Running with the Pack: Thoughts from the Road on Meaning and Mortality. Mark Rowlands - Softcover

Rowlands, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1847082025 ISBN 13: 9781847082022

Publisher: Granta, 2013

Synopsis

'Most of the serious thinking I have done over the past twenty years has been done while running.' Mark Rowlands has run for most of his life. He has also been a professional philosopher. And for him the two - running and philosophising - are inextricably connected.

In Running with the Pack he tells us about the most significant runs of his life - from the entire day he spent running as a boy in Wales, to the runs along French beaches and up Irish mountains with his beloved wolf Brenin, and through Florida swamps more recently with his dog Nina. Intertwined with this honest, passionate and witty memoir are the fascinating meditations that those runs triggered. He ends by describing running a mid-life marathon with absolutely no training. Woven throughout the book are profound meditations on mortality, midlife and the meaning of life. This is a highly original and moving book that will make the philosophically inclined want to run, and those who love running become intoxicated by philosophical ideas.

About this title

About the Author

MARK ROWLANDS was born in Newport, Wales. He is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Miami and the author of sixteen books, including the bestselling The Philosopher and the Wolf, also published by Granta. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages. His website is www.markrowlandsauthor.com, and he blogs at www.secularphilosophy.com

From Booklist

The dancing thoughts that appear to philosophy-professor Rowlands during his runs, and the rhythm and value of those runs themselves, make for a meditative read. Rowlands incorporates work by philosophers from Aristotle to Wittgenstein with his own musings, leading to ruminations on topics as diverse as midlife crises, evolution, and the meaning of life, love, and mortality. He recalls his runs on both sides of the Atlantic with various canine companions, including Brenin, featured in his previous book The Philosopher and the Wolf (2009). You don’t need to be a runner to enter the philosophical investigations in this book, although you do have to be willing to follow the author on his rambling, sometimes repetitive, musings. The runs are recalled with clarity, capturing both the agony and exhilaration of the experience, and connect to his thoughts through, for instance, relating the phases of a marathon to certain philosophers. Rowlands, more critical than starry-eyed, still brings deep feeling to his work. Cerebral and heartfelt, this memoir uses one man’s history on the road as a foundation to investigate universal experiences. --Bridget Thoreson

Edition details

• Publisher: Granta
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1847082025
• ISBN 13: 9781847082022
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224