Rating: 
Summary: The Unsinkable John Pollack
Review: As a child, one of John Pollack's favorite bedtime stories was Holling C. Holling's Paddle-to-the-Sea, the story of a carved toy canoe that, over the course of several years, makes its way from the north shore of Lake Superior, through the Great Lakes, out the St. Lawrence river and, finally, to the Atlantic. Kind strangers aid the canoe's perilous journey and, in the happiest of eventualities, the man who was once the boy who carved the canoe learns of its progress.
Cork Boat, a recounting of John Pollack's lifelong endeavor to build and launch a boat made entirely of wine corks, tells a similar tale of individual determination, a supportive community, and sheer serendipity.
Pollack first turned boatwright at age six, building a craft from orange crates and firewood. It went straight to the bottom of the marsh at the end of the Pollacks' street. Undaunted, he decided then and there that his next boat would be made out of corks. His parents began saving corks, and thus the Cork Boat project began.
By 1999, Pollack was in his 30s, disillusioned with his career as a Capitol Hill speechwriter, and ready to chuck it all in order to devote himself to building his cork boat. At the time, his parents' cork collection topped 3,000. Some quick calculations revealed that Pollack would need at least 60,000.
He quit his job, kicked cork collection into high gear, and took on a partner - a young architect named Garth Goldstein, who soon upped the estimated number of corks needed to 100,000 (the completed boat would actually top out at 165,321 corks). Design work began in earnest, and design solutions (a hexagonal "disk" of corks held together by rubber bands) were stumbled upon entirely by accident.
One by one, difficulties mounted and were surmounted by Pollack and Goldstein's creative thinking, personal connections, determination, and charm. When Washington restaurants and bars failed to come through with the corks they promised to save from the millennium New Year bash, Pollack secured a corporate sponsor - a cork manufacturer who donated tens of thousands of corks. When the completed boat was found to be too large to fit on the boat trailer hired to take it to its launch site, Pollack and Goldstein bought 10 furniture dollies, strapped them to the bottom of the boat, and hired a tow truck to take the craft to the marina.
Not even the horror of September 11, 2001 could sink the dream of the Cork Boat. Though Pollack was certain that none of his volunteers would want to think of something so frivolous in the days after the attack, the opposite was true - volunteers came flooding back because the boat was frivolous. After 9/11, many people were looking for hope wherever they could find it, and the Cork Boat was a hopeful project.
When Pollack's corporate cork sponsor proposed a voyage down Portugal's Douro River, the whole world took notice - everyone from major news networks to the most modest Portuguese villagers. Everyone was determined that the Cork Boat should succeed in winding its way through the Douro to the Atlantic, offering tips for outsmarting customs officers, and tows when the current was too forceful to row against.
Pollack acknowledges that the Cork Boat will probably never sail again. The magic of its trip down the Douro came from the fact that the boat was so unique -- it's sort of a "been there, done that" approach. The story of the Cork Boat, recounted in this book, is an exciting, amazing testament to Pollack's vision and the power of community. Definitely worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Better than Tom Sawyer
Review: Cork Boat by John Pollack is a buoyant tale about a burnt-out speechwriter who decides to leave his job to build and sail a boat made out of wine corks.I was a hundred pages into it when I realized something was strange. I had checked the book out of my library where it was labeled and cataloged as fiction. But it was clearly a memoir. For a moment I suspected that I had somehow misinterpreted what I was reading and that I had missed the boat (pun intended) on some new form of postmodernist travelogue. After all, it bears some resemblance to Donald Barthelme's The Balloon. But no, the explanation was much simpler: the catologers had made a mistake. I believe the story's seeming implausibility had a hand in this slip. But what, I ask, is more implausible: a boat made out of cork or a catologing mistake made by OCLC? Speaking of puns, Pollack had won a national pun-off. But not much of this type of humor is to be found in the writing. All the frivolity is in the action, and even then, most of the action is excrutiating back-breaking work: like training for a triathalon or organizing a political campaign. It seems Pollack takes much pleasure in describing the painful horrors he and his crew had to endure in order to realize this surrealistic fantasy, like some sort of sadistic Willy Wonka or as if Oldenburg had made his giant hamburger out of people's thumbs. I have to hand it to Pollack for pulling off the biggest Tom Sawyer move ever, by getting his friends to volunteer an incredible amount of their time and resources into this vainglorious project, so that he and a handful of people could enjoy a Portugese vacation. I once tried a similar thing by buying a keg so that I could recruit people to help me move out of my house. I still don't know why that didn't float. In conclusion, Cork Boat shows what the best and brightest Democratic writers and thinkers, like Pollack, were doing with themselves after the 2000 election.
Rating: 
Summary: 165,321 Corks. 1 Boat.
Review: Follow the exploits of John Pollack as he faces uncountable obstacles while building his childhood dream - a boat made of wine corks - and then sails it down the Douro River in Portugal. At turns funny and touching, this is a great read. The only fault I could find in this book is there are no photos of the downriver journey, or even of the boat - even though several times the narrative mentions pictures being taken! (The curious can find a few pictures of it by typing "Cork Boat" in the google "image search", though...)
Rating:
Summary: A surprisingly darn good book
Review: I didn't have high expectations when I picked up this book but I had earlier read about the odd effort to build Cork Boat in the Washington Post, so I decided to give it a try. It was actually a remarkable story, a rockin' good tale of whimsy, adventure, and the indominable spirit that has made this country what it is. I read the whole thing in an afternoon and almost one sitting. Don't miss out.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Read to Float You Through the Winter.
Review: I read about this book when it was Friday "Hot Pick" in the Boston Herald. I ended up picking this up and found it to be an enjoyable read. John Pollack is a former Clinton speech writer who had a dream since childhood to build a cork boat that floats. He does after assembling over 165,000 corks with an architect friend, alot of neighborhood help, and some large cork donations from a cork facility in CA. This is a pretty quick read that tells a good story about a dream, a boat, and bonding with friends and family. Pick this up today.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Read to Float You Through the Winter.
Review: I read about this book when it was Friday "Hot Pick" in the Boston Herald. I ended up picking this up and found it to be an enjoyable read. John Pollack is a former Clinton speech writer who had a dream since childhood to build a cork boat that floats. He does after assembling over 165,000 corks with an architect friend, alot of neighborhood help, and some large cork donations from a cork facility in CA. This is a pretty quick read that tells a good story about a dream, a boat, and bonding with friends and family. Pick this up today.
Rating:
Summary: 165,321 Corks. 1 Boat.
Review: In addition to fulfilling his childhood dream of building and launching a boat made of corks, Pollack describes a range of fascinating experiences including working for President Clinton, assisting his geophysicist father in Botswana and other far-flung places, winning an international pun competition, touring the untouched 1912 cabin in Antarctica left behind by Captain Scott's ill-fated expedition, and evacuating Capitol Hill on the morning of 9/11. This book would be the perfect gift for a graduating high school or college senior, and will also appeal to wine lovers, sailors, the unemployed, fans of Portugal, and those with an interest in politics. Pollack's writing flows. He slips in the occasional gentle pun as he tells his story, and briefly shares historic or literary footnotes to further enrich his tale. His appreciation for people and human nature made this book a standout in the adventure travel genre, in my mind, in contrast to the sneering superiority that has disappointed me in travel books by Paul Theroux or Bill Bryson. Cork Boat leaves the reader feeling that life is interesting, varied and that anything is possible. Pollack finds this richness and achievement by reaching out to others, and letting them contribute to the fulfillment of his dream. It reminds me of the children's story of Stone Soup: "Never had the peasants tasted such a soup. And fancy, made from stones!" (Imagine: a boat made from corks!)
Rating:
Summary: Cork Boat
Review: John Pollack quit his high status political career and pursued a dream he'd harbored since he was a child. It's an inspiring story about doing what you dream rather than just working a job. He became famous in Portugal and if you're interested in seeing the boat, pictures of which are sadly missing from the book, then check out his website as you read about his adventures - www.corkboat.com. Also, the timing of the Cork Boat's launch, Fall 2001, is one of the factors that makes this book more than just about a boat.
Rating: 
Summary: Unreadable
Review: So what? Who cares? That was the basic impression I was left with after reading about two thirds of this sophomoric, self-congratulatory ego fest. I could not finish the book. The combination of his cliche-ridden style, his bursts of self-promotion, and his unchecked rants against his "friend" Garth was more than I could stomach. Any emotional capital he may have earned (his sister's death, the all-nighters to finish the boat) was just squandered. This would have made a great magazine article, but it makes a terrible book.
Rating:
Summary: Unreadable
Review: So what? Who cares? That was the basic impression I was left with after reading about two thirds of this sophomoric, self-congratulatory ego fest. I could not finish the book. The combination of his cliche-ridden style, his bursts of self-promotion, and his unchecked rants against his "friend" Garth was more than I could stomach. Any emotional capital he may have earned (his sister's death, the all-nighters to finish the boat) was just squandered. This would have made a great magazine article, but it makes a terrible book.
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