[Book Reviews] Active books from a sedentary woman
When I can't go anywhere, this is what you get. Plus side: I finally cracked the cover on the Landmark Edition "Arrian". (I bogged down shamefully in the "Hellenika" last November and have not yet resumed it, but maybe reading about Alexander the Great will fire my enthusiasm for Greek campaigning.)
Books About Exercising:
I think everyone but me that I know who has read Haruki Murakami's "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" is a member of some secret cult of niceness and peace that I lack the endorphin entry ticket to. [grin] An easy, gentle, meditative read, I cannot decide whether Murakami just has a much nicer time running than I do, or if I'm just a gripier person, heh. I appreciate his way of presenting the everyday and how he's taken the same lessons of perseverance from running and applied them to novel writing. I've also found that the essential skillset of not giving up when things get hard is important and carries over. I admire his ability to find joy in it. (I still do not find joy in it.) Three inabilities to relate out of five -- I feel bad doing that to a Murakami book, but man. Bafflement.
I did very much like Bryon Powell's "Relentless Forward Progress: A Guide to Running Ultramarathons", which I read to see if I could figure out how to optimize my training for the marathon. (I figured if I followed his 50k program, then I ought to be more than capable of running all of a marathon, right?) Fortunately/unfortunately, I repeated week 5, uh, 17 times before I realized that I was not going to progress past that point at my current fitness level. So, bright side, it did tell me where I am stuck. I probably do need to up my base mileage... I just need to figure out how to have less wear and tear on my body while running high-mileage weeks. (I already do either trail or treadmill, no concrete or asphalt unless it's a race, fish oil for the joints, healthy diet, and I've tried lots of different kinds of shoe.) The book was pretty helpful in affirming that I'm doing a lot of things right, and I appreciated its informal anecdotal style. There were parts that were terribly funny if you've had similar experiences. I may try this program again in the fall -- I have two full marathons scheduled then, so I have something to train for. Four and a half aspirations out of five.
Going old-school, Heinrich Harrer's "The White Spider: The Classic Account of the Ascent of the Eiger" is grandly heroic, generously forgiving of the mountaineers who made unsuccessful attempts, and celebratory of the strengths of everyone who gave it a good try. This historical account of ascents of the Eiger's North Face is as inspiring as it is thorough. Fans of modern mountaineering literature may be surprised and pleased by the absence (and indeed, quashing) of the jockeying for honors -- it is Harrer's position that there's plenty of honor to go around in making earnest attempts at a challenging goal. The historical perspective allows the reader to learn successful and unsuccessful strategies for climbing the Face as the mountaineers and climbers of the era did, as well as providing a useful window into history -- the various strains of national pride at play in Europe after World War II are mentioned herein in the smoothing over. More than thirty years of stories and anecdotes, as well as data about the development of climbing technology, the ascendance of crampons, and the progress of steel-cable search and rescue techniques make this well worth reading. Four calculated ascents out of five.
A more modern take on the same mountain, at least in part, Jon Krakauer's "Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains" is a series of short, delicious essays (including the titular and hilarious essay about the Eiger) that had me laughing out loud with recognition -- I've certainly turned around on enough shorter mountains to recognize the feelings of relief, regret, joy, and failure that come with the experience. I never was a 23 year old guy, so "The Devil's Thumb" left me going "what were you THINKING", but his canyoneering and Alaska pilot essays were the most educational of the volume for me. Greatly enjoyable as always; four and a half variably advised attempts out of five.
Despite the fact that the name is nearly longer than the book, Andy Selter's "Glacier Travel and Crevasse Rescue: Reading Glaciers, Team Travel, Crevasse Rescue Techniques, Routefinding, Expedition Skills" was excellent. Helpfully clear and direct, this book provides a fair amount of insight into the basics of what one should be considering before venturing into crevasse country. People already familiar with avalanches will have a leg up on understanding the forces at work in snow and ice compaction, fracturing, and behavior, as will students of mountain weather patterns. As a hiker beginning to consider mountaineering proper, though, this was the introduction I was looking for, and I can use the knowledge from it to help me find instruction in travel techniques and appropriate gear. Thanks! Five ice axes out of five.
Stephen Madden's "Embrace the Suck: A Crossfit Memoir" was not really all that interesting... it's a pretty predictable journey-book from someone who discovers that waking up in the morning to exercise stupidly hard sucks, but eventually is rewarding, but that sticking with it long term is hard and requires a lot of self-discipline, heh. Also diets are hard, sometimes work if you stick with them, but sticking with them is super challenging if you want to eat in restaurants or with other people. So, I was hoping it'd be funnier than it was, but it wasn't. Two and a half burpees out of five.
Read the same week as "Embrace the Suck" (which did after all have the better title), T.J. Murphy's "Inside the Box: The Culture, Science, and Sweat of the CrossFit Revolution" was the better of the two. Useful and interesting insights to some of the CrossFit personalities whose videos I've watched or whose books I've read. Also an easy fun read... it'd make a good airplane book. (Memoirs are great for that.) I would have liked a little more information, if it's available, on why CrossFit worked around the author's injuries when they sounded pretty bad... seems like he's got other books out specifically on running that might address that to some degree. My favorite part was the case study in chapter 7, but the firebreathers explanation was also pretty worthwhile. Three and a half Frans out of five.
This entry was originally posted at http://ivy.dreamwidth.org/550585.html and has
comments there. Please feel free to comment on either site; comments rock.
Books About Exercising:
I think everyone but me that I know who has read Haruki Murakami's "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" is a member of some secret cult of niceness and peace that I lack the endorphin entry ticket to. [grin] An easy, gentle, meditative read, I cannot decide whether Murakami just has a much nicer time running than I do, or if I'm just a gripier person, heh. I appreciate his way of presenting the everyday and how he's taken the same lessons of perseverance from running and applied them to novel writing. I've also found that the essential skillset of not giving up when things get hard is important and carries over. I admire his ability to find joy in it. (I still do not find joy in it.) Three inabilities to relate out of five -- I feel bad doing that to a Murakami book, but man. Bafflement.
I did very much like Bryon Powell's "Relentless Forward Progress: A Guide to Running Ultramarathons", which I read to see if I could figure out how to optimize my training for the marathon. (I figured if I followed his 50k program, then I ought to be more than capable of running all of a marathon, right?) Fortunately/unfortunately, I repeated week 5, uh, 17 times before I realized that I was not going to progress past that point at my current fitness level. So, bright side, it did tell me where I am stuck. I probably do need to up my base mileage... I just need to figure out how to have less wear and tear on my body while running high-mileage weeks. (I already do either trail or treadmill, no concrete or asphalt unless it's a race, fish oil for the joints, healthy diet, and I've tried lots of different kinds of shoe.) The book was pretty helpful in affirming that I'm doing a lot of things right, and I appreciated its informal anecdotal style. There were parts that were terribly funny if you've had similar experiences. I may try this program again in the fall -- I have two full marathons scheduled then, so I have something to train for. Four and a half aspirations out of five.
Going old-school, Heinrich Harrer's "The White Spider: The Classic Account of the Ascent of the Eiger" is grandly heroic, generously forgiving of the mountaineers who made unsuccessful attempts, and celebratory of the strengths of everyone who gave it a good try. This historical account of ascents of the Eiger's North Face is as inspiring as it is thorough. Fans of modern mountaineering literature may be surprised and pleased by the absence (and indeed, quashing) of the jockeying for honors -- it is Harrer's position that there's plenty of honor to go around in making earnest attempts at a challenging goal. The historical perspective allows the reader to learn successful and unsuccessful strategies for climbing the Face as the mountaineers and climbers of the era did, as well as providing a useful window into history -- the various strains of national pride at play in Europe after World War II are mentioned herein in the smoothing over. More than thirty years of stories and anecdotes, as well as data about the development of climbing technology, the ascendance of crampons, and the progress of steel-cable search and rescue techniques make this well worth reading. Four calculated ascents out of five.
A more modern take on the same mountain, at least in part, Jon Krakauer's "Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains" is a series of short, delicious essays (including the titular and hilarious essay about the Eiger) that had me laughing out loud with recognition -- I've certainly turned around on enough shorter mountains to recognize the feelings of relief, regret, joy, and failure that come with the experience. I never was a 23 year old guy, so "The Devil's Thumb" left me going "what were you THINKING", but his canyoneering and Alaska pilot essays were the most educational of the volume for me. Greatly enjoyable as always; four and a half variably advised attempts out of five.
Despite the fact that the name is nearly longer than the book, Andy Selter's "Glacier Travel and Crevasse Rescue: Reading Glaciers, Team Travel, Crevasse Rescue Techniques, Routefinding, Expedition Skills" was excellent. Helpfully clear and direct, this book provides a fair amount of insight into the basics of what one should be considering before venturing into crevasse country. People already familiar with avalanches will have a leg up on understanding the forces at work in snow and ice compaction, fracturing, and behavior, as will students of mountain weather patterns. As a hiker beginning to consider mountaineering proper, though, this was the introduction I was looking for, and I can use the knowledge from it to help me find instruction in travel techniques and appropriate gear. Thanks! Five ice axes out of five.
Stephen Madden's "Embrace the Suck: A Crossfit Memoir" was not really all that interesting... it's a pretty predictable journey-book from someone who discovers that waking up in the morning to exercise stupidly hard sucks, but eventually is rewarding, but that sticking with it long term is hard and requires a lot of self-discipline, heh. Also diets are hard, sometimes work if you stick with them, but sticking with them is super challenging if you want to eat in restaurants or with other people. So, I was hoping it'd be funnier than it was, but it wasn't. Two and a half burpees out of five.
Read the same week as "Embrace the Suck" (which did after all have the better title), T.J. Murphy's "Inside the Box: The Culture, Science, and Sweat of the CrossFit Revolution" was the better of the two. Useful and interesting insights to some of the CrossFit personalities whose videos I've watched or whose books I've read. Also an easy fun read... it'd make a good airplane book. (Memoirs are great for that.) I would have liked a little more information, if it's available, on why CrossFit worked around the author's injuries when they sounded pretty bad... seems like he's got other books out specifically on running that might address that to some degree. My favorite part was the case study in chapter 7, but the firebreathers explanation was also pretty worthwhile. Three and a half Frans out of five.
This entry was originally posted at http://ivy.dreamwidth.org/550585.html and has
comments there. Please feel free to comment on either site; comments rock.