Lance Armstrong's War : One Man's Battle Against Fate, Fame, Love, Death, Scandal, and a Few Other Rivals on the Road to the Tour de France by Daniel Coyle.
As I get older, it seems like I don't have the ability to get sucked into a book the way I used to when I was a kid. With this book, it wasn't a problem. Sweetie surprised me with it early last week, and when this weekend turned out kind of slow and lazy, I just kept turning the pages.
Like a lot of American cyclists and cancer survivors, I've followed Lance Armstrong's career over the past few years, but I became particularly interested once I started paying attention to the Tour de France and the finer points of how professional cycling works. This book builds on that interest quite nicely, because it is as much about the pro cycling culture and the character of Armstrong's competitors as it is about Lance himself.
The author successfully walks the line between too much detail and not enough, so he is informative without bogging down. He paints a portrait of Lance as a complicated individual: driven, focused, and often not very pleasant to get close to. Hardcore Lance fans might not care to read what Coyle has to say, but I found it fascinating to get a glimpse behind the image we see on Letterman, during OLN interviews, etc.
As I get older, it seems like I don't have the ability to get sucked into a book the way I used to when I was a kid. With this book, it wasn't a problem. Sweetie surprised me with it early last week, and when this weekend turned out kind of slow and lazy, I just kept turning the pages.
Like a lot of American cyclists and cancer survivors, I've followed Lance Armstrong's career over the past few years, but I became particularly interested once I started paying attention to the Tour de France and the finer points of how professional cycling works. This book builds on that interest quite nicely, because it is as much about the pro cycling culture and the character of Armstrong's competitors as it is about Lance himself.
The author successfully walks the line between too much detail and not enough, so he is informative without bogging down. He paints a portrait of Lance as a complicated individual: driven, focused, and often not very pleasant to get close to. Hardcore Lance fans might not care to read what Coyle has to say, but I found it fascinating to get a glimpse behind the image we see on Letterman, during OLN interviews, etc.
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