About the Author

NEAL BASCOMB is the national award-winning and New York Times best-selling author of The Winter Fortress, Hunting Eichmann, The Perfect Mile, Higher, The Nazi Hunters, and Red Mutiny, among others. A former international journalist, he is a widely recognized speaker on the subject of war and has appeared in a number of documentaries. He lives in Philadelphia. For more information, visit http: //nealbascomb.com or find him on Twitter at @nealbascomb.

Reviews

The Perfect Mile returns the reader to a time when a sporting ideal was not an oxymoron . . . Enthralling.
The New York Times Book Review A rare literary win... Bascomb has penned a sports tribute book that transcends the genre.
The Oregonian A splendid book... Well-written, suspenseful.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch A vivid human-interest story... Engrossing, excruciating, and exhilarating.
Boston Herald A fine, gripping book.
The Chicago Sun-Times A marvelous book.
Kansas City Star A thriller.... This being an Olympic year, The Perfect Mile comes just in time to remind us what being an athlete can, and should, be about.
Newsday The Perfect Mile captures the awe-inspiring quality of ordinary men who achieve what had been thought impossible.
TimeOut New York Captivating.... Much joy and inspiration to be found here.
Entertainment Weekly Compelling human drama. [Bascomb's] crisp, detailed narrative helps readers step into the milers' spikes. A resplendent story of an epic event in sports history.
Christian Science Monitor Bascomb delivers, with stylish and swift prose well matched to the subject... This is an agile and informative read, and we should compare Hillebrand's "Seabiscuit" to it, not the other way around.
MSNBC.com In masterly fashion, Bascomb re-creates the battle of the milers, embellishing his account with fascinating forays into runner's lore... It's a mark of Bascomb's skill that, although the outcome of the race is well known, he keeps us in suspense, rendering in graphic detail the runners' agony down the final stretch.
The New Yorker --

The attempt by three men in the 1950s to become the first to run the mile in less than four minutes is a classic 20th-century sports story. Bascomb's excellent account captures all of the human drama and competitive excitement of this legendary racing event. It helps that the story and its characters are so engaging to begin with. The three rivals span the globe: England's Roger Bannister, who combines the rigors of athletic training with the "grueling life of a medical student"; Australia's John Landy, "driven by a demand to push himself to the limit"; and Wes Santee from the U.S., a brilliant strategic runner who became the "victim" of the "[h]ypocrisy and unchecked power" of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU). Although Bannister broke the record before Landy, Landy soon broke Bannister's record, and the climax of the book is a long and superb account of the race between the two men at the Empire Games in Vancouver on August 7, 1954. Bascomb provides the essential details of this "Dream Race" which was heard over the radio by 100 million people while Santee, who may have been able to beat both of them, was forced by AAU restrictions to participate only as a broadcast announcer. Bascomb definitively shows how this perfect race not only was a "defining moment in the history of the mile and of sport as well," but also how it reveals "a sporting world in transition" from amateurism to professionalism. (Apr.) Forecast: With Bascomb's narrative skills, it's no surprise that movie rights have already been optioned and by the team behind the Seabiscuit film. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.