The host of NPR's hit quiz show Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me! and a columnist for Runner's World shares stories, advice, lessons, and warnings from his running experiences.
While it’s too soon to tell if Sagal’s book, The Incomplete Book of Running, will have the same impact as [Jim] Fixx’s classic, it offers readers interesting insights about setting goals, making amends, the human digestive system and life in general ... Listeners of Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me!––National Public Radio’s news quiz show hosted by Sagal––will see his wit throughout the book; they’ll also get a glimpse of the pain and sorrow of divorce, something the father of three shares in bits and pieces ... The book––part memoir, part advice column––is both entertaining and poignant.
[The Incomplete Book of Running is] funny, well written (mostly), filled with humility and perpetually on the scan for moments of stray grace ... Sagal’s book is not the one to read if you crave advice about the best cushion-heeled socks to buy, the correct earbuds (he advises against listening to music while running) or the finest anti-chafing creams. If you want that sort of information, you can turn to a magazine like Runner’s World, where Sagal has a column. He’s funny and perceptive about running magazines, by the way.
Sagal is brilliant and accomplished, but he’s also self-deprecating and funny. He presents himself as a balding, stocky everyman struggling to keep the weight off ... Sagal is full of irreverence, and he never lets the book get too heavy of heart ... Sagal is not here to make you faster, but he’ll make you smile, reflect and perhaps take the holiest of actions: those first scary steps out the door.
