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    Cork Boat
    Cork Boat
    Cork Boat
    Audiobook (abridged)5 hours

    Cork Boat

    Written by John Pollack

    Narrated by John Pollack

    3.5/5

    ()

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    About this audiobook

    In the late 1990s John Pollack was working as a Washington speechwriter when, frustrated by the cynicism and hypocrisy on Capitol Hill, he quit his job to pursue a boyhood dream: to build a boat made entirely of wine corks and take it on an epic journey.

    Cork Boat tells the story of Pollack’s improbable quest. Overcoming one obstacle after another, he convinces skeptical bartenders to save their corks, corrals a brilliant but disorganized partner, and eventually cajoles more than one hundred volunteers who help build the boat until their fingers bleed. Ultimately, Pollack completes his vessel of 165,321 corks and sets sail on a fantastic voyage down the Douro River in Portugal, where the Cork Boat becomes a national sensation.

    In recounting these adventures, Pollack skillfully meanders through fascinating arcana, from the cork wars to the history of rubber bands (some 15,000 of which help hold his boat together). He also offers an insider’s look at the White House, where he was a Presidential speechwriter and enlisted navy stewards to save corks for the boat.

    Written with unusual grace and disarming humor, Cork Boat is a buoyant tale of whimsy, adventure, and the power of imagination.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
    Release dateJan 6, 2004
    ISBN9780739310045
    Author

    John Pollack

    John Pollack, who now lives in Washington, D.C., was a stringer in Spain for the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald, USA Today, and The Associated Press. He is the coauthor of The World on a String.

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    Reviews for Cork Boat

    3.5/5

    52 ratings8 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I listened to the CD version of this true life account of John Pollack's boyhood dream of building a boat from wine corks. Yeah, really. From the time he was a boy he collected the corks and planned on the boat. This is the story of how it all came together and floated. It is an interestingly told story and only towards the end was it getting a little tedious.
    • 2/5
      Mildly interesting, Cork Boat gets bogged down in the minutiae of irrelevant detail and whining. The author’s constant haranguing of his friends and relations to help him with his therapeutic hobby is exhausting. His life as a political speech writer during the Clinton years and through 9/11 is more interesting but glossed over. Some find this story inspirational. I just found it tedious. Unless you’re planning to build a cork boat, I’d give it a hard pass.
    • 3/5
      Where to start ? Perhaps w the boat - Pollack writes a great memoir here of a boat constructed of unusual materials but suspiciously absent is any mention of whether or how it was made water-tight . . . was it or wasn't it ? How?
    • 3/5
      Well-written. Perhaps the most interesting parts of the book related to his speech-writing days in the White House, as opposed to the building of the cork boat. An interesting and tragic personal story of tragedy and resilience is also nicely weaved throughout.
    • 1/5
      While the subject matter makes it painfully easy to make nautical puns... I will simply say that I could not force myself to finish. Was it the bad writing, the unsympathetic narrator, the terrible pacing?

      Yes - and much, much more. This would be an amusing magazine or newspaper article...
    • 4/5
      What a fun little story. I really enjoyed reading about the relationships between him and his friends as he built the boat and almost wish I got to see the ship when it was still around. A book about making a dream a reality.
    • 3/5
      This book is the true story of a Congressional (and later presidential) speechwriter who decides to clear his mind of politics for a bit and pursues a childhood dream of building a boat made entirely of bottle corks. This childhood fantasy ends up taking a lot more time and work than Pollack anticipates, but ultimately leads to a sort of cult fame for Pollack and his fellow boat makers as they travel down the Douro river through Portugal wine country to the cries of "cork boat! cork boat!" While I thought the quirky idea of building a boat made entirely of corks sounded intriguing, I was a little bit bored by the tedious descriptions of the actual engineering and building of the boat (the middle section of the book). However, it was sometimes interesting to hear about small successes and failures along the way. It was also interesting to see how the author's relationships with his friends and family were challenged and enhanced through this project. But what was the most interesting out of the tale was the back story behind why the author built the boat (told in the beginning of the book) and the trip through Portugal (described toward the end of the book).
    • 5/5
      For me, the biggest danger in reading books of unlikely adventure in beautiful locales is that I'm immediately struck with the intense desire to do something amazing and travel the world. This is exactly what happened when I read Cork Boat. It's the story of John Pollack and Garth Goldstein, and their unusual project of building a replica Norse longboat completely out of wine and champagne corks. John Pollack, who came up with the idea as a child, spent his entire life saving corks with the intention of one day achieving his childhood dream. In the meantime, he led a fascinating life in its own right. His father, an academic, did a lot of fieldwork which brought his family all around the world to experience both wonder and tragedy. John himself, the winner of the 18th Annual O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships, also became a speechwriter for President Clinton and a staff writer for an Antarctic expedition. But it's the Cork Boat that's truly the heart of this story. Pollack describes the intense challenge of finding enough corks (nearly 1/3 of a million) to build the boat, finding an appropriate way to build with them, and then rallying friends and family to complete the arduous task of constructing the boat. The whole endeavor is topped off by what they imagined as a leisurely drift down the Douro River in Portugal. Needless to say, not everything goes smoothly. Nevertheless, Pollack's story is humorous and poignant and inspiring. I heartily enjoyed reading it, and have become interested in the history of both Portugal and the humble cork. Most of all, I've been inspired to revisit my childhood dreams and wonder, perhaps . . . .