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oisincleere's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.0
mostlyshanti's review against another edition
informative
relaxing
medium-paced
3.0
Badly titled! It should be "a personal history of exercise". Heaps of interesting insight but it's also sort of a memir, and it ended up being an average memoir and an average history of exercise. Hayes is really let down by his focus on Mercuriale, who he should have focused the whole book on. The only gesture towards a truly global history of exercise is a surface level look at yoga. No tai chi mention, ust as one example of the many, many notable omissions from other cultures ways of seeing exercise. He also overuses a tendency to show his work, rabbiting on and on about the libraries and the research, which is sort of interesting but not enough to justify the space it takes up. Instead, he should have been honest about his actual interests: he's a gay man who likes to exercise and became obsessed with a Renaissance Italian physician's documentation of exercise too. The fun facts about Jane Fonda didn't really need to be added in there (although I will say it was genius to get her to blurb the book - who pulled that string?)
cassreading's review against another edition
slow-paced
2.5
good writer, but a little light on information. feel like I got more about his travels / the process of doing research than anything else. it felt shallow
maddyb001's review
2.0
This book was an odd combination of a memoir and a research project on ancient Greek opinions on exercise.