The Perfect Mile: Three Athletes, One Goal, and Less Than Four Minutes to Achieve It

Book Description

There was a time when running the mile in four minutes was believed to be beyond the limits of human foot speed, and in all of sport it was the elusive holy grail. In 1952, after suffering defeat at the Helsinki Olympics, three world-class runners each set out to break this barrier. Roger Bannister was a young English medical student who epitomized the ideal of the amateur still driven not just by winning but by the nobility of the pursuit. John Landy was the privileged son of a genteel Australian family, who as a boy preferred butterfly collecting to running but who trained relentlessly in an almost spiritual attempt to shape his body to this singular task. Then there was Wes Santee, the swaggering American, a Kansas farm boy and natural athlete who believed he was just plain better than everybody else. Spanning three continents and defying the odds, their collective quest captivated the world and stole headlines from the Korean War, the atomic race, and such legendary figures as Edmund Hillary, Willie Mays, Native Dancer, and Ben Hogan. In the tradition of Seabiscuit and Chariots of Fire, Neal Bascomb delivers a breathtaking story of unlikely heroes and leaves us with a lasting portrait of the twilight years of the golden age of sport.

Customer Reviews:

You'll Race Through This Book in a Four-Minute Mile.......2007-10-01

The Perfect Mile takes the reader into the intimate worlds of three extraordinary men, all from diverse backgrounds and continents. Even though you're familiar that Roger Bannister eventually came out victorious as the first man to fun the mile in under four minutes, the drama and tension of the runners' race to become the first to break the barrier will keep you turning pages almost as fast as the men were running around the track.
Without divulging too much, I will say that near the book's end, when two of the three men are racing in the 1956 "Mile of the Century," the other runner, who because of military obligations is not able to participate, is masterfully woven into the race, almost as if he were actually racing--how he would have run that race, how he would have positioned himself among the two others, and how he possibly would have won the race.

Sports Fans Beware; the Running Aspect of Bascomb's Novel is Less than "Perfect".......2007-05-21

There are certain barriers throughout life that are believed to be impossible to cross; some walls that people simply cannot get past due to physical or mental limitations. The Perfect Mile by Neal Bascomb tells a tale of one of those impossible-to-cross barriers, the four minute mile. Running a mile under four minutes was deemed impossible by nearly everyone ranging from well-known doctors to running experts to the common man. However in every generation comes those who challenge tradition, and the three who decided to challenge the four minute barrier were Roger Bannister, John Landy, and Wes Santee. Bannister a doctor himself who trained only during off hours, Landy a professional runner who dedicated his life to the mile, and Santee a college student who believed he was unbeatable. Bascomb's novel attempts to describe the courage and determination that these three men exuberated while trying to achieve something deemed impossible. However, he spends little time dealing with the actual training and preparation required to run a sub-four minute mile, and much more on the mundane daily life of Roger Bannister.

The novel is told mainly about Bannister's life, for he is the one who eventually becomes the first man to run under four minutes. It starts out with a young Bannister going off to college. Upon arrival he is asked if he would like to compete in any sports, and he chooses to run the mile. Though he is beaten by an elder man smoking a cigar both before and after the event, his talent is noticed and soon Bannister has a coach. From here on out, most people would expect the story to portray his great amounts of training, but instead we get a heavy dose of how boring it was to be a doctor back in the 1950s. Page after page the reader is bogged down with medical terms and descriptions of just how difficult it was for Roger to manage training and becoming a doctor. Maybe his life really was this boring, but did Bascomb have to making it seem this way? I spent the entire time reading this part of the book (other than the time I spent sleeping) thinking "my God I thought this book was about a runner!" When Bascomb does mention the athletic aspect of this book it is simply to list the times Bannister achieved as he slowly marched towards the four minute mile, no description of the races, just times.

After briefly covering the American Wes Santee's attempts at the four minute mile in college and John Landy's own struggle to break the barrier, the story once again turns back to Bannister. Finally the big day is upon him, although the conditions are less than ideal. It is rainy, which does not make for a quick pace, but Bannister wishes to continue nonetheless. He starts the day out like any other, and once again Bascomb seems to describe in detail every patient Bannister sees that day before heading out to the track. However he does finally manage to step onto the track with his two rabbits standing beside him ready to pace him through three of the four hopefully historic laps. Finally the reader is blessed with a description of the race. Bannister exhausts one of his pacers after a 1:58 split through the first mile and continues on through the third lap in three minutes even. As Bannister barrels through the line Bascomb does an excellent job of describing his collapse and nearly dead facial expression. Bascomb allows the suspense to mount as the reader anxiously turns page after page in an attempt to discover the final time. All Bannister heard was "3" and the crowd went wild. The reader eventually learns that his final time was three minutes and fifty-nine seconds, a new world record and the first sub-four minute mile ever recorded.

Despite Bascomb's superb description of the arguably most important race of the century, he neglects to give much other running-related information throughout the rest of the novel. Obviously the reader needs to know just how much Bannister had to balance on a daily basis, but there is little need to go into such detail. Many of Bascomb's readers are sports fans who have picked up the book because they truly love the sport of running and therefore want to hear tales of heart-stopping finishes and awesome performances. The energy Bannister put into his training and medical work is evident, and Bascomb does a superb job at portraying the human spirit through him. However, it would have been nice to have the story more related to the actual "Mile".

From: Colin Daileda

The perfect sports fan book.......2007-04-17

The Perfect Mile by Neal Bascomb is a perfect read for any sports fan. It is an exciting recounting of actual runners and their stories. I enjoyed this book that tells the story of three milers with a single goal: to be the world's first to break the four minute mile. The four minute mile was believed to be humanly impossible, until it was broken by a young English athlete named Roger Banister. Roger along with an American, Wes Santee, and Australian, John Landy all were ambitious, competitive, disciplined young men who wanted to show the world that the four minute mile was not impossible. But they also wanted to be the first to break the "impossible" barrier. The story takes place on three different continents as it follows the three athletes as they train and prepare for their next attempt on the barrier on the track.
Cries of encouragement from the fans and fellow runners pushed Roger toward the line. At this point he was beyond exhausted, yet there was no more pain he had simply used it all up. Yet he kept running on pure will, even as the distance from the tape appeared to get farther and farther away. Still he drove on three, two, only one more stride. He hurled himself at the tape. This is the description of my favorite scene in the book that I think will put a very good picture in anyone's head. This made me think of all the sacrifices that all athletes have to take to achieve any goal big or small. Yet many aren't willing to make this sacrifice.
I thought that Neal Bascomb did a great job writing this book he had many articles and transcripts and books to go through to find every detail about the runners and their background. He paints colorful pictures of the races in your head. There were a few parts that were hard to follow. I thought that this was a challenging book due to its length. I will definitely remember this book's descriptiveness in the future. I enjoyed learning all about the miles' history and it's very interesting origin. I think that any runner has to read this book, even if they don't like challenging books. They can still read it easily because there is little advanced vocabulary.

Probably a Better Movie than Book.......2007-01-24

What a great idea for a book. Three runners from different backgrounds and countries each competing to be the first man to run a four minute mile. I really wanted to like this book more than I did. After many, many pages detailing training, training, adn more training I began to skim in ernest.
By the time the featured race was run, I was all out of steam. I cannot put my finger on just what is wrong with the book other than it is really dry and boring. Maybe if the author had gotten more into the personalities and less into the training regimens. Anyway, somewhere they say it is "soon to be a major motion picture". Mabye the movie will be better.

Inspiring.......2006-09-16

If you run, competitively or not, you'll enjoy this book. It shows the level of effort and the perseverance required to attain a goal. I recommend it.

Book Description

David Renton argues that the roots of today's anti-capitalist movement can be found in the life and work of an earlier generation of socialist revolutionaries, including such inspiring figures as the Soviet poet Mayakovsky, the Marxist philosopher Karl Korsch, Communist historians Edward Thompson and Dona Torr, the Egyptian surrealist Georges Henein, American New Left economists Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy, and many others.

Customer Reviews:

The best book on Economics ever........1998-08-24

It shows how an economy can have: Growth, Low Inflation and Full-Employment, all at the same time!

If only our politicians would listen.

Dia Dhuit, ofarrell@iol.ie

Average customer rating:
The Share Economy : Conquering Stagflation
Martin L. Weitzman
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000HN00AA

Average customer rating:
THE SHARE ECONOMY CONQUERING STAGFLATION
Martin L. Weitzman
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000JWBJAE

Book Description

A hilarious parody, Who Cares If It's a Choice? provides snappy answers to all those nosy questions about being gay. From rainbow flags and the gay "agenda" to code words, lipstick lesbians, and bisexual dating. it.s all here. Plus, as an added bonus, a special section of gender confusion in public restrooms! A great gift, this best-seller of popular author Ellen Orleans has sold over 9,000 copies world-wide.

Customer Reviews:

Funniest Thing I've Ever Read; A Great Read-OUT-Loud Too........2000-06-22

I ran into this book while casually parusing theGay&Lesbian Interests section of my local [bookstore] with afriend. I picked it up and read parts aloud and both of us were laughing fits. Needless to say, I purchased it that day. This book truly provides you with "snappy answers" to those intrusive questions; now if only homophobes carried their sense of humor with them when they were harassing you or being generally ignorant. My favorite passage: "Are you Born that way? No. We're _concieved_ that way. Consider it an act of divine intervention."

A must buy for gay people and lovers of humor alike. Give this lady her due, because I've never heard of her and her wit is sharper than any other gay commedian I've heard yet (and when you have competition like Kate Clinton, Ellen Degeneras, and Suzanne Westenhoefer, that's impressive.)

Not at all what I expected.......2000-05-10

A bit too corny. There were a lot of good points and explanations given, but I expected it to be much more comical. Okay for a coffee table book.

Funny to even the straightest people.......1999-08-18

this book is a must have. any time you need a good laugh, here it is. and seriously, i read some of it to an extremely straight girl and SHE was balling. insightful and real in many cases, just plain funny in all. everythng you wish you had said when they asked you those dumb questions. BUY THIS BOOK!!!you'll thank me.heterosexual questionaire bonus!!!!! (is your heterosexuality just a phase you're going through?)

Book Description

Megawattage sound systems have blasted the electronically enhanced riddims and tongue-twisting lyrics of Jamaica's dancehall DJs across the globe. This high-energy raggamuffin music is often dissed by old-school roots reggae fans as a raucous degeneration of classic Jamaican popular music. In this provocative study of dancehall culture Carolyn Cooper, Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, offers a sympathetic account of the philosophy of a wide range of dancehall DJs: Shabba Ranks, Lady Saw, Ninjaman, Capleton, Buju Banton, Anthony B, Apache Indian. She demonstrates the ways in which the language of dancehall culture, often devalued as mere 'noise,' articulates a complex understanding of the border clashes that characterise Jamaican society. Cooper also analyses the sound clashes that erupt in the movement of Jamaican dancehall culture across national borders.

Customer Reviews:

Carolyn Cooper--Dancehall's Cultural Theorist.......2006-12-16

Carolyn Cooper continues to be the most insightful thinker writing on the implications of Jamaican dancehall culture for the politics of gender and globalization. While Cooper focuses heavily on local Caribbean dancehall in her book, she weaves a narrative applicable to political theory and cultural studies internationally. Cooper is a folk philosopher who has been at the center of much heated debates over the last decade due to her position privileging folk life and Jamaican indigenous language--patois--over high brow theory. Cooper did not need Immanuel Kant to know that articulating the gulf between theory and practice many times revolves around disputes over competing political languages. Cooper and Kant converge insofar as they each attempt to develop universal laws of culture, of which some elements are a priori and others specific to the realm of experience.

Cooper's 1989-1990 JAMAICA JOURNAL essay "Slackness Hiding from Culture: Erotic Play in the Dancehall" was the first scholarly analysis of Jamaican dancehall culture. Since the publication of that essay, an explosion in literature on dancehall ensued. Cooper expanded the central argument of that essay into a book released a few years later entitled NOISES IN THE BLOOD. Cooper's current text under review, SOUND CLASH (2004), is an investigation into Jamaican dancehall culture at large. To study local Jamaican dancehall is to study dancehall's impact outside the island. Hence, Cooper devotes the latter third of the text to dancehall in places such as Barbados and Great Britain. Nevertheless, a majority of the work deals with interrogations into the lyrics of key musical figures in Jamaican dancehall including Ninjaman, Lady Saw, Capelton, Buju Banton, and Anthony B, and the ways in which those figures reflect wider concepts of the self, gender relations, power, and freedom.

The notion of "slackness" serves as an overarching subtext throughout. The chapter on Lady Saw is quite simply a must read, as are chapter 2 comparing the classical reggae lyrics of Bob Marley to the dancehall DJ Shabba Ranks and chapter 9 explicating dancehall in the South Asian Diaspora via the rhymes of British DJ Apache Indian (born Steve Kapur). Lady Saw in particular has been maligned by Jamaican bourgeois society much the same way that heretical European women had been marginalized by men historically in their respective cultures. Yet Lady Saw is the ultimate folk philosopher who has managed to use her lyrical prowess to destabilize conventional notions of womanhood, thus transform our understanding of concepts through the epistemological slackness she wields. As Cooper observes, "Lady Saw's brilliant lyrics, reinforced by her compelling body language, articulate a potent message about sexuality, gender politics, and the power struggle for the right to public space in Jamaica...It encompasses the cunning strategies that are employed by outspoken women like Lady Saw who speak subtle truths about their society" (p. 123).

Cooper devotes time in the Introduction to rebutting criticisms leveled against her by other dancehall commentators, one of whom is Norman Stolzoff. Stolzoff is the author of another seminal text on Jamaican dancehall, WAKE THE TOWN AND TELL THE PEOPLE (2000)--a book that I suggest readers interested in Cooper's work should also consult. Wherever you stand on the debates between Cooper and her critics, you must take those conversations as a healthy indicator of the increased awareness about dancehall and the reality that the principles of those living dancehall inside and outside Jamaica offer their own notions of universalism. In closing, I highly recommend SOUND CLASH to all those seeking to understand how a cultural form of life can indeed change the very way we view politics, theory, the world, and ourselves.

Book Description

On the way back down 64 to Jamesville, IÂ'd take a shortcut over to Washington going back home, I kicked around how to price AnnÂ's Equipment.

Totally oblivious to what was going on, I heard a siren. Looking in the rear-view mirror, it was full of FLASHING BLUE LIGHTS.

Â“Holy...!Â”

My heart started beating so fast, the draft almost took the rest of me with it. YouÂ've heard of your whole life passing before your eyes, it wasnÂ't my life, it was my driving record.

IÂ'd just gotten the last ticket off my record, now this. The squelch broke on the CB.

Â“Hey Cousin, you got your ears on?Â”

Who the...? In a great sense of despair, my turn signal on and slowing down, I keyed the mike.

Â“This is the Country Cousin.Â” No CB lingo here. Just utter despair.

Â“This is the Cigar Smoker, I got your back door.10-4?Â” Walter Parrish!! Damn his hide. HeÂ'd just cost me 10 years of my life. He pulled up along side. IÂ'd never seen him laugh so hard. He shook his finger at me and pulled away.

Â“Cigar Smoker got your front door now Cousin, put the hammer down and bring her on.Â”

I planned to take the shortcut, but looking at my watch, I knew it was break-time for him. I rolled the windows down to get the smell out and followed him to the Town and Country. The guys at the Â“Family TableÂ” would enjoy this.

Customer Reviews:

The Author's view.......2000-02-08

This book was written to offer a glimpse back at the wild and wonderful 70's when CB radio swept the nation. I became totally involved spending thousands of hours and dollars enjoying it. It takes you from the first tenative steps as an unlicensed operator on AM through the Sideband phase, onward and upward into the VHF and UHF regions finally being licensed as a ham. It's chocked full of personal stories to help the reader understand the personalities involved. After CB came other fads and phases such as cell phones and ultimately computers and the internet. My experiences on these and many other subjects round out this lite-hearted book. I believe it will make for hours of fun-filled reading.

Book Description

If Visual C++ Can Do It, You Can Do It Too… Master quickly all the job skills you need to develop industrial-strength Windows or Web-based projects — everything from the basics of menus and mouse input to ODBC, DAO, and ADO database programming to scripting. With the expert advice of full-time Visual C++ developers Rick Leinecker and Tom Archer, you'll find everything you need to get up-to-date on the latest developments in Windows programming in Visual C++® 6 Bible — the most hands-on, most comprehensive reference tool of its kind! Inside, You'll Find Complete Coverage of Visual C++ 6

Master the ins and outs of Windows programming — from menus to exception handling to data I/O
Maximize the database capabilities of ODBC, the MFC database classes, DAO, ADO, and OLE DB
Extend your applications with dynamically loaded DLLs and third-party libraries
Use MFC to create ActiveX controls or ATL to create small footprint controls
Write dynamic Internet applications with insider tips on sockets, CHtmlView applications, and DHTML
Learn advanced Visual Studio skills — including VBScript macros and custom AppWizards

Powerful programming tools and demos on CD-ROM, including:

Objective Grid, Objective Grid Lite, Objective Toolkit, Objective Chart, Objective Edit, Objective Plugin, and Objective Diagram from Stingray Software
Ultimate Grid and Ultimate Wizard Factory from Dundas Software
Compuware NuMega Labs's BoundsChecker

Plus, complete demonstration programs from the book! Shareware programs are fully functional, free trial versions of copyrighted programs. If you like particular programs, register with their authors for a nominal fee and receive licenses, enhanced versions, and technical support. Freeware programs are free, copyrighted games, applications, and utilities. You can copy them to as many PCs as you like—free—but they have no technical support.

Customer Reviews:

this is a good book.......2003-07-19

There is no "a good book" for everybody. This book contains original and clear information.

_BUYER BEWARE_ worst programming book I ever bought.......2002-07-26

Here's a list of why you should NOT buy this book:
* there are a *lot* of errors. Not typos. Errors.
* there are pages and pages of code _already included on the CDROM_, which makes the book undeservingly fat
* there are countless tables ripped straight from msdn
* the chapters don't follow _any kind_ of logical order, and sometimes the authors refer to things they wrote in later chapters!
* the text is many times too vague, and makes the assumption that you're already a good MFC programmer and just want to confuse yourself.
I've just recently tried to read this book again (probably the third time I've tried) and I'm giving up. It's futile. This is the *worst* computer book I've ever bought, but it has taught me to be more careful with my money.
...

There are better MFC books on Amazon.

BUYER BEWARE

Not a good learning book, not a good reference either........2002-02-15

This book doesn't present topics in logical order for learning. The chapters aren't connected, and they don't explain functions sufficiently. Sucks for learning.

Bad for refence too. I.e., looked up CRect, two pages listed. Both are off-hand references to CRect, with no examples of how to implement the CRect class.

Not a good book.......2002-02-14

Not a good book. Not a book for beginner. The authors cover many topics, but most of them are talked in poor details. For example, they give you a small portion of code, but they don't tell you which header file you should include in. The result is that you can't even try it in your own program to.

Confusing..........2001-12-02

This book is extremely confusing and is definately not for beginners. It seems the author had lots to say, but had no clue about how to present it to make it easy to read, or for that matter, for it to even make sense. In the section on MFC alone there were far too many times when the author simply said "do this" but never gave any instructions on exactly how to do so! Instead I was left paging through the text aimlessly trying to find the information I was looking for. Infact my favorite quote(paraphrased) out of the book is from chapter 13: "Therefore it is assumed the reader, as a prerequisite for this section, has already read chapter 19." I'm sorry, but any book that requires me to jump around between chapters to try and make sense of it is simply a waste of my time.

Visual basic 6 COM+ Programming Bible (with CD-ROM)

Average customer rating:

You might learn COM+ from a Bible, but not from this book
The worst book I have read in ages.
Good for the novice and interesting for everyone else.
Maybe not great, but it's good!
Outstanding reference and productivity guide!

Visual basic 6 COM+ Programming Bible (with CD-ROM)
John Paul Mueller
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0764547313

Book Description

The Visual Basic COM+ Programming Bible is for experienced Visual Basic 6 programmers who are making the transition from traditional client-server to multi-tier Windows DNA applications.

In its first two sections, this new addition to the Programming Bible series offers a thorough introduction to ActiveX, COM, DCOM and COM+ and shows how to build ActiveX controls and robust COM+ components using the latest version of Visual Basic and the forthcoming COM+ 1.0 component services of Windows 2000. The third and final section of the book shows how components can be combined to build a complete distributed application that draws on Windows 2000 application services, including those of MTS, MSMQ, ASP and SQL Server. The book is organized as reference with entries that include tutorials, step-by-step instructions, code samples and other elements designed to speed mastery of the subject matter. The book favors depth of coverage of beginning to intermediate COM+ topics to provide the new Visual Basic COM+ programmer with a solid grounding in the subject.

Customer Reviews:

You might learn COM+ from a Bible, but not from this book.......2001-11-21

Giving it 1 star cause that's the least. Would have gone lower otherwise.Complete waste of time. The book gives you nothing about COM+ not even close. The author repeats the content in every chapter and keeps reminding about the upcoming content, which doesn't come. He does not cover the behavior of COM+ objects under transactions makes you a complete loser in the COM+ market even after reading the book from cover to cover. I'd say go buy the COM+ from Ted Pattison.

The worst book I have read in ages........2001-09-05

I laboured through the first 350 pages of this book before giving up on it.

The authour is pre-occupied with the structure of his book, to the point of distraction.

The constant 'sign-posting' of promissed up and comming content completely masks any actual content.

There is constant disapointment that the promise of useful information to come, does not materialise.

Never have I read so many pages and gained so little understanding of a subject.

Lately, I have read a number of books (Mainly from Wrox Press) and have been getting used to obtaining core information delivered with clarity. This book has come as something of a shock.

If there is a saving grace, it is that the book contains numerous pointers to web sites which may ultimately prove to be more useful than this lamentable effort.

Bible? ...

Good for the novice and interesting for everyone else........2001-05-21

I have already worked with COM+ quite a bit, so this book was a little less useful than it might have been when I first started working with COM+. I wish that I had this book when I first began because I would have spent a lot less time reading bits of information from arcane resources and more time programming. The various tips and Web resources are still extremely useful for the intermediate COM+ programmer. I found all of the examples worked, sort of matched real world programs I've created, and helped me overcome some problems I'm still having with my COM+ applications. I think the most useful piece of information for me was all of the testing and debugging tips. If you're looking for an end all resource for experts, this book will probably disappoint. On the other hand, if you're looking for a good all around reference written in understandable language, then this is the book for you.

Maybe not great, but it's good!.......2001-03-16

I haven't finish this book, but one thing I can tell you, it's very, very good, I'm not an expert in the field of COM+ and for this matter I'm telling you this, it's very clear and explicit, I'm not sure if it's complete, but it's some of the best books I've read and to read it's some of my few entertainments I read a book like this in about a month or less, 10 days if I'm on pressure, if you're not an expert like me, buy this one you won't regret it.

Outstanding reference and productivity guide!.......2001-03-14

This is the book to get if you want to learn the practical aspects of working with COM+. Unlike a lot of books, this one isn't just theory or just code. It contains information you can really use to get going fast such as productivity tips. Most of the examples also include troubleshooting tips and fixes that really work. Using the fixes in this book recently saved me hours of debugging time on a project. All of the examples are clearly written and easy to understand. The types of examples cover a broad range of application types, so I'm sure I'll be referring to this book on a regular basis. The author is also quite friendly. He was more than willing to talk with me, something a lot of other authors fail to do.

La Biblia De Microsoft Visual C++ 6 / Visual C++ 6 Bible (La Biblia De / the Bible of)

Average customer rating:

La Biblia De Microsoft Visual C++ 6 / Visual C++ 6 Bible (La Biblia De / the Bible of)
Richard C. Leinecker
Manufacturer: Anaya Multimedia
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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