Rating: 
Summary: A very enjoyable work
Review: "The Perfect Mile" is a fascinating book. It combines character studies of three milers competing to break the four-minute barrier with an enjoyable historical account. It is a well-written and compelling work.
Rating:
Summary: A very enjoyable work
Review: "The Perfect Mile" is a fascinating book. It combines character studies of three milers competing to break the four-minute barrier with an enjoyable historical account. It is a well-written and compelling work.
Rating:
Summary: The Perfect Incentive
Review: A thrilling book and an inspiration to all those who love competition and always try to improve themselves not only in sports but in every aspect of their lives.
Rating: 
Summary: Three different worlds aligned toward a common goal...
Review: Any amateur sports historian knows the name of the first person to break the four minute mile barrier. But until you read this book, you will know but a third of the story. For a brief span of years in the fifties, running was the glamour sport, and three very distinct personalities were its superstars. Wes Santee, the consumate brash American farmboy from Kansas; John Landy, the driven and professional Australian; and Roger Bannister, the epitome of the amateur athlete. How can a book about running be interesting? By examining the personalties of the principals and the surrounding societal framework. The way nations united behind their respective represenatives is amazing. Bascomb does a brillant job by looking at all three individuals separately, then deftly weaves their fates together. Santee was the first to directly challenge the idea of a four minute mile, and Landy trained the hardest, but Bannister was the first to break it. And a climax of having the only two sub-four minute milers in history racing against each other sounds like a movie, but it really happened! (Incidentally, they both broke the barrier again.) The details of training and endurance are agonizing to read, let alone experience, and will leave you with great respect for the sport of running. I don't want to give too much of the book away, but Bannister comes across not only as a superior athlete, but an incredible human being. He gets married, becomes a doctor, and runs a sub-four minute mile in a four month span - and earns the respect of the world in doing so. One more tidbit to entice: "it sounds like a movie". Well, it will become one soon, created by the same team that produced Seabiscuit. So get a running start, and enjoy The Perfect Mile.
Rating:
Summary: Sporting drama elevated to human drama
Review: Bascomb doesn't just put you in the moment, he slips you into Roger Bannister's old leather spikes. In The Perfect Mile, as in Bascomb's previous work, Higher, exhaustive research and deft prose crack the door to a sepia-toned time gone by. And here we have a story from the last gasp of amateurism, when the race was the thing, the pursuit of a record--an achievement--to last all time. It is Bascomb's special talent that elevates this sporting drama to highest human drama. I can't wait for the movie, but it'll be tough to beat this book.
Rating:
Summary: Can't Wait for the Movie
Review: Based on ample first-hand details gleaned from interviewing Roger Bannister, John Landy and Wes Santee, "The Perfect Mile" provides a nuanced character study of what drives these three great men toward breaking the most elusive of athletic goals: the four-minute-mile. While serious students of the sport will know the outcome of this tale before reading it, Neal Bascomb is able to create and maintain a fair amount of suspense by allowing the reader to experience events leading up to the 1954 Empire Games showdown from three very different perspectives.
Roger Bannister is the thinking man's runner, with the classic middle distance athlete's long stride and finishing kick as well as insights into the scientific principles that underlie cardiovascular exertion. These strengths, however, are offset by the demanding medical studies that severely limit his training time and by his tendency to become overwrought before big races.
John Landy is the workhorse of the trio, logging more miles than the others and able to bring a single-minded focus to the task. But he lacks the closing speed and power of the classic milers, forcing him to run the legs out of his competitors from the front.
Wes Santee, the least famous and accomplished of the three, may well be the most talented. Yet the demands of his University of Kansas track schedule, military commitments, and confrontations with track and field's governing body are impediments that prove too difficult to overcome.
For me, the best part of this book was the fact that these three men pursued this historic goal in a noble and dignified fashion that made you really pull for each of them somehow to be the first. None of the spoils of today's professional athletes was available, so each of them was motivated by the simple ideal of achieving the impossible. I also admired the way in which the author tied this athletic quest to the world events of the 1950s, creating a strong resonance between the historic events taking place on the track and the happenings in the politics and culture of the times.
-Kevin Joseph, author of "The Champion Maker"
Rating:
Summary: What the New Yorker had to say!
Review: Don't listen to me. Here's what one reviewer from the New Yorker wrote:"On May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister, a British medical student who squeezed in track workouts between hospital rounds, became the first man to run a mile in less than four minutes. It was a feat that had widely been thought impossible, but within seven weeks an even faster time was posted by the Australian John Landy, setting up a showdown later that year in a race that was billed as the "Mile of the Century." In masterly fashion, Bascomb re-creates the battle of the milers, embellishing his account with fascinating forays into runner's lore. (In the seventeenth century, athletes had their spleens excised to boost speed; in the nineteenth, they were advised to rest in bed at noon naked.) It's a mark of Bascomb's skill that, although the outcome of the race is well known, he keeps us in suspense, rendering in graphic detail the runners' agony down the final stretch." In my opinion, this is right on the money...
Rating:
Summary: A book that transcends sports
Review: Finished The Perfect Mile last night. It's one of the best
sports books I've ever read. You will enjoy it whether you ran track, jog to keep in shape, or just plain enjoy a quality biography. It's very well written and researched. You will find yourself pulling for all three runners in their quest for the four-minute mile (Bannister, Landy, Santee). Do yourself a favor, read this book. It's a must read.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic History - Great Read
Review: For those who love history that evokes a great time and brilliantly alive characters, this is the book for you. Yes, most know who broke the four-minute mile, his name is up there with Edmund Hillary, but to know how this great barrier was broken, who were the competitors, what were they like, what was their motivation--this is what makes for such a terrific story. The races are dynamic; the personalities full-blooded; and the history rich. If you want to read of a pure time in sport--sport for the efforts sake--then buy The Perfect Mile. This is the best sports book I've read in a very long time; and it's close to the best historical narrative I've ever enjoyed.
Rating:
Summary: the perfect mile
Review: I loved this book and could not put it down. It is now being passed around my entire cross-country team.
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