by Scott Douglas
Not much to say about this. It seemed to be full of research (and over-full of anecdotal evidence) about how running works as a treatment for anxiety and depression. Having read much of a similar vein, I think the point is well made. As always, more research could be done, but it's pretty much a known thing. The author himself ended up using a combined treatment of antidepressant drugs and running.
The most aggravating thing is that the treatment is active and requires enormous effort from the sufferer, just at a point in life when effort seems impossible. The good thing about drugs is that they can work with no effort from the patient at all...or can they? Because the effort to find a doctor, go see a doctor, and pay for a doctor, is--under the American healthcare system--enormous.
I prefer running. It's easier to go to the store and buy some cheap shoes than to search out a doctor.
Nowhere For Very Long
by Brianna Madia
Although I didn't like it as much as other readers did, I liked it. Somewhat. However, I think that the jerks (I won't call them 'reviewers') who trashed this book should get a big, black "dislike" for their comments. Highly biased, judgemental, and personally revealing comments. Ignore them.
Except...I went back and read what they were saying. Apparently it wasn't the book they were trashing, but her lifestyle. Which is something I'd wondered about in the second part of the book--how does she sustain her carefree and jobless existence? Simply put, how does she put gas in the tank?
The answer is not so simple and not so good, and now I'm confused.
When she wrote about her experiences in the outdoors, it was somewhat enjoyable to read. She wasn't concentrated on herself, and seemed to be having some adventure--that part of the book seemed okay for me. But the huge part of the book dealing with her dog's surgery was a big downer and frankly, not very interesting. I have dogs and I love dogs to the point of idiocy, but even I am capable of forgiving myself for an accident. I hope the catharsis of revealing the truth to the world helped her with that.
(I started to go off on a tangent here about my own ambivalence between the competing views of "let your dogs run free or why bother having them?" and "keep them on a leash so they don't trash the planet." I've not settled that conflict in my own head yet. But I did wonder if her dogs ever brought her back the mangled body of a jackrabbit to eat; or a big-eyed woods' mouse like my cat used to do; or a skunk like my dog Frosha dismembered; or the many broken-backed snakes my current dog killed until we finally succeeded in snake-proofing her. But that's little to do with this review, other than to say that after too many years of seeing the results of letting dogs be dogs, I do not agree with her methods anymore.)
But it's a decent memoir in some other ways, so give it a chance. Or do your own independent research on her lifestyle and decide for yourself. Wish I had.
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