A memoir can impart wisdom without preaching, even as it entertains, and Nicholas Thompson’s The Running Ground: A Father, A Son and the Simplest of Sports exemplifies this art. Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, melds the chaotic and eventually tragicomic story of his father with a recounting of his own running career. from promising youngster to has-been to rejuvenated mature-age record holder. The author’s style is gentle and precise, yet imbued with yearning and lyricism. I won’t spoil the wild plot of the father’s later years, other than to say the author’s forbearance, derived from love, is magnificent. But it is the running life that fascinates, with Thompson constantly testing himself amid pain and musing about life and familial inheritance. The Running Ground is a lovely father/son/family memoir in its own right, but if you have ever experienced the sweet, sweet joy of running (I call it jogging, so slow and lumbering is my “running”), Thompson will once more inspire you to push aside aging and tighten up the running shoes.
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