Look what came in the mail! Once again, more of my savings account goes to VeloPress in order to get my literary fix.
Come & Gone is the sequel to A Dog In A Hat, which I finished about two months ago; quite glad that I picked that one up late in order to have the next one be relased so soon! 🙂 Once again, we have the story of Joe Parkin telling us his life story of cycling in a kind of way that makes you feel like this is the normal thing to do. He tells it from not only memory, but from the heart… and it leaves you with a feeling that how he tells it is how it happened word for word. I wasn’t able to get over how nonchalantly he told some of the tales that were in A Dog In A Hat, and once again, things happen, and he tells it. I know that sounds boring, but it will actually baffle how casually some of these events seem after reading Joe’s words. These two books are great for anyone who is more than just a recreational cyclist.
Paris-Roubaix: A Journey Through Hell is a coffee table book. The best damned coffee table book you will have at that, too. It goes over the history, culture, past/present/future of the race, and everyone who has been involved with it in nearly any way. It comes in at just a hair under 200 pages, and is full of explicit photos. No….. No no no no….. not bad explicit, think of it as being able to see inside some of the rider’s souls just by turning the pages. Many of the full page photos in the book display cyclists who you will never forget because of the crusted mud, the pain in their face, or how they look dead to the world while sitting in one of the Velodrome shower stalls.
I have borrowed this book from my college library several times, and each instance, I end up spening more time examining the photos than actually reading the text. This is a deep book, but it doesn’t have to be; hence why it is #2 on my coffee table book list. (#1, right here)
WV Cycling 