3 out of 4 stars
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In Dolphins Don’t Run Marathons: 26.2 loving thoughts on why you should not run a marathon by Sam Brand, people are categorized as human ants, human dolphins, and human chimpanzees. Human ants are focused on long distance running and training for marathons. Human dolphins are athletic and like to do all types of sports while also spending a lot of time with friends and family. Human chimpanzees do not like sports and prefer to socialize with others. In the book, Brand describes his time as a human ant runner and running in the New York Marathon. However, after that marathon, he realized that he was not happy as an ant and decided to become a dolphin.
The book’s message is that people should spend their time on the important things: being with friends and family, doing things that make them happy, and just enjoying life. While the book is focused on long distance running, this message applies to other things, like working long hours.
While the book is focused on a serious topic, the author was able to write it with a lighter tone, which kept the book enjoyable. The book is also on the shorter side. It has 1293 Kindle locations, and most of the pages only have a couple of sentences. The lighter tone and the shorter length make this a great book to read while on a trip.
I do have a bit of criticism though. The author used multiple statistics about the health benefits and detriments of various exercises. However, he does not note where he got his statistics from. If he had, it would have strengthened his case, particularly for avid long distance runners that read the book. Another problem I had is that I do not see myself as any of the animals, so I couldn’t really picture myself in the situations the author described.
The book also needs another round of editing. I found over twenty editing errors, mostly missing commas. Given the length of the book, this is far more than is acceptable.
Overall, I liked the book, and I thought it was an interesting read. Keeping in mind the couple of issues I had with it and the editing mistakes, I decided to give this book 3 out of 4 stars. I recommend it to anyone who is thinking about running marathons or getting into long distance running, but I think even someone who has never considered long distance running would enjoy this book.
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Dolphins Don’t Run Marathons
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