Times Magazine, Harper's, the International Herald Tribune, and Partisan Review. He is also the author of two other books, A Continent of Islands: Searching for the Caribbean Destiny (Ballantine) and The Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry (Ballantine). When not travelling around the world, Mark makes his home in New York City with his wife and daughter.

Reviews:

"Every once in a while a writer of particular skill takes a fresh, seemingly improbable idea and turns out a book of pure delight. Such is the case of Mark Kurlansky and the codfish. No one who reads this charming tale will ever think the same again of either the fish or history". 

David McCullough

"In this fascinating story of cod, written in a flowing, poetic prose, the author takes you back to the ancient Basque fishermen and the recipes of the fourteenth century Taillevent, chef to Charles V of France, the eighteenth century Hannah Glasse, and the nineteenth century Alexander Dumas. This exceptional book entertainingly reveals the importance of this wonderful fish in world history".

 Jacques Pepin

"In the story of the cod, Mark Kurlansky has found the tragic fable of our age — abundance turned to scarcity through determined shortsightedness. This classic history will stand as an epitaph and a warning". 

Bill McKibben