Three books about running

The weather is getting nicer every day, and it seems like everyone I know has taken up running again. And then of course there is our own Penny Lane, with her Run Seattle Run blog!

Whether you want inspiration or just commiseration, here are three of the best books about running (that aren't fitness performance books).

1. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
Haruki Murakami
Murakami is Japan's premier novelist, and one of the world's best contemporary literary writers. But Murakamai is also a dedicated runner who has been running for 30 years, and these days (at the age of 62) runs an average of six miles a day, six days a week. This blend of memoir, workout diary, and meditation on life and his surroundings is as bewitching as anything Murakami has written.

2. Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
Christopher McDougall
No list of running books would be complete without at least mentioning the 2009 hit Born to Run. McDougall travels to the remote reaches of Mexico to track down members of a reclusive tribe of famed ultra-endurance runners. The Tarahumara Indians regularly run over 100 miles without suffering nearly the rate of injuries seen in American runners.

This fascinating combination travel memoir and historical discourse on running throughout the ages is interesting enough that it can be forgiven for being directly responsible for the proliferation of those weird barefoot shoes with the individual creepy rubber toes.

3. Marathon Man
William Goldman
The Princess Bride came out in 1987 when I was 15. I fell instantly in love with the movie, as well as the original book by William Goldman. When I spotted another Goldman book I snatched it up, having absolutely zero idea what it was about. Boy, was I surprised.

Marathon Man is a gritty noir thriller about a marathon runner who finds himself on the wrong side of a Nazi dentist and a diamond-smuggling conspiracy. It could not be less like The Princess Bride, but it's certainly a gripping tale.

Image of Haruki Murakami courtesy Flickr/Chan Hsun-Chih