As a cyclist from a young age (thanks to the encouragement and engineering of my dad—he literally welded one of my first bikes together from the carcass of another kid’s bike that was run over by a car in his driveway on accident), I’ve always had a fondness for bicycles and, more specifically, *riding* bicycles. So, as is probably common for anyone who is fond of something, I’ve spent years exploring it from as many angles as possible. In the process, I’ve loved studying bicycles in motion, along with collecting artistic and philosophical expressions that center the act of getting around on two wheels under your own power.
Nicholas Allander, thirty-one, carless, and careerless, is trying to pay off debt, impress his girlfriend, keep his job, cast off his introversion, and accept the world’s imperfections without abandoning his heart. He considers growing his beard, taking up alcoholism, abandoning scrounging, and owning an automobile. All the while he clings to his bicycle, a simple machine whose purpose and workings he grasps.
Written in the wake of the 2008-2009 financial meltdown, this subtle, charming novel about the attempt to maintain one’s humanity in the face of constant affronts to it is as timely now as when first released.
If you’re looking for a short, classic novel starring the poetic machinations of racing a bicycle, the answer is Tim Krabbé’s The Rider.
It’s really the gold standard in terms of fiction about bicycling—I’ve long revered it that way, at least. It’s no wonder Krabbé is also a chess competitor because the prose and internal monologue are beautifully played, in addition to being both tactically and technically stunning.
If you happen to be a cyclist who’s ever had an inkling to race someone else, you’ll be enthralled from page one, I promise. Think of it as Breaking AwaymeetsQueen’s Gambitin book form.
At the start of the 137-kilometre Tour de Mont Aigoual, Tim Krabbe glances up from his bike to assess the crowd of spectators. 'Non-racers,' he writes. 'The emptiness of those lives shocks me.' Immediate and gripping from the first page, we race with the author as he struggles up the hills and clings on during descents in the unforgiving French mountains.
Originally published in 1978, The Rider is a modern-day classic that is recognised as one of the best books ever written about the sport. Brilliantly conceived and best read at a break-neck pace, it is a loving, imaginative and…
I’ll caveat that The Third Policeman isn’t going to delight everyone—it’s a wacky, somewhat bewildering book to wander through.
But it’s also masterfully written, and one of the most creative and exalted ways I know of bicycles appearing in literature.
Probably better known for his novelAt Swim-Two-Birds, O’Brien brings the bicycle to life in this murky murder mystery that doubles as a philosophical exploration on humanness and reality.
It’s as if Samuel Beckett wrote a play that prominently features bicycles, directed by the Coen Brothers.
The Third Policeman is Flann O'Brien's brilliantly dark comic novel about the nature of time, death, and existence. Told by a narrator who has committed a botched robbery and brutal murder, the novel follows him and his adventures in a two-dimensional police station where, through the theories of the scientist/philosopher de Selby, he is introduced to "Atomic Theory" and its relation to bicycles, the existence of eternity (which turns out to be just down the road), and de Selby's view that the earth is not round but "sausage-shaped." With the help of his newly found soul named "Joe, " he…
For the history-curious cyclists among us, I submit for your consideration David V. Herlihy’s excellently-researched and well-told history of the two-wheeled machine we love so much.
From its beginnings as a literal “bone shaker” (an iron frame on wooden wheels), to the impossibly-light machines of the 20th and 21st centuries, Herlihy’s tale of cycling commerce, commuting, and competition over time and across the world is as enlightening as it is entertaining.
I’ve turned to it again and again for its historical perspective (and its great photos).
The first comprehensive history of the bicycle-lavishly illustrated with images spanning two centuries
During the nineteenth century, the bicycle evoked an exciting new world in which even a poor person could travel afar and at will. But was the "mechanical horse" truly destined to usher in a new era of road travel or would it remain merely a plaything for dandies and schoolboys? In Bicycle: The History (named by Outside magazine as the #1 book on bicycles), David Herlihy recounts the saga of this far-reaching invention and the passions it aroused. The pioneer racer James Moore insisted the bicycle would…
One of the most compelling parts of this gem of a book are Adam Thompson’s immaculate line drawings that capture the artfulness, and beautiful simplicity, at the heart of a bicycle ride—their white space pulls you in and invites you to imagine the landscape and circumstances around them.
Bicycles, and the paths they forge, take many shapes, but in the hands of Fattaruso and Thompson those shapes take center stage, and the essence of bicycling shines.
It’s a lovely interlude that always makes me nostalgic for riding a single speed on a rural road at the height of summer.
Somewhere between prose poem and sacred incantation lies Bicycle. In spare, comically surreal and beautiful prose, Paul Fattaruso does for bicycles what Richard Brautigan did for trout—he elevates them to the status of an idol. An intimate, inventive, and vibrant book.
Paul Fattaruso is the author of Travel in the Mouth of the Wolf. His work has appeared in Volt, Jubilat, Fence, Black Warrior Review, Another Chicago Magazine, The Tiny, and others. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife Kristin and his son Max. He rides a silver bicycle.
If you’ve ever found yourself commuting by bicycle across a city on a wet winter’s night, or wondered about riding across the country, there are nuggets of raw truth and solidarity in the essays, interviews, stories, artwork, and poetry that compromise The Best of Boneshaker.
Ten years in the making, this throwback, almanac-inspired collection features contributors that range from Lee Ranaldo (of Sonic Youth) to writer Kjerstin Johnson, poets Michael Bazzett and Susan Moore, and Colorado Book Award-winning author and journalist Jonathan Waldman.
It’s been called a delightful companion for you and your bike, and for good reason. If you’re looking for inspiration to get out on your bike more often, it lies within these pocket-sized pages.
I write historical crime fiction, and my latest novel is set in a hospital, a real place, now closed. The South London Hospital for Women and Children (1912–1985) was set up by pioneering suffragists and women surgeons Maud Chadburn and Eleanor Davies-Colley (the first woman admitted to the Royal College of Surgeons) and I recreate the now almost-forgotten hospital in my book. Events take place in 1946 when wartime trauma still impacts upon a society exhausted by conflict, and my book choices also reflect this.
A historical thriller set in south London just after World War II, as Britain returns to civilian life and the men return home from the fight, causing the women to leave their wartime roles. The South London Hospital for Women and Children is a hospital, (based on a real place) run by women for women and must make adjustments of its own. As austerity bites, the coldest Winter then on record makes life grim. Then a young nurse goes missing.
Days later, her body is found behind a locked door, and two women from the hospital, unimpressed by the police response, decide to investigate. Highly atmospheric and evocative of a distinct period and place.
One cold dark night, as a devastated London shivers through the transition to post-war life, a young nurse goes missing from the South London Hospital for Women & Children. Her body is discovered hours later behind a locked door.
Two women from the hospital join forces to investigate the case. Determined not to return to the futures laid out for them before the war, the unlikely sleuths must face their own demons and dilemmas as they pursue - The Midnight Man.
‘A mystery that evokes the period – and a recovering London – in…
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