Swimming Across

Designed to be used by children in their first six months of school PM Starters One and Two

Elegant and concise, this childhood memoir of Andy Grove, one of the pioneers of Silicon Valley, begins in Budapest, Hungary where the author was born into a secular Jewish family in 1936. As a small child, Andris Grof was told, “Jesus Christ was killed by the Jews, and because of that, all of the Jews will be thrown into the Danube.” Grof’s school years were marked by such anti-semitism and interrupted first by the Nazi occupation and then by the post-war Communist regime. He was a good student who excelled at chemistry which he was studying at the University of Budapest when the Hungarian uprising of 1956 persuaded him to “swim across” the border and emigrate to the West. Grove provides an interesting sketch of a boy’s coming of age in a deeply dangerous 20th century Budapest under the control of Nazis and then Communists and concludes the memoir with an account of his escape and eventual resumption of his studies at the City College of New York. “Haunting and inspirational. It should be required reading in schools.” — Tom Brokaw “A poignant memoir... a moving reminder of the meaning of America and the grit and courage of a remarkable young man who became one of America’s phenomenal success stories.” — Henry Kissinger “This honest and riveting account gives a fascinating insight into the man who wroteOnly the Paranoid Survive.” — George Soros “Andy Grove is a tremendous role model, and his book sheds light on his amazing journey. I would choose him as my doubles partner any day!” — Monica Seles “Combines a unique and often harrowing personal experience with the virtues of fiction at its most engrossing — vivid scenes, sharply delineated characters, and an utterly compelling narrative... a wonderful reading experience.” — Richard North Patterson “A poignant tale leading to human courage and hope.” — Elie Wiesel “Grove, the founder and chairman of Intel Corporation, does not whine about his hardships. Instead he recalls ordinary events and matter-of-factly juxtaposes these against the turmoil of midcentury Hungary, creating a subtle though compelling commentary on the power to endure.” — Diane Scharper, The New York Times “Swimming Across tells the childhood stories [Grove] has guarded since first entering the public eye four decades ago... [It] is driven not by executives battling for money and power, but the experiences — some mundane, some extraordinary — of a nonobservant Jewish boy growing up in Hungary through a fascist regime, a Nazi invasion and a Soviet occupation.” — Chris Gaither, The New York Times “ The intelligence, dedication and ingenuity that earned him fame and fortune (he wasTime’s Man of the Year in 1997) are evident early on... Grove’s story stands smartly amid inspirational literature by self-made Americans” — Publishers Weekly “A tight, simply told, extremely intimate memoir... a polished, solid portrait of a particular time and place.” — Kirkus “[A] moving and inspiring memoir... Grove’s account of life in Hungary in the 1950s is a vivid picture of a tumultuous period in world history.” — Booklist

Swim better—and enjoy every lap—with Total Immersion, a guide to improving your swimming from an expert with more than thirty years of experience in the water. Terry Laughlin, the world’s #1 authority on swimming success, has made his unique approach even easier for anyone to master. Whether you’re an accomplished swimmer or have always found swimming to be a struggle, Total Immersion will show you that it’s mindful fluid movement—not athletic ability—that will turn you into an efficient swimmer. This new edition of the bestselling Total Immersion features: -A thoughtfully choreographed series of skill drills—practiced in the mindful spirit of yoga—that can help anyone swim more enjoyably -A holistic approach to becoming one with the water and to developing a swimming style that’s always comfortable -Simple but thorough guidance on how to improve fitness and form -A complementary land-and-water program for achieving a strong and supple body at any age Based on more than thirty years of teaching, coaching, and research, Total Immersion has dramatically improved the physical and mental experience of swimming for thousands of people of all ages and abilities.

An adopted Jew discovers his birth mother was a Christian. Ben Suskind, 31, of New York always believed he was Jewish, so the letter from his birth mother throws his life in confusion. But he recovers, decides he is a Jew after all and for the first time attends a synagogue. A first novel.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the Booker Prize–winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December comes a literary master class on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about ourselves—and our world today. LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR, Time, San Francisco Chronicle, Esquire, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Town & Country, The Rumpus, Electric Lit, Thrillist, BookPage • “[A] worship song to writers and readers.”—Oprah Daily For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. In his introduction, Saunders writes, “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art—namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?” He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.

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.

Carlos and Sam want to play a game in the city so they have to get creative.

In this stunning memoir of life after loss, the open-water swimming legend and bestselling author tells of facing the one challenge that no amount of training could prepare her for. A celebrated athlete who set swimming records around the world, Lynne Cox achieved astonishing feats of strength and endurance. She was the first to swim the frigid waters of the Bering Strait, the Strait of Magellan, and the coast of Antarctica, and she was the fastest to swim the English Channel. But it is a different kind of struggle that pushes her to the brink. In a short period of time, Lynne loses her father, and then her mother, and then Cody, her beloved Labrador retriever. Soon after, Lynne herself is diagnosed with a life-threatening heart condition that leaves her unable to swim and barely able to walk. But against all odds, and with the support of her friends and family, Lynne begins the slow pull toward recovery, reaching always for the open waters that give her the freedom and mastery that mean everything to her. What follows is a beautifully poignant meditation on loss and an exhilarating celebration of life as, to Lynne’s surprise, she begins to find, within the unfamiliar space of vulnerability, the greatest treasures—like falling in love.