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Title: Pre : The Story of America's Greatest Running Legend, Steve Prefontaine by Tom Jordan ISBN: 0-87596-457-5 Publisher: Rodale Press Pub. Date: 15 March, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.43 (42 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Go Pre -- and Go Yourself
Comment: Reading this book psyches me up to run 5k's.
As a University of Oregon freshman, Steve Prefontaine won the National (NCAA) 3 mile track race and set an American record despite running with 10 stitches in his foot. From there he only got better.
If you are athletic and competitive, you will be motivated by learning about Steve Prefontaine, who remains America's favorite track star. The two Pre movies ('Prefontaine' and 'Without Limits') give his life the broad brush. This book fills in some details.
Enjoy.
Rating: 4
Summary: Steve Prefontaine - the greatest runner ever
Comment: I was amazed to find and watch the movie on the runner legend Steve Prefontaine whom I didn't formerly know (are there two movies on him? ; this one had Billy Crudup as Steve); it was a great characterization of the fiercy and passionate personality of Steve and his too short life. However, the book on "Pre" while worth reading too doesn't reach the expressive and experiental peak of the movie; in order to achieve such an intensivity and emotional drive the author shoulod have been a master of the first order (maybe Don DeLillo would have managed); but as it stands the book does well its job - and provides detailed information on the runner hero, his competitions and private life. I am myself from Finland which also had once great long distance runner - like Lasse Viren - but the charm and passion of Pre (about whom I really didn't know almost anything before I happened to see the movie on video) were so awesome that I became immeaditely a dedicated Pre fan and cried while seeing Pre to finish as fourth in Munchen while Viren took it all; and so I cried even more bitterly to see him die tragically in that car accident. There is no other runner to match with Pre - and so I am now establihsing a jogging club which carries his golden name and honors his golden memory: "Steve Prefontaine jogging club" - and the book on Pre is the official code and bible of the philosophy and values of the club.
Rating: 2
Summary: The Athlete is Compelling, The Writing Isn't
Comment: The fact that so many people love this book, and yet the writing is so ordinary must mean something. Prefontaine was such a compelling, complex, and inspirational figure, that even the weakest effort to chronicle his life would be loved. It isn't going to make me very popular here when I say this is a pretty weak effort.
The biography is mostly a series of facts about races, competitors, and results from high school to his last race. His origins in Coos Bay, OR, or anything in his life outside of running are barely touched upon. In the hands of a better writer, we would more about his life before his running career, which would flesh out the steady drumbeat of race results. A few sentences throughout the text are poorly written.
Prefontaine was a very complex character, but here, all we learn that he was a mentally tough runner who won a bunch of races, and little else. There are people who knew Prefontaine at the height of his running career, who claim that he was hardly a modest individual and could be unpleasent. Alcohol problems have been rumored enough that they can't be ignored. It is possible alcohol contributed to his death. How did this typical brash, cocky, talented kid rise to become the legendary, charismatic runner we know today, separating himself from a number brash, cocky, talented American distance runners of his era? Prefontaine's life raised all sorts of interesting questions, but Jordan's too busy sifting through the press clippings to consider any of them.
It would complicate the "mentally tough, inspiring runner dies tragically at his peak" story, but should result in a far more unique biography. Jordan either purposely ignores the additional details, or simply wasn't aware of them. Either way, Jordan has no excuse for such a bland and simpleminded portrayal.
Runners will find this book inspiring because of who Prefontaine was, but non-runners will wonder what all the fuss is about. And those who know about Pre outside of this book will be dissappointed at how poorly Jordan describes an intensely compelling and complex person.
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Title:Without Limits ASIN: 0790739291 Publisher: Warner Studios Pub. Date: 03 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $9.97 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $9.97 |
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Title:Prefontaine ASIN: B000068MC2 Publisher: Buena Vista Home Vid Pub. Date: 03 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $9.99 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $9.99 |
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Title:Fire On The Track: The Steve Prefontaine Story ASIN: 0964083817 Pub. Date: 30 June, 1995 List Price(USD): $19.95 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $19.95 |
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Title: The Four-Minute Mile by Roger Bannister ISBN: 155821027X Publisher: The Lyons Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Once a Runner by John L. Jr. Parker ISBN: 0915297019 Publisher: Cedarwinds Publishing Company Pub. Date: May, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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