July 2012 – Monthly Wrap Up

Posted on August 9, 2012 by christinasr

So July has been dominated by our vacation and watching various sports – especially Tour de France (and the Olympics now, of course). This has also influenced my reading – three books about professional cycling and Tour de France this month. Vacation time also meant a bit more time to read – in one of our three weeks of vacation at least – so I devoured Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth. This means that I read 4 books this month. As always, I’m not completely satisfied with this.

So as it can be seen, I’m still on track for reading 52 books this year – especially since I have read 70 % of Clarissa as well. I’ve read 2054 pages which means that I’m back reading 2000+ pages/month like in the early months of this year and Im very happy about that.

As mentioned above I made it through 4 books this month:

Jørgen Leth: Den gule trøje i de høje bjerge. Denmark’s best cycling commentator writes about what he loves the most – Tour de France. Beautiful writing – but went a bit far back in history for me. 3 stars.
Lance Armstrong: It’s Not About the Bike. Interesting account of Lance Armstrong’s battle with cancer and his way back to professional cycling. 4 stars.
David Millar: Racing Through the Dark. Very interesting account of a young, rather idealistic rider’s descent into the dark side of professional cycling – and his way back out. 4 stars.
Ken Follett: The Pillars of the Earth. Excellent book about the building of a cathedral in the Middle Ages. Well-drawn characters that will stay with you. 4 stars.

I have almost finished the Mount TBR Reading Challenge. I challenged myself to read 25 books bought before January 1st, 2012 – and so far, I’ve read 24 so I will probably finish this one next month. I’m more or less on target with Clarissa and I am definitely going to get this done. I need to read at least one book by Neil Gaiman – but I have one book by him on my own challenge list so that will get done too. The challenge I’m struggling the most with, is the one I’ve set for myself (together with two friends – the one where my boyfriend has bet me a book because he don’t think I’ll finish it…).

This month, I only read one book from the list of books I’ve challenged myself to read this year. This means, that I still have 12 books to go – and 5 months to go. So in August, I have to get some of these read. I hope to read at least two from this list – hopefully three. This doesn’t sound like much – and it isn’t. Except that all the books – almost – I have left on the list are very long books – books like Les Misérables, Underworld and The Kindly Ones. So you don’t just fly through them in an afternoon. The other thing is that I have bought so many new books this year that I just want to sit down with and dive into. So I have to keep focus, get some of the challenge books read – and reward myself with some of my pretty new books!

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Lance Armstrong: It’s Not About the Bike (review)

Posted on July 31, 2012 by christinasr

Lance Armstrong. Probably one of the most well-known athletes in the world. A 7 times Tour de France champion. Founder of Livestrong. A dedicated fighter against cancer and for cancer treatment. This is his story – from childhood to cancer survivor.

First of, I have to say that I am a fan of Lance Armstrong. I enjoyed watching him win his many Tour de France victories and these days, I follow him on Twitter. Still, while reading this book I definitely didn’t like the young Lance. There’s no doubt that he had a troubled childhood in some ways but still, boys setting balls on fire and then playing catch are just not my cup of tea. Anyway, this is not what this is about.

Lance details how he started biking and shows how he was very focused, even as a young boy and how huge an influence his mother has been on both his life but also 0n the way he views his career, teaching him to never give up and always fight. Two abilities, that was hugely important to him when he was diagnosed with cancer.

There’s no doubt that he was lucky to survive. As a professional cyclist, Lance was used to dealing with pain and ignoring it and so he did too with the fact that his testicles changed both color and size. This meant that his cancer was discovered very late, it meant that it had spread to both his lungs and his brain and it meant that he had to endure some very tough treatments to be able to beat it.

I really like how candid he was about the toughness of the disease, how hard he had to fight to just endure the treatment and how far out he was before it turned and he started getting better. This is definitely a book that shows how tough cancer is. I also liked how he seemed to have changed as a human being, becoming much more sensitive and having more empathy after the disease and being able to see clearly, that he had not always behaved very nice before he was ill. I know that some will say that he still don’t behave very well and that he’s arrogant – I don’t know if I would like him if I actually met him but I think that to win Tour de France and to do well in (almost) all professional sports, you have to be arrogant.

I also liked how he is very open and candid about his and his wife’s trouble with having children. Of course, he had to freeze his sperm before being treated for cancer and this means, that his wife have to go through a lot to get pregnant – as all women/couples have to if having trouble getting pregnant. I know several couples who have had these issues and I know that it is a struggle for all, and therefore, I am glad that Lance addresses this and shares his and his wife’s story.

Of course, it’s a bit bittersweet to read about his relationship with his wife and how perfect she is, when you know that they are no longer together and that Lance has been having a bit of trouble finding the right partner since.

There are a few things I don’t want to discuss – or even talk about. It’s kind of a joke, but still – just don’t go there. One is that Sir Cliff Richard has never had any plastic surgeries – the other is that Miquel Indurain and Lance Armstrong never used doping. My boyfriend challenges all these three – but I don’t care. I just don’t want to discuss them. Being that as it may, you can’t really mention Lance Armstrong without talking doping – even though that’s really not what this book is about.

Lance mentions doping a couple of times. As with other professional cyclists writing biographies and talking about doping, you really have to hope he is telling the truth – with the claims he makes, he will loose all credibility otherwise and with the current doping investigation against him, doping is once again rearing it’s ugly head in Lance’s life (for what it’s worth, in my opinion, they should just stop investigating the doping in professional cycling in the 90s and early 00s. If Lance is found guilty, well, then they can start investigating the rider who finished second – and so on and so on. Just stop and focus on keeping cycling clean now!).

Anyway, back to what Lance himself says: ‘Doping is an unfortunate fact of life in cycling, or in any other endurance sport for that matter. Inevitably, some teams and riders feel it’s like nuclear weapons – that they have to do it to stay competitive within the peloton. I never felt that way, and certainly after chemo the idea of putting anything foreign in my body was especially repulsive.’ (p. 205) This of course sounds like Lance could never even dream of doping – the only thing is that this argument is not the best one since a lot of the drugs riders are using to enhance their performance, are the same drugs being used by doctors to battle cancer – which means that these drugs are not foreign to Lance.

Still, he has never been tested positive. The newest tests that have been made public, does not necessarily mean that he was doped – according to doping experts. I hope he will never be found guilty in doping because I cling to my belief that Lance won because he could fuel his body with anger – and Lance was a very angry man!

This is not a book about cycling per se – as the title also says. This is about one man’s battle with cancer and it is a very fascinating account. The writing is rather plain as it is in all sports biographies but the book is worth reading if you’re interested in Lance, cancer or – to a lesser extent – professional cycling and Tour de France.

Title: It’s Not About the Bike. My Journey Back to Life
Author: Lance Armstrong
Publisher: Yellow Jersey Press – Random House
Year: 2001
Pages: 294 pages
Source: Own Collection
Stars: 4 stars out of 5

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New Theme: Tour de France

Posted on June 30, 2012 by christinasr

So one thing you probably don’t know about me is, that I love Tour de France. I follow it – almost religiously – every year. Now, this is a book blog, so maybe you’re not all familiar with what Tour de France is. It’s an (amazing) annual bicycle race held in France with riders from around the world participating. They cover more than 3000 kilometers in 3 weeks – riding up and down mountains, through the rain and the sun, past beautiful castles and small villages. It always end in Paris where the winner is crowned – after an amazing race round Champs-Élysées.

In Denmark, we have a wonderful commentator called Jørgen Leth. Leth is a movie director, a poet, a writer and formerly, Denmark’s consul in Haiti. On top of that, he’s a bicycle enthusiast and knows everything about France, professional cycling and Tour de France. Leth is part of the reason why I love watching Tour de France. He has a poet’s eye for the landscape and the cities, the race goes through and he’s just able to talk for hours about anything and nothing at all – and he knows everything worth knowing about the Tour.

So in order to celebrate that the race is starting today, I wanted to post about the Tour de France themed reading I plan to do while the race is going on.

Three different books about professional cycling and the Tour. Two professional riders – and one fan.

David Millar: Racing Through the Dark. The Fall and Rise of David Millar.

This is the story of what was – and maybe still is – the true face of professional cycling. The highs and the lows – the amazing wins and the time spent in jail, being investigated for doping. This is Millar’s personal history of his life as a professional bike rider.

Jørgen Leth: Den gule trøje i de høje bjerge (English title: The Yellow Jersey in the Tall Mountains).

A poet’s introduction to a bicycle race. Leth celebrate the daring and the ones who have the ability to go all out and writes about the history of the Tour with his all personal highlights.

Lance Armstrong: It’s Not About the Bike. My Journey Back to Life.

Lance Armstrong. The man who has won the Tour de France more times than anyone else. 7 times! But also a man constantly being investigated for illegal doping. This is a book about his battle with cancer and how he triumphed over the disease and went on to win the Tour. Armstrong, Indurain – and of course Bjarne Riis – are my favorite Tour winners (although I also really liked how ‘the angry Australian’ Cadel Evans won it last year).

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