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Title: First You Have to Row a Little Boat: Reflections on Life & Living
ISBN: 0446670030
Author:
Richard Bode
Publicate Date: 1995-06-01
Publish: 1995-06-01
List Price: $17.99
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $3.17
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.01
Amazon Merchant Price: $16.19
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Favorite Book
I love this book. It has a lot of good advice and metaphors for living. When life gets me down, and I feel lost, I often reread this book to help me through. I originally got this book as a hardback as a gift. I lent it to someone who never returned it and had to repurchase it. Unfortunately, I could only find this paperback version. Although not a religious book, this is a good complement to the Bible for advice on life.
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2: A+
I've looked for this book for years and finally found it. It was sent promply and in perfect shape. Good job, guys!
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3: Great book.
This is a great book. The book really isn't about sailing. It's about life. The writing is outstanding. To all the fools who reviewed this book as a sailing instruction guide really missed the point. Too bad because there are few very poignant lessons in the text. It's not a book for caveman though. It's probably read better by either men who have some sensitivity or romanticism. I highly recommend this book.
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4: Mitch Ablom Goes Sailing
I'm a rower, so this book may have fallen into my hands by mistake. But I enjoy sailing one-man boats, too. There are some sweet stories in this book. I didn't hate it or anything. But the overall emotional effect seemed contrived or prepackaged. I don't object to the hokeyness--I LIKE hokey!--but very chapter is a pat lesson from sailing that maps perfectly to life. Give me a break. The effect is charming at first, but eventually it's cloying and a little silly.
Contra one of the blurbs on the cover, I suspect one's enjoyment of this little book will be inversely related to one's familiarity with sailing. The less you know the more you may like it. (This is not borne out by a quick scan of the reviews, but only a small percentage of readers write reviews. I suspect a microscopic percentage write negative ones.) There's a rowing book that comes to mind here: MIND OVER WATER. It just didn't seem that deep to me. It didn't seem as if the guy really knew that much about rowing.
Books like this create a nice illusion of emotional depth, in my opinion. There's a market for that, which is fine by me. Bad breath is better than no breath at all.
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5: An Excellent/Must Read, even if you do not sail . . .
My favorite quotation . . . "For the truth is that I already know as much about my fate as I need to know. The day will come when I will die. So the only matter of consequence before me is what I will do with my allotted time. I can remain on shore, paralyzed with fear, or I can raise my sails and dip and soar in the breeze." This is much more than a book about sailing. Bode's words ring of honesty and truth. This book inspired me to "raise my sails" back in 1997 and they are still up today.
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