A place for the discussion of all things not closely related to the sport and its competitive side. (Locked down several times a year during the major championships)
Didn't know which forum to place this in...current events, historical, or things not t&f, so feel free to move it, if needed.
As an avid reader, and as a t&f fan for 50 years, I've read a number of t&f-related (or running) novels. Here's a list of the ones I've read, in no particular order. I haven't rated them.....yet!! But feel free to do so....or tell us YOUR favorite (NOT necessarily the "BEST"!!!).
Run For Your Life........Barbara Abercrombie The Games...............(?) Atkinson Pepper in the Blood.....Brian Dyson The Electric Olympics..Hal Higdon Jogging...................(??) Hochman See Mommy Run.........Nancy Jacobs Zanboomer...............RR Knudson Fox Running.............RR Knudson The Olympian Strain....Mike Jahn Goldengirl................(??) Lear The Miler.................Cordner Nelson Signs Unseen, Sounds Unheard.........Carol Norris (I knew her!!) The Love Run............Jay Parini Once a Runner...........John Parker The Front Runner.........Patricia Warren Pain........................Dan Middleman
I omitted the novel I wrote, "The Chain", since it was never published!!
Feel free to add your own favorite.....or just add to the list!! Remember....these are NOVELS.....fiction!!
It's been a long time since I have read this one, but I was very impressed by it and would recommend it to anyone seeking Track & Field/Athletics-related novels.
The author was Peter Lear, but it was a pseudonym for Peter Lovesey. Peter is a crime novelist in Britain as a day job, but a top-notch T&F historian and statistician - wrote Five Kings of Distance and is really an expert on 19th century T&F. He is a member of ATFS and on the Executive Committee of ISOH (International Society of Olympic Historians).
Never read the book but saw the movie simply to look at Susan Anton back in the 70s
I almost never read novels but on this list Once a Runner was great. I only read it last year after meeting Dr. Jay for lunch here in Durham when he was visiting, and he highly recommended it. He was right.
bambam wrote:I almost never read novels but on this list Once a Runner was great. I only read it last year after meeting Dr. Jay for lunch here in Durham when he was visiting, and he highly recommended it. He was right.
He also recommended Loose Balls - the history of the old ABA, and he was also right about that - that one was even better and hilarious. Last week I have my copy to Will Roach, a former NC State hoopster, now an orthopaedic sales rep who said he couldn't stop laughing reading it.
26mi235 wrote:Was Personal Best a book as well as a movie; would Kenny Moore be the author?
We have talked about this elsewhere. I was an extra in that movie. Even played a pole vaulter. Spent about 10 hours a day, for a week or so, locked up in Hayward Field.
Roger Robinson's top 13, from his "Running In Literature"
1. The Fast Men, Tom McNab 2. The Olympian, Brian Glanville 3. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Alan Sillitoe 4. The Front Runner, Patricia Nell Warren 5. Flanagan's Run, Tom McNab 6. Lovelock, James McNeish 7. Sprint from the Bell, Pat Booth 8. The Purple Runner, Paul Christman 9. Staying the Distance, Bill Loader 10. Once a Runner, John L. Parker 11. Peter Lovesey, Wobble to Death 12. The Running Footman, John Owen 13. The Glow, Brooks Stannard
#3 may be disqualified as it's a short story, and #6 might be too as it's a fictionalized biography. All of these are specifically running novels. On the other hand, how many purely field-event novels have you ever heard of?
Marathon and Beyond magazine sometimes republishes classic out-of-print running books in serialized form.
Did some research, and found most of the novels I listed above are available from Amazon. For used copies (usually paperbacks), prices range from one PENNY to $6.49 (for Middleman's Pain!!). However, Amazon adds a $3.99 per book shipping charge...so a $0.01 book would cost you $4.00.
One book I listed, See Mommy Run, may NOT be a running book!! I read it a long time ago, but Amazon says it's about a woman escaping an abusive marriage. I just listed it wrong (in my list of sports-related novels).
Also, I typed "running novels" and "track and field novels" on Amazon, and came up with MANY more novels than I've read....or even heard of!!
gh wrote:I've never read a t&f novel that did anything for me. Everything in that genre that I've read pales next to the bios of real people.
I think if you had read Knud Lundberg's "The Olympic Hope" in your mid teens, as I did, you would have been impressed. This futuristic novel, written in 1954, was set in an Olympic Games in Hamburg in 1996. Most of the book describes the entire 800 final almost meter for meter. 6 men in the final, 2 Americans, 2 Russians, one German and one Dane. Of the two Americans, Stoker and Jackson, one was a converted 10.2 sprinter and the other had Basketball background and ran with an enormous stride length. The favorite, the German, Hasenjager, was drugged to the teeth, a vicious, borderline madman. He shot himself immediately after the race because Germany did not collect 2nd places!!! (the book was written just 8 years post war). One of the Russians, Konev, simply did not want to succeed as he secretly figured loosing was his only way out of the insanely brutal Soviet sport system. The Dane, Erling, who did NOT win, was the only fairly "normal" individual.
The whole thing was extremely exiting and the author, Lundberg, a great sports personality in Denmark was excellent in his desriptions of the various tactics used by the runners. But I suppose he had a darker view of the future than the way the future evolved.
gh wrote:I've never read a t&f novel that did anything for me. Everything in that genre that I've read pales next to the bios of real people.
Totally agree--a sentiment I've expressed in the past here.
I agree with completely, with the exception of Lovesey's Wobble to Death. An interesting murder mystery and an era that I know little about.
And I'll agree with this. I really like Peter and respect his "popular" writing enormously. Wobble is more than a "sports" book--it is a mystery first and foremost, and a study of an historical era.
gh wrote:I've never read a t&f novel that did anything for me. Everything in that genre that I've read pales next to the bios of real people.
Although I enjoyed reading Front Runner, I would have to agree with GH. Favourite TnF bio was "No bugles no drums". The golden girl movie was even more trashy than Rocky
Amazon is so amazing. Matt Carpenter, Colorado Springs mountain runner extrordinaire, told me about this one years ago but I never sought it out. Went to Amazon a minute ago to read the plotline and about 20 seconds later had submitted my order. "Only 6 left in stock" right now.
Amazon is so amazing. Matt Carpenter, Colorado Springs mountain runner extrordinaire, told me about this one years ago but I never sought it out. Went to Amazon a minute ago to read the plotline and about 20 seconds later had submitted my order. "Only 6 left in stock" right now.
By the way, Christman's father was the Chicago Cardinals' quarterback when they won the NFL title back in 1947 and the announcer for NBC for Super Bowl I.
Agree with Conor. The Purple Runner's not bad. IMHO, though, it doesn't hold a candle to Once a Runner. I'm 3/4 of the way through it. However, reading a couple of chapters in bed this a.m. motivated me to get out and go for a 30' run in 10F weather.
