Amateurs with modest dreams will find David Godwin company enough as he recounts his journey to sporting success

Well-written and entertaining…will strike a chord with many who either still long to hit the same benchmark of respectability, or stage longed to do so

Opens a window on the world of amateur golfing to hugely enjoyable effect...engaging and hugely enjoyable... He's a likable and sympathetic guide to a world that can be confusing to anyone who can't differentiate between an eagle and a bogey

Cracking the magical 80 mark is no mean feat, but our author applies himself enthusiastically to the task at hand, gradually building reader empathy… Does he succeed? Ah, that would be telling, but Breaking 80 is worth reading to find out

For the good amateur golfer the ultimate aim is to break 80... It’s every intermediate golfer’s dream, and now there is a wonderfully crisp, charming and moving book for you...it is Godwin’s earnest and relentless, though always engaging, pursuit of his goal that people will appreciate, recognise and warm to... Read it and enjoy

Acerbic, funny stuff

A beautifully written and loving understanding of a very troubled genius

The author, an accomplished storyteller, interprets myriad tiny details of Ernest Hemingway's life, and through them says something new about a writer everyone thinks they know.

I read [Hemingway's Boat] without a pause...an eye-opener of a book, full of unexpected riches, fascinating digressions... It just may be the best book I've read this year, and certainnly the best book I've read about an American writer in a long, long time

Paul Hendrickson is the most innovative and creative nonfiction writer I know. Just read Hemingway's Boat and you'll see what I mean. He has an almost saintly compassion for both the greatness and the foibles of Hemingway. A landmark publishing event.

Hendrickson offers a moving, highly evocative account of Hemingway's turbulent later years, when he lost the favor of critics, the love of wives and friends and, ultimately, his ability to write. This beautifully written, nuanced meditation deserves a wide audience.

An admirably absorbing, important, and moving interpretation of Hemingway's ambitions, passions, and tragedies during the last 27 years of his life. Hendrickson offers fascinating details and sheds new light on Hemingway's kinder, more generous side.

Hendrickson has at times an almost slangy yet intoxicatingly lyrical style in this scrupulously researched book. And, like most of the most entertaining biographies of recent years, he works in his own literary quest and detective work. There are dizzying passages of travel writing about Miami, Key West and Havana - places much visited by writers - that here feel completely fresh.

Paul Hendrickson duly set about getting to the core of Hemingway's relationship with Pilar. And how! His research is flat-out phenomenal... It works.This is, as promised, a book that finds much in Hemingway that has been generally overlooked.

Hemingway's Boat is a fair consideration of the most difficult years in Hemingway's life and written with sympathetic interest

Hendrickson is a large-hearted but honest judge... His luminous and merciful book goes a long way towards completing our picture of a tortured man...remarkable book

Paul Hendrickson has another theme more interesting than Hemmingway's boat: the writers deadly effect on his sons

This is a measured and thoughtful, sometimes lyrical book that adds considerably to the Papa story

Hendrickson has a tremendous feel for Hemingway, as both writer and man; his own writing is vivid and personal... What he says about Hemingway is usually dead on target

Hemingway's Boat... turns a seemingly trivial search for an old boat up on cinder blocks in a Havana yard and a potentially mawkish concentration on the latter end of a life into a powerful meditation on what made Hemingway tick and what made him great. Though one needs other books for the first 35 years of the life, it supersedes them all.

Hendrickson has a fluent, engaging tone...he brings us closer to understanding Hemingway as a man who loved and lost - as opposed to the archtypal misogynist bully he is widely regarded as

His life was spectacular, and, somehow, went spectacularly wrong. Hendrickson tells the story of the man and the boat, and the fish, and the women, and the writing. And then the moment when, at the age of 61, Hemingway woke up early one morning and shot himself. In the head. On purpose. Some story. Very well told

Rich, magisterial account...Other books on Hemingway have tended to focus on his post-1930s literary decline and his machismo. The portrait that emerges from these pages is altogether more human

He has a tremendous feel for Hemingway, as both writer and man

This is a portrait of the author which is likely to leave one feeling more warmly disposed towards him

More a portrait than a biography, this book is a dazzling late example of "New Journalism"...the result is touching, revelatory and utterly absorbing

Unmissable

While much of Hemingway’s life may have been hellish, Hendrickson’s writing is a delight. A fine work

Very well told

An album of fascinating snapshots of Hemingway

Paul Hendrickson writes with a great deal of passion…

A terrific and fresh approach to the man