Seabiscuit: An American Legend
Laura Hillenbrand
Ballantine Books
Nonfiction, History
****
DESCRIPTION: One of America’s all-time greatest sports legends wasn’t a human, but a horse. Seabiscuit came from nowhere to become the greatest news sensation of the Depression, surviving controversy, injury, and setbacks to earn his place in history. He didn’t get there by himself. The millionaire auto magnate Charles Howard, the former frontiersman trainer Tom Smith, and the hot-headed, oversized jockey “Red” Pollard found in the little crooked-legged horse – and in each other – a greatness they could never have reached alone.
REVIEW: I'm not normally a sports fan, but the recent movie Seabiscuit piqued my interest. (That, and I was given a copy of this book for the holidays.) This is a well-written book, with enough drama to hold my interest between tangents. The author does her best to cut through the legends and lies that have circulated over the years, researching the people, the horses, the sport, and the era to tell the true story of the Seabiscuit phenomenon. The end results recreate the era in which the little horse lived and thrived nicely. If you're comparing the book to the movie, you'll notice certain liberties were taken in the translation to the big screen, but the heart of the story stays the same.
You might also enjoy:
The Sword and the Cross (Fergus Fleming, Nonfiction - The true story of two Frenchmen battling incompetent superiors, hostile natives, and the unforgiving Sahara in colonial Algiers)
The Perfect Storm (Sebastian Junger, Nonfiction - The true story of the October 1991 monster storm that claimed many lives)
Sudden Sea (R. A. Scotti, Nonfiction - The tale of a 1938 hurricane that devastated the American East Coast)
Seabiscuit (Widescreen Edition)
Return to Top of Page - Return to Book Review List
Return to Brightdreamer Books Home
Brightdreamer Books is created and maintained by TBW, a.k.a. "Brightdreamer."
E-mail: tbweber AT comcast DOT net. (Remove spaces, replace AT with "@" and DOT with "." - please put "Brightdreamer Books" in the subject line, or your e-mail may be deleted as
spam! Thank you!