The Art of Resilience

A really unique premise for a book. In 2018, adventurer, sports scientist, and extreme athlete Ross Edgley completed a ludicrous feat: circumnavigating the entire United Kingdom by himself (swimming). The 157 day, 1792 mile swim itself had every imaginable horror attached to it, from chafing and losing skin to the bone, to being stung so much in the face by jellyfish that he had to concoct a barely-breathable mask on the journey, to hearing of his father’s terminal cancer diagnosis halfway through the swim, to tides so aggressive that at Edgley ended up swimming backwards at nearly 10 mph for multiple stretches, on, and on.

While undertaking the swim, Edgley took copious notes of his mental state, how he was able to intellectually and emotionally justify the journey during the toughest parts of the swim, and what he learned about the mind’s relationship to physical human capacity. Those notes, edited and formatted back on land, make up the core of the book. It makes the work refreshingly different. Instead of a piece of braggadocio after the fact, the reader is instead treated to the unvarnished “feed” of intrinsic dialog Edgley was having with himself. I really enjoy reading stuff like this.