The new book about running, life, the history and landscape of
Ireland, and so much more from the award-winning author of The Farmer's
Son
It is summer, the hay and silage have not yet been made on John
Connell's farm, so he has time to indulge his other great passion:
running. John sets off on a marathon run of 42.2 kilometers through his
native Longford, the scene of his award-winning memoir.
As he runs across woodlands, fields and tiny roads, he tells the story
of his life and contemplates Ireland's history, old and new. He also
remembers other great runs he has done, in Australia and Canada, and
tells the stories of some of his running heroes, such as Haile
Gebrselassie.
Part memoir, part essay, The Running Book explores what it is to be
alive and what movement can do for a person. It is deeply intimate and
wide-ranging, local and global: Connell is as likely to write about
colonialism and the effect of British imperialism in Ireland and its
former colonies as he is about life on his family farm in Ballinalee,
County Longford. Told in 42 chapters, each another kilometer in the
42.2k race, the whole book is 42,000 words long and it captures what it
is to undertake a marathon moment by moment, in body and mind. Above
all, The Running Book is a book about the nature of happiness and how
for one man it came through the feet.
