The Art of Running - by Andrea Marcolongo (Paperback)

About the Book

After a lifetime spent with her head and heart in the books trying to think like a Greek, at a professional and personal crossroads, Andrea Marcolongo set out to learn how to run like a Greek. In doing so, she deepened her understanding of the ancient civilization she has spent decades studying and discovered more about herself than she could ever have dreamed.

Book Synopsis

Join Andrea Marcolongo, renowned classicist and one of today's most original thinkers on antiquity, for an inspiring journey as she learns to run--and to live--like a Greek.

Why do we run? To what end, all the effort and pain? Wherefore this love of muscle, speed, and sweat? The Greeks were the first to ask these questions, the first to suspend war, work, politics, to enjoy public celebrations of athletic prowess. They invented sport and they were also the first to understand how physical activity connected to our mental well-being.

After a lifetime spent with her head and heart in the books trying to think like a Greek, at a professional and personal crossroads, Andrea Marcolongo set out to learn how to run like a Greek. In doing so, she deepened her understanding of the ancient civilization she has spent decades studying and discovered more about herself than she could ever have dreamed.

In this spirited, generous, and engaging book, Marcolongo shares her erudition and her own journey to understanding that a healthy body is, in more ways than one might guess, a healthy mind.

Review Quotes

"Marcolongo is today's Montaigne."--André Aciman, author of Call Me by Your Name

"Marcolongo does not pontificate about the Greeks or how we should live healthier. Rather, she recounts how she conquered challenges in her own life and took hold of reins that she didn't know existed."--Cultura al femminile

Praise for Starting from Scratch

"In book after book, Andrea Marcolongo has combined an inimitable voice with flawless erudition and great sensitivity... Starting from Scratch illuminates its subject with a modern light."--Le Monde

"A deep look at our all-too-human fragility... An impassioned and enthralling book."--Bon Culture (Italy)

"Through her personal reacquaintance with [the Aeneid] at a time of great distress, Andrea Marcolongo has brought it, as it were, back into the conversation and outside the confines of academia... An excellent translation by Will Schutt brilliantly serves Andrea Marcolongo's passionate endorsement of a work of literature written two millennia ago."--Ilaria Dagnini Brey, Reading in Translation

"Andrea Marcolongo has brought us a book from the future."--La Stampa (Italy)

Praise for The Ingenious Language

"An instant classic."--Mary Norris, The New Yorker

"Andrea Marcolongo's love of Ancient Greek is infectious in this brilliant meditation on language and life."―Bookriot

"[Andrea Marcolongo] shows how languages give us new ways of seeing and understanding the world."―The Guardian

"The Ingenious Language has the potential to change your sense of reality."―Refinery29

"Anyone who values the study of language will delight in this spirited defense of the effort being worth the reward."―Publishers Weekly

"[Andrea Marcolongo's] declaration of love for Ancient Greek does more than celebrate the virtues of its grammar, it shows us modern fools how this language can help us understand ourselves better and live a better life."―Le Monde

"The Ingenious Language is not a grammar text, but a love story with a language and its ability to affect our senses... Rather than reducing the strangeness of ancient Greek to a list of rules to be memorized, Marcolongo uses it to fascinate us, transforming nine linguistic peculiarities into existential questions."―La Stampa

"The Ingenious Language is an extraordinary, absolutely original book."―Italian Association for Classic Culture