Pete
Like a trip with a wonderful road trip buddy. Offerman is thoughtful, clever and adventurous. If you are like me, you get the added bonus of hearing his tales come off the page in his distinctive and comforting voice.
Fleshman has long been a trailblazer in women's running. She is very informed and direct about physical and mental health issues for female athletes. It's a great lesson to see how someone who always appeared confident and strong like Fleshman was battling her own demons much of the time.
Kidder has done it again. It's so good to know that there are so many caring people out there. Full of stats and logistics but also the human beings attached to the theories. A part of Boston most of us never see.
I've long been a fan of McKibben's environmental writing, but I was still impressed by the observational and historical writing in this book. He's a generation older than me, but the "how things have changed" tone is extremely relatable.
As a Thoreau scholar, I loved this book, but you don't need to be an expert to enjoy this clever and thoughtful book. Shattuck lives my belief that you create your own Waldens. In life, you may not get the adventures that you were looking for, but, in going off the trail, you'll discover your own experiences.
The major theme of this book is "I wish that there had been a book like this when I was starting off as a female distance runner." Now that this book exists, you should take advantage of it. I coached XC and track at the high school level for 11 years, at Brandeis for 6 years, and at MIT for 8 years and I wish that my athletes had a chance to read this as young athletes.
As both a writer and long-time ranger, Vietze has the perfect perspective on a life in the shadow of Katahdin. It's not only mountainrescues and amazing views, you've also got daily toilet cleanings and the occaional battle with a beaver. Not to be confused with my workdays in the windowless basement of a bookstore.
I spent every page thinking "I wish I was there," but at least the author does a great job of making the reader feel a part of her adventures. Man may never learn, but the resilience of nature is incredible.
Heart-wrenching, funny, and inspirational. A great book for young female athletes.
It always feels as though McPhee can make any subject interesting and this collection is more proof of his talent. Even the bits on matters that I thought I would have no interest in left me caring about the man writing these stories.
Ellie the author is every bit as quirky and adorable as the characters she has portrayed on television shows like The Office and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. From her childhood in St. Louis to her life in New York as a wife and mother, these are tales of a real person finding success in a very unreal world.
Stargazing on an island in Maine -- ah, that is my happy place! You can simply enjoy the pleasure of viewing the amazing constellations, or, like Lightman, you can ponder man's search for truth and meaning through science and religion.
Each generation tends to believe they are living in the worst of times, but this great book is chock-full of charts and graphs and stories that will remind you of the amazing progress that mankind has made over history. Science and facts are great things, but don't let the twenty-four hour news channels get you down.
This book is both heartfelt and hilarious. Hodgman is full of clever observations on so many subjects, such as facial hair, middle age, the horror of freshwater clams, and the painful beaches of Maine, which have tried to kill him. I have been to many of the areas he mentions in the book, and he is spot-on correct about them!
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Preaching to the choir here, but Gros' book on the joys of walking and history's great walkers makes you feel as though you are walking through a peaceful forest on a spring day. My rhythm was: read a chapter, hike for three hours, repeat.
I read this book because my ridiculously stunning friend loved it, and if she said that the phonebook was an engrossing read then I would have read that. I would totally lie to her and tell her that I loved it regardless of my opinion on the book, but I have no reason to lie to you -- this book is fantastic. Told in a scholarly yet personal way, it's a biography of Eliot, autobiography of the author, and review of Middlemarch. You emerge from the book fired up to re-read Middlemarch, so it's like getting two wonderful books in one.
Sometimes you read a collection of clever stories & you think that yes, over a period of years, writers can come up with a few good ideas. It would take many lifetimes for even the best of writers to come up with the fantastically warped tales that BJ Novak has put together here. I'm used to being the most clever guy in the room, but I have yet to share a space with BJ. I'm sure that when we do meet that we'll become the best of friends. Totally worth reading this book!
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The humorous tale of Thoreau disciple David Gessner and his journey down the Charles. You don't need to travel to the national parks, the beauty of nature can be found in the most unexpected of places.
The Art of Fielding covers all the bases - small college baseball, Melville, and many memorable characters. The best baseball-related fiction since Brothers K. You don't need to be a baseball fan to appreciate this book.
Now in paperback and ready to accompany you to the beach, Finch's examination of Cape Cod over many years is essential summer reading. It is jam-packed with fascinating people with all of their quirks. It's wonderful to read about the wild and raw side of the Cape shore.
A well-written history of cancer. Neither "we can beat this!" nor "we're all doomed!" Just a good factual history of what we know and don't know about the disease.
A fantastic history of Boston whether you have read extensively on the city or if this is your first real exposure to the greatness that is Boston.
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If anybody deserved an outlet from the problems at home it's MacDonald. Great insight into the music scene in Boston.
If you were a thinker or artist in the mid-19th century then you knew the Peabody Sisters. I like to think that I might have been hanging out with their crowd.
It works both as an an adventure book and as a running book. I usually find books about ultra runners to be self glorifying and overly dramatic, but this book is full of great characters.
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I love a book that has a strong sense of place and in Island, Alistair MacLeod has cast Cape Breton as his main character.
Worth a read if only for its descriptions of the Irish coast, The Heather Blazing is a simply beautiful portrait of a family.
Zenia is one of the most evil, manipulative, and seductive characters that I have ever come across. I think I'm in love.
Universally acknowledged to be the best fiction book about running ever, this classic is being republished after being out of print for years.
Part Dickens, part Angela's Ashes, it's incredible that people lived like this in modern day Boston.
A fantastic story about baseball, family, and religious philosophy. It's also a favorite of Globe baseball writer Amalie Benjamin as well as top Sox prospect Lars Anderson.