Next on my reading list: Cami Ostman's marathon memoir Second Wind

I like working with publishers, such as Harlequin, Cleis Press and Seal Press, to name three, that publish books I like to read. They all do, and while I don't have time to read everything they publish, I try to keep up and have discovered some amazing authors that way. While Seal always has lots of titles I'm interested in (I'm basically the target audience for Pretty Neat, you know?), what I love about discovering books the most is just that: the discovery. The act of hearing about a book in some fashion, usually through a friend, review, via social media or, in this case, via the publisher, and thinking, Wow, that sounds amazing. Also in this case, thinking, And that is the perfect gift for my marathon-running stepfather.

So I haven't read it yet, but I look forward to the memoir Second Wind: One Woman's Midlife Quest to Run Seven Marathons on Seven Continents. Her official site is 7marathons7continents.com and you can also keep track of her goal to run a marathon in each of the 50 United States by 2017!

Publisher's description:

Second Wind is the story of an unlikely athlete and an unlikely heroine: Cami Ostman, a woman edging toward midlife who decides to take on a challenge that stretches her way outside of her comfort zone. That challenge presents itself when an old friend suggests she go for a run to distract her from the grief of her recent divorce. Excited by the clarity of mind and breathing space running offers her, she keeps it up—albeit slowly. Soon the old friend, Bill, now a romantic interest, invites her to Prague to run a marathon. Little does either of them know that this race will be the first of many international marathons, and that it will ignite a quest to run seven marathons on seven continents.

Up hills and through flash floods, more often alone than with company, Cami forges a path through some of the most exotic places in the world—and into some of the most enlightened, and darkest, places in the psyche. Insightful and uplifting, Second Wind carries the reader along for the ride as Cami runs her way out of compliance with the patriarchal rules about “being a woman” that long held her captive and into authenticity and self-love. Her adventures—and the personal revelations that accompany them—will inspire readers to take chances, find truth in their lives, and learn to listen to the voice inside them that’s been there all along.



I liked the book trailer because she said some things like "You need to find your own authentic pace in life" that transcend running, even though her book is about running. Of course it's about more than that (okay, maybe not "of course," but as an avid memoir reader, there is almost always something more going on that the surface topic).