During the height of the Great Depression, nine working-class college students on the University of Washington varsity crew team set off to do the impossible: defeat the German rowing team in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It’s one of those stories that I intentionally slowed my reading pace to savor every minute of it! (And, if you aren’t knowledgeable about rowing, that’s OK. But, I was surprised to find a new interest in the sport after reading this.) It is a compelling account of how these all-American underdogs beat the odds and found hope in the most desperate of times.