The Golden Age of Women’s Running Memoirs
When it comes to books, you could say I have a type.
One of the first books about running I ever read was Shanti Sosienski’s Women Who Run. At the time, I was 18 and already passionate about running—not competitively, or as part of a team. Just for myself; hell bent on finishing a marathon someday even though my shins had been protesting that dream for the three years I’d already spent trying, in vain, to coax my body toward it.
I loved that book because it told the stories of runners who inspired me; people I wanted to learn from. It made me hungry for more runners’ stories. For years, every time I wandered into a Border’s or Half Price Books, I scoured the Sports section for anything on running—particularly books that shared more personal stories rather than just training principles (which, honestly, SNORE—and I say that with the full humility of someone whose own first published book is a service-oriented one rather than the memoir I dream of sharing with the world; yes, I’m interested in your workout tips, but what I really want is to hear about is what stirs your soul.)
Anyway, back to the mid aughts: I read, and loved, Amby Burfoot’s The Runner’s Guide to the Meaning of Life; George Sheehan’s Running & Being; Dean Karnazes’ Ultramarathon Man. In the years to come, more running memoirs (I’m counting memoir-adjacent books, too) would be published, and I devoured them all: Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Christopher McDougall’s Born to Run. Marshall Ulrich’s Running on Empty. Martin Dugard’s To Be a Runner. Scott Jurek’s Eat & Run.
These books changed my life. They were stories about running, sure, but also so much more—love and loss and healing; philosophy and psychology and humanity. They showed me what a beautiful instrument running could be in a person’s life. I was ravenous for more. (Stories, I mean. Also more running, too, of course. Pretty sure I’ve basically just spent the rest of my life thus far chanting, “MORE STORIES! MORE RUNNING!” Hence the creation of this Substack.)
At some point, still more than a decade ago, it occurred to me that all my favorite running books were written by men. This isn’t to say there weren’t any published running memoirs by women back then—there were a few!—but for every one written by a woman, there seemed to be at least a dozen more authored by a dude. And from that much broader selection pool, all my favorites happened to be written by men.
I still love all those books, and many more that have been published since, but here’s where I’m going with this: how times have changed, y’all! I didn’t think it could get any better than the bounty of incredible, women-authored running memoirs that came out in 2023—looking at you, Alison Mariella Désir (Running While Black), Lauren Fleshman (Good for a Girl), Kara Goucher (The Longest Race), Des Linden (Choosing to Run), Caster Semenya (The Race to Be Myself), Majka Burhardt (More: Life on the Edge of Adventure and Motherhood, which OK, is not about running but was another of my favorite badass-athlete memoirs that was published last year, so I’m giving it a shoutout here) and others I’m sure I missed …
But now it’s 2024 and LORDY are there more gems on the horizon! Here are four books coming out in the first half of the year that I’ve preordered and am over-the-moon excited for:
- ’s The Examined Run: Why Good People Make Better Runners (scheduled to show up in my mailbox next week, wheee, I truly cannot wait, as there’s no doubt that reading Sabrina’s eponymous column on iRunFar has made me a better runner and person; also, she just launched a Substack, too!)
- ’s Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World (her first memoir, Running Home, is STUNNING, and if you haven’t read it yet, get thee to a bookstore immediately; she also just launched a Substack!)
- ’s To the Gorge: Running, Grief, and Resilience on 460 Miles of the Pacific Crest Trail (I had the pleasure of meeting Emily in Silverton a couple summers ago, and I’m so excited that she and I both got into Hardrock this year, and I am SO deeply looking forward to reading her debut book)
Leslie Jamison’s Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story (not a running book, per se, but Leslie’s 2011 essay on the Barkley Marathons is still one of my favorite pieces of literature I have ever read about this silly sport of ours, and I will always salivate over anything new that she is writing and sharing with the world)
Never preordered a book before, you say?! Get in on this action now! It’s a wonderful way to support authors and booksellers, AND it’s really fun to receive books in the mail that you ordered months ago and already forgot about. (Unless you’re an eager beaver like me and counting down the days.) Anyway, preordering books is like having a generous pen pal who knows your taste super well and loves delighting you with surprises.
So! What books have you all read and loved recently, and what are you excited to read next? (They don’t have to be new releases, nor do they have to be running-related, duh. I swear, occasionally I do read other genres, too, and I would LOVE to know what’s at the top of your to-read list for 2024.) And if YOU have a book forthcoming you want to post about in the comments, by all means, please do! I am sure there are many more that aren’t on my radar screen yet, and I can’t wait to add them to my list, too.
Reborn on the run - Catra Corbett
Thank you for sharing this bountiful list! I’ve read a few that you loved - and I also loved! - so am adding all the rest to my TBR list and am very excited 🎉