Friday, July 25, 2014

Five top books on cycling

One title on the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five top books on cycling:
The Lost Cyclist: The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer and His Mysterious Disappearance by David Herlihy

Writes Paul Di Filippo of David Herlihy's history of Franz Lenz: "One of the posers -- they are all amateur bicycle fanatics from the Victorian era -- shows a mild resemblance to the young Paul Newman. He is Frank Lenz, twenty-four years old, and he has conceived of the grand and bold notion of cycling alone entirely around the globe. He will never succeed, meeting a mysterious death in Turkey: a death that will induce further heroics from one of his peers." When Lenz, inspired by a fellow cyclist's 1887 bike trek around the world, sets off on a transcontinental jaunt of his own, an international incident and incredible story of mystery, tragedy, and touching camaraderie-in-memoriam begins.
Read about the other books on the list.

Also see John Mullan's list of ten of the best bicycles in literature, Marjorie Kehe's list of ten great books about cycling, Matt Seaton's top 10 books about cycling, and William Fotherham's top ten cycling novels.

--Marshal Zeringue