A highly enjoyable travel log through a lost man's quest to find himself. A wonderful read.

...as well as a great read anytime, with outstanding characterizations, with a suspenseful plot, as well as a touching message. I'm very glad that I purchased this book. Not only have I recommended "The Memory of Running" to my husband, who is a far pickier reader than I am, I have purchased Mr. McLarty's next book, "Traveler," I'm saving it to read next week while I recover from having all my upper teeth extracted. It's that good!

I loved this book. I was laughing through the whole book. You should read this book. IT was serious but yet with such humor throughout.

Reading Memory of Running made me want to write. If gatekeepers of literature can label this as a bestseller, I know I have a chance at this hack. This text has the traits of soaps, low literature, and bafoonery. I read like it like it was a chore, working out, pushing for the last set of an exercise you hate but should do. Maybe my analogy doesn't work because I exercise for my health since I can't find a reason why I plowed slowly through this. I didn't get any satisfaction. Fiction shouldn't read like fiction.

I'm not familiar with McLarty's writing, and it could have just been my perspective at the time. I just finished two Lionel Shriver novels. Memory of Running read like dime store plot, no introspection, just a lot of pedaling, but even that was so unrealistic. No evidence of burn or wind burn. It didn't sear, but it's a feel-gooder, and that alone has a lot of value and merit for sentimental readers. Have we become so politically correct that we have to applaud for the fat guy who lusts for a wheelchair-bound neighbor girl? I don't mean to sound calloused, but just one of the variable would have worked, not those two and a crazy sister who poses and disrobes when she hears The Voice.

This book had been on my list - but it took a friend to get me to read it. It has an unlikely hero - a middle aged man who has spent most of his adult life in a dead-end job, drinking and eating himself to a likely early grave.
He is very authentic and endearing as his life is disclosed on his unplanned bicycle journey across the country. The pace of the book is great. This is a good book for those who like a good story about "ordinary" people.