An exemplary memoir of a life spent on the run.
Writer and editor Thompson recounts a family tradition of lacing up and running out the door—and running, and running.
Now CEO of The Atlantic, Thompson grew up running under the tutelage of his father, an admired professor who, in midlife, realized that he was gay, breaking their patrician family apart. That did nothing to detract father and son from their shared devotion to running, in the son’s case to long-distance runs that recently landed him a world’s record in the 50-mile event in his 50+ age group. Some of Thompson’s narrative is given over to discussing his father’s foibles, from overdrinking and overspending to enduring the indignities of aging. “My father believed in experience, and the more the better,” Thompson writes admiringly, after having expressed some impatience with his undisciplined lifestyle. “My entire life, I never worried about waking him up when I called, because he was always awake,” he adds. Some of the narrative comprises autobiographical notes, from marrying and having children of his own—a family that, he allows, deserves sainthood for putting up with his addiction to running—to achieving steady success as a writer and editor (including eventful stints at The New Yorker and Wired) and surviving cancer. But the best part of the book is the runner’s equivalent of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, when Thompson applies lessons learned from marathons and other long-distance journeys on foot to daily life, including acquiring discipline of his own and gaining mastery of useful life skills: “You don’t get ahead by putting in more time. You get ahead by training smarter and with more focus.” Peppering his narrative with visits to other runners, including octogenarian Bobbi Gibb, the first woman to run the Boston Marathon, Thompson exudes calm and wisdom, as when he notes, elegantly, “You’re not running to seek shelter; you’re running because you seek the storm.”
An exemplary memoir of a life spent on the run.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780593244128
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Basketball fans will enjoy Pippen’s bird’s-eye view of some of the sport’s greatest contests.
The Chicago Bulls stalwart tells all—and then some.
Hall of Famer Pippen opens with a long complaint: Yes, he’s a legend, but he got short shrift in the ESPN documentary about Michael Jordan and the Bulls, The Last Dance. Given that Jordan emerges as someone not quite friend enough to qualify as a frenemy, even though teammates for many years, the maltreatment is understandable. This book, Pippen allows, is his retort to a man who “was determined to prove to the current generation of fans that he was larger-than-life during his day—and still larger than LeBron James, the player many consider his equal, if not superior.” Coming from a hardscrabble little town in Arkansas and playing for a small college, Pippen enjoyed an unlikely rise to NBA stardom. He played alongside and against some of the greats, of whom he writes appreciatively (even Jordan). Readers will gain insight into the lives of characters such as Dennis Rodman, who “possessed an unbelievable basketball IQ,” and into the behind-the-scenes work that led to the Bulls dynasty, which ended only because, Pippen charges, the team’s management was so inept. Looking back on his early years, Pippen advocates paying college athletes. “Don’t give me any of that holier-than-thou student-athlete nonsense,” he writes. “These young men—and women—are athletes first, not students, and make up the labor that generates fortunes for their schools. They are, for lack of a better term, slaves.” The author also writes evenhandedly of the world outside basketball: “No matter how many championships I have won, and millions I have earned, I never forget the color of my skin and that some people in this world hate me just because of that.” Overall, the memoir is closely observed and uncommonly modest, given Pippen’s many successes, and it moves as swiftly as a playoff game.
Basketball fans will enjoy Pippen’s bird’s-eye view of some of the sport’s greatest contests.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-982165-19-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
Smart, engaging sportswriting—good reading for organization builders as well as Pats fans.
Prolific writer Benedict has long blended two interests—sports and business—and the Patriots are emblematic of both. Founded in 1959 as the Boston Patriots, the team built a strategic home field between that city and Providence. When original owner Billy Sullivan sold the flailing team in 1988, it was $126 million in the hole, a condition so dire that “Sullivan had to beg the NFL to release emergency funds so he could pay his players.” Victor Kiam, the razor magnate, bought the long since renamed New England Patriots, but rival Robert Kraft bought first the parking lots and then the stadium—and “it rankled Kiam that he bore all the risk as the owner of the team but virtually all of the revenue that the team generated went to Kraft.” Check and mate. Kraft finally took over the team in 1994. Kraft inherited coach Bill Parcells, who in turn brought in star quarterback Drew Bledsoe, “the Patriots’ most prized player.” However, as the book’s nimbly constructed opening recounts, in 2001, Bledsoe got smeared in a hit “so violent that players along the Patriots sideline compared the sound of the collision to a car crash.” After that, it was backup Tom Brady’s team. Gridiron nerds will debate whether Brady is the greatest QB and Bill Belichick the greatest coach the game has ever known, but certainly they’ve had their share of controversy. The infamous “Deflategate” incident of 2015 takes up plenty of space in the late pages of the narrative, and depending on how you read between the lines, Brady was either an accomplice or an unwitting beneficiary. Still, as the author writes, by that point Brady “had started in 223 straight regular-season games,” an enviable record on a team that itself has racked up impressive stats.
Smart, engaging sportswriting—good reading for organization builders as well as Pats fans.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982134-10-5
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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