I turned to this book with excitement as I haven’t read a running book in a while and this is supposed to be one of the classics. Bought in Penzance in October 2017 (get me with my being caught up!), it represents Book 8 in my #20BooksOfSummer project, which feels like some progress (I’m already reading Book 9, and Books 10-12 are two novels and a running/travel book so that all feels doable by the end of the month). I did acquire some books this week: I had a slightly unexpected dentist appointment (my old dentist had a habit of rescheduling so my March-September appointments have slipped, thank goodness for their text reminders) and popped into Oxfam books to see if I could find a nice novel, came out with … well, you’ll see below.

Christopher McDougall – “Born to Run”

(02 October 2017, Penzance charity shop)

Far from being the polemic about shoeless running from the start through to the end that I was expecting, this is a very engaging narrative non-fiction book. He spends most of it in shoes, actually, although he is, as expected, in careful pursuit of the elusive Tarahumara people of Mexico, the best ultra-runners in the world. He tracks them down with the help of a strange and elusive feral man who turns out to have been so inspired by supporting them through a US race that he gave everything up and built his own shack in the mountains – hardly the most suitable chap to set up a race or even manage to meet, but McDougall seems to manage to gel with him and find a charm in him, as he does in (almost) everyone).

McDougall weaves in a lot of history and information about the sport of long-distance running, especially in the US (claiming it peaks in national crises), and I loved how other runners I’ve read about earlier get woven into the narrative, too, from Deana Castor‘s Coach Vigil through Dean Karnazes (McDougall is not a fan, it’s safe to say) to Scott Jurek, who he has a lot of time for and spends a lot of time with. I’d already read about Jurek’s run with the Tarahumara so it was lovely to have this triangulated from an outsider’s point of view, backing up the impression of him as an all-round nice guy, fitting in nicely with Coach Vigil’s emphasis on being a good person as well as a good runner.

I also very much liked the (non-sexist, non-creepy) celebration of some of the amazing women of ultra-running, very much strong and equal to the men, with higher proportions finishing ultras than men have, interestingly (this might just be in the US, although I know some super tough female ultra runners here, too!). An oddball set of characters, including one woman, is assembled for the first Tarahumara/US race on Mexican paths, and I really liked the mutual respect the two groups show each other in this section, exciting as it is, but also very human.

The stuff on barefoot running and humans being born to run is all backed up scientifically and almost made me throw out my shoes (I have one leg longer than the other, so I feel I fall into the small percentage of people that McDougall admits do need support and orthotics!) – I will certainly work on foot and ankle strengthening, though. I can see how it makes people espouse that and he’s careful not to be too stary-eyed and pushy about it and to advocate taking care (and the barefoot runner in the race does suffer somewhat, so it’s not all shown as being easy).

It’s an exciting book, full of risk and danger, but not too gung-ho: McDougall is honest about his own short-comings as a runner and all he has to learn, and indeed his mis-steps in the process of studying the Tarahumara. I can see why this book is considered a classic and heartily recommend it.

This was Book #8 in my 20BooksOfSummer challenge.

So I didn’t exactly pick up a light novel in Oxfam! Here we have Simon Garfield’s “On the Map: Why the World Looks the Way it Does” which I was sure I had, but no. I do like books about maps. Harold Nicolson’s “Journey to Java” is a real find, one of his travel books, obviously, and one I’ve been after for a while. John Carter and Nicholas Barker’s “A.B.C. For Book Collectors” is a 1990s edition of a classic I pored over when I was a special collections library assistant: it covers all the ways book sellers describe second-hand books, the parts of a book etc., but is also very sparkling and witty in the way it does it. I can’t wait to read this again, with its updates.

I’m currently reading Peter Ginna’s “What Editors Do”, which, even without having a chapter by an edibuddy of mine, is absolutely fascinating: just because I’m an editor myself doesn’t mean I know how it all works in a big publishing house or how people do acquiring and developmental editing. A real pleasure to read.

Have you any confessions to make?