Got a heads up on this book a couple of weeks back from this guy.
I worked with Kevin at Telecom and was stunned at his story then - rowing across the Atlantic after living the corporate lifestyle. This book was actually stolen from his car (on his laptop) while at Telecom so I guess he wrote it all again. He left Telecom and went to the South Pole unaided and now does public speaking gigs - also impressive considering the speech impediment. Sometimes when he was sitting in the office in Auckland blocking out the world with blu-tack in his ears you could see how someone could be focussed enough to make it happen.
I love this 150 word summary of the book
“I have a traumatic pizza ordering experience and stop being immortal. I quit my job, leave my girlfriend, sell my house and go live with Mum. I watch a lot of daytime TV. The ‘How's Life' show decides that I row the Atlantic. I team up with the original Naked Rower, we struggle to raise money and start building the boat, I start training insanely and nearly lose the plot. Find another rower, lose another rower, get another rower. Start the race (badly). Row into storm. Take the lead. Row. Lose the lead. Row. Row harder. Nothing happens. Row until we hallucinate. We start to close in! Seats break. Rudder breaks. Another storm. Neck and neck as we sprint to the finish. Capsize and thrown out of the boat. Get back in. Get to Barbados first! Yay! Get protested a gainst. Boo! Win at the protest hearing. Still living with Mum.”
There are quite a few extracts from the book on the site - the section about how he decides to row the TransAtlantic race as a result of his concerned Mum's question to How's Life is too funny.
Make a great gift for someone going through a mid-life crisis.
2 comments:
got the book as a gift last week. Came with a gift card. Traded the book in for something else. DOH!
Might have to borrow it off you when you are done.
He was on National program last week - afternoons with Jim Moira, if you want to listen to the audio..
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