A powerful story of friendship, bravery, and a desperate bid for freedom, inspired by true events. Ming survived the famine that killed his parents during China's "Great Leap Forward", and lives a hard but adequate life, working in the fields. When a group of city boys comes to the village as part of a Communist Party re-education program, Ming and his friends aren't sure what to make of the new arrivals. They're not used to hard labor and village life. But despite his reservations, Ming befriends a charming city boy called Li. The two couldn't be more different, but slowly they form a bond over evening swims and shared dreams. But as the bitterness of life under the Party begins to take its toll on both boys, they begin to imagine the impossible: freedom.
When Kent Wong was a young boy, his father, a patriotic Chinese official in the customs office in Hong Kong, joined an insurrection at work and returned with the family to the newly established People’s Republic of China. Hailed as heroes, they settled in the southern city of Canton. But Mao’s China was dangerous and unstable, with landlords executed en-masse and millions dying of starvation during the Great Leap Forward.
When a young girl's life is torn apart by the terror and fear of a new communist government, she has to learn to survive within its harsh confines. As she grows, so does her understanding and her hatred of the political situation, and she becomes determined to escape its confines, but the only method also risks many ways to die. Can Suk Hing survive the arduous journey that is fraught with danger, or will she be captured and have to suffer the consequences of being branded a traitor? This is a novelization of a true story of one young women's struggle, an epic journey made by many who should never be forgotten. This is the story of the Freedom Swimmers.
Tera Bradham was born to prove people wrong. The fastest swimmer her age in the United States by age ten, many believed “Tera the Terror” was destined for the Olympics. Her fiercely competitive spirit and unmatched intensity knew no limits until Tera suffered a sudden, devastating shoulder injury that derailed her promising career. Although she trusted in God, she also wrestled with doubts of his goodness throughout subsequent years of misdiagnoses, chronic pain, and crippling disappointment. Her injury finally forced her to fully surrender to God. Then her miracle came, or so she thought. Her shoulder was successfully reconstructed, and after two more years of grueling recovery, Tera found the courage to swim again and pursue her dreams with renewed faith. Swimming for Freedom tells the story of Tera’s unconventional comeback and shows that through God, all things are possible. What started as an Olympic dream ended in her true miracle: the freedom of a life in Christ. Tera’s story will inspire you to rise up, dream again, and fight for his calling on your life.
Explores the nature and appeal of swimming, from the history of the strokes to aspects of modern Olympic competition, as well as the author's personal experiences and milestones in the sport.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this extraordinary book, the world’s most extraordinary distance swimmer writes about her emotional and spiritual need to swim and about the almost mystical act of swimming itself. Lynne Cox trained hard from age nine, working with an Olympic coach, swimming five to twelve miles each day in the Pacific. At age eleven, she swam even when hail made the water “like cold tapioca pudding” and was told she would one day swim the English Channel. Four years later—not yet out of high school—she broke the men’s and women’s world records for the Channel swim. In 1987, she swam the Bering Strait from America to the Soviet Union—a feat that, according to Gorbachev, helped diminish tensions between Russia and the United States. Lynne Cox’s relationship with the water is almost mystical: she describes swimming as flying, and remembers swimming at night through flocks of flying fish the size of mockingbirds, remembers being escorted by a pod of dolphins that came to her off New Zealand. She has a photographic memory of her swims. She tells us how she conceived of, planned, and trained for each, and re-creates for us the experience of swimming (almost) unswimmable bodies of water, including her most recent astonishing one-mile swim to Antarctica in thirty-two-degree water without a wet suit. She tells us how, through training and by taking advantage of her naturally plump physique, she is able to create more heat in the water than she loses. Lynne Cox has swum the Mediterranean, the three-mile Strait of Messina, under the ancient bridges of Kunning Lake, below the old summer palace of the emperor of China in Beijing. Breaking records no longer interests her. She writes about the ways in which these swims instead became vehicles for personal goals, how she sees herself as the lone swimmer among the waves, pitting her courage against the odds, drawn to dangerous places and treacherous waters that, since ancient times, have challenged sailors in ships.
It’s summer behind the Iron Curtain, and six girls are about to swim their way to the Olympics — and a new life. In an unnamed Soviet state, six girls meet each day to swim. At first, they play, splashing each other and floating languidly on the water’s surface. But soon the game becomes something more. They hone their bodies relentlessly. Their skin shades into bruises. They barter cigarettes stolen from the factory where they work for swimsuits to stretch over their sunburnt skin. They tear their legs into splits, flick them back and forth, like herons. They force themselves to stop breathing. When they find themselves representing their country as synchronised swimmers in the Olympics, they seize the chance they have been waiting for to escape and begin new lives. Scattered around the globe, six women live in freedom. But will they ever be able to forget what they left behind?
In a masterful work of cultural history, Charles Sprawson, himself an obsessional swimmer and fluent diver, explores the meaning that different cultures have attached to water, and the search for the springs of classical antiquity. In nineteenth-century England bathing was thought to be an instrument of social and moral reform, while in Germany and America swimming came to signify escape. For the Japanese the swimmer became an expression of samurai pride and nationalism. Sprawson gives is fascinating glimpses of the great swimming heroes: Byron leaping dramatically into the surf at Shelley’s beach funeral; Rupert Brooke swimming naked with Virginia Woolf, the dark water “smelling of mint and mud”; Hart Crane swallow-diving to his death in the Bay of Mexico; Edgar Allan Poe’s lone and mysterious river-swims; Leander, Webb, Weissmuller, and a host of others. Informed by the literature of Swinburne, Goethe, Scott Fitzgerald, and Yukio Mishima; the films of Riefenstahl and Vigo; the Hollywood “swimming musicals” of the 1930s; and delving in and out of Olympic history, Haunts of the Black Masseur is an enthralling assessment of man—body submerged, self-absorbed. It is quite simply the best celebration of swimming ever written, even as it explores aspects of culture in a heretofore unimagined way.
When Maitland developed severe breathing difficulties in his mid-thirties, a lung transplant became his only option for survival. In addition to this aquatic and mountaineering exploits in the ten years since his lung transplant, Maitland describes talking to awe-inspiring individuals, reflects on organ donation from the unique perspective of his donor family, probes exciting advances in scientific research, and considers post-transplant physical exercise regimens. Swimming Through Adversity provides an inspiring source of self-effacing, often humorous, information for anyone faced with a seemingly insurmountable life challenge. “Straight forward and compelling with an inspiring and incredible insight to the journey.” Jeffrey R. Goldstein President and Founding Member, Lung Transplant Foundation “Swimming is one of the few sports in which we willingly put ourselves in an environment where our breathing is restricted. Prepare to be moved and inspired by his story of love, hope and determination.” Simon Griffiths Founder and publisher, Outdoor Swimmer
An authentic novel about growing up in an Asian immigrant family with a mother who is suffering from a debilitating mental illness. Anna Chiu has her hands full. When she's not looking after her brother and sister or helping out at her father's restaurant, she's taking care of her mother, whose debilitating mental illness keeps her in bed most days. Her father's new delivery boy, Rory, is a welcome distraction and even though she knows that things aren't right at home, she's starting to feel like she could be a normal teen.But when her mother finally gets out of bed, things go from bad to worse. And as her mother's condition worsens, Anna and her family question everything they understand about themselves and each other.The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling is a heart-wrenching, true-to-life exploration through the often neglected crevices of culture, mental illness, and family. Its strong themes are balanced by a beautiful romance making it a feel-good, yet important read.
