5 Books to Read While Other People Run the Boston Marathon
5 Books to Read While Other People Run the Boston Marathon
A friend of mine runs marathons - like one a year or something like that. A few years ago she was training for one and I never got to see her, so somehow she convinced me to train for a half marathon. She would start running each day and about halfway through her run I would join her. Then she up and got pregnant on me and stopped training for the marathon. Those of you who know me, know that there was no way I was going to continue training for that half marathon on my own. Luckily, another friend was also training for a marathon so my training wasn’t totally derailed. I did run that half marathon and I haven’t trained for a race since, despite everyone telling me I was going to catch “marathon fever.” But I’m super impressed by those who do love running marathons, I’ll just never be one of them…so if you’re like me, here’s a list of books you could read while other people run the Boston Marathon today.
1 - Daughter of Moloka'i by Alan Brennert
5 Books to Read While Other People Run the Boston Marathon
From the publisher:
Alan Brennert’s beloved novel Moloka'i, currently has over 600,000 copies in print. This companion tale tells the story of Ruth, the daughter that Rachel Kalama―quarantined for most of her life at the isolated leprosy settlement of Kalaupapa―was forced to give up at birth.
The book follows young Ruth from her arrival at the Kapi'olani Home for Girls in Honolulu, to her adoption by a Japanese couple who raise her on a strawberry and grape farm in California, her marriage and unjust internment at Manzanar Relocation Camp during World War II―and then, after the war, to the life-altering day when she receives a letter from a woman who says she is Ruth’s birth mother, Rachel.
2 - An Unexplained Death by Mikita Brottman
5 Books to Read While Other People Run the Boston Marathon
From the publisher:
“The poster is new. I notice it right away, taped to a utility pole. Beneath the word ‘Missing,’ printed in a bold, high-impact font, are two sepia-toned photographs of a man dressed in a bow tie and tux.”
Most people would keep walking. Maybe they’d pay a bit closer attention to the local news that evening. Mikita Brottman spent ten years sifting through the details of the missing man’s life and disappearance, and his purported suicide by jumping from the roof of her own apartment building, the Belvedere.
3 - The Eulogist by Terry Gamble
5 Books to Read While Other People Run the Boston Marathon
From the publisher:
Cheated out of their family estate in Northern Ireland after the Napoleonic Wars, the Givens family arrives in America in 1819. But in coming to this new land, they have lost nearly everything. Making their way west they settle in Cincinnati, a burgeoning town on the banks of the mighty Ohio River whose rise, like the Givenses’ own, will be fashioned by the colliding forces of Jacksonian populism, religious evangelism, industrial capitalism, and the struggle for emancipation.
4 - I'm Fine and Neither Are You by Camille Pagan
5 Books to Read While Other People Run the Boston Marathon
From the publisher:
Wife. Mother. Breadwinner. Penelope Ruiz-Kar is doing it all—and barely keeping it together. Meanwhile, her best friend, Jenny Sweet, appears to be sailing through life. As close as the two women are, Jenny’s passionate marriage, pristine house, and ultra-polite child stand in stark contrast to Penelope’s underemployed husband, Sanjay, their unruly brood, and the daily grind she calls a career.
5 - The Huntress by Kate Quinn
5 Books to Read While Other People Run the Boston Marathon
From the publisher:
In the aftermath of war, the hunter becomes the hunted…
Bold and fearless, Nina Markova always dreamed of flying. When the Nazis attack the Soviet Union, she risks everything to join the legendary Night Witches, an all-female night bomber regiment wreaking havoc on the invading Germans. When she is stranded behind enemy lines, Nina becomes the prey of a lethal Nazi murderess known as the Huntress, and only Nina’s bravery and cunning will keep her alive.
