Completed: November 20, 2024
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: My coworker Catherine
Review:
This is a physical book I am reading and as I started to read it, I noticed that there was a sticker on the spine that caught my hand. That is both the problem and the promise of a physical book. It has a tactile quality that an audio book and an ebook lack. In this case, that sticky area was both annoying and distracting. I peeled the sticker off and it left goo behind. I removed the goo with an orange based cleaner (that works great on goo) and it took a little while to get it all gone without ruining the finish on the book at the same time (Apply cleaner, remove cleaner quickly, find that not all the goo is gone and it is now smeared. Iterate as necessary.) I picked up the book, when complete from a new angle and noticed more goo on the back (not the spine this time). Back to the citrus cleaner and removing that goo. Now I checked the whole book and made sure that I'd gotten the last of it and realized that where I had removed the goo on the back cover, it seems like it was the finish that had become goo, so now there was a spot on the back cover that just felt different then the rest of the book. So, yes, this is sounding like OCD, but I've had tacky stuff on book covers before and just ignored it. Maybe, the deal here is the subject matter of the book which is kind of making me uncomfortably aware of how I feel. Maybe. It would be nice if that was the explanation and I wasn't just a mess. So, I'm going with the subject matter and my goo obsession, because, well, otherwise....
I put a large sticker on the back of my Kobo a few weeks ago (the sticker is an old NASA sticker I had lying around, well, not lying around, it was in a fire proof box--because, that, I guess is where stickers go. right?) and I am now concerned that this sticker is going to start bugging me when I'm reading the ebook instead of serving its purpose and helping me distinguish an all black Kobo from the surrounding black at night. Probably not going to be a problem, though, right? On to page 1. I did read the introduction, but those are all Roman numerals. So it is both page 1 and "on to" at the same time. In case anyone is wondering, this is all Catherine's fault, because, like I said, I've ignored stickiness on the back of books before. Additionally, that is not displacement. That is just pointing out a random fact which conveniently shifts responsibility. It is really just shifty.
Also, I do realize that this review is already longer than most of my other reviews and I haven't started page 1. Probably the coffee. Or, am I just being shifty again? (Yes, I get that pun.)
This book is a relatively quick read. It is a look at a much larger problem--depression, within the context of a runner's world. I anticipated that this would use the metaphor of running within the context of running away from one's problems. That is not what this book does. Instead, the author talks about freeing himself to look closely at his problems and to ask for help from those around him. The running metaphor is more one of life being difficult (like a loooong, 340 mile run). The metaphor sort of breaks down around the finish line, but it generally holds up. The fundamental concept is that of a "pain cave" where the runner is simply exhausted but opts to continue on and finds resources (other runners, internal strength, and even "road angels") that enable the runner to find a way to continue moving forward. This carries over into everyday life in the form of family, finding reasons not to succomb to suicide, and professional help. It is, in many ways an apt metaphor and the author presents the analysis using a conversational manner that makes it much less of a lecture and much more of a journey.
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