Book: Born to Run
Monday, July 20th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
Wow. I so nearly bailed on this at about page 80 or so, but a weekend away saved it (read a good 1/3 of it while everyone else was asleep in the hotel room).
Why I didn’t like it? I’m starting to realize I don’t like extended magazine-article novels. I really hated Big Weather a few years ago even though I loved the Outside article, and parts of this book were familiar enough I’m sure I must have read at least one of it’s components before in a running magazine. But the result so often tends to be a not-compelling read with a meandering non-linear flow. As in this case.
I much prefer The Backroom Boys because it expands a bundle of articles but not to novel length – instead the book is a compendium of six stories.
And finally, with Born to Run the final chronology of events in the book left me confused, and the afterword (opening with a story about a race in Mexico – Geesh Louise, I thought I’d just read a non-fiction!) didn’t help… when was Badwater 06?, when was the secret race? why were the Young Guns running support?
It gets better as you read it. It will make you flippant about running distances (I feel the need to blow off a quick four hour run on a trail somewhere and I’ve never done that before) and I think I believe the whole Running Man theory.
Read it if you run and don’t read many magazines.
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(bluefacedpixe addendum: here’s a July 2009 article – a few years on – by the author about the killer running girl (Jenn Shelton) who might even pip D to the post – that self-refers to the events in this book! The two screen magazine article is a nice read).
Posted by bfp in Books |
