From the award-winning, number one bestselling author of The Cow Book. It is summer, the hay and silage have not yet been made on John Connells farm, so he has time to indulge his other great passion: running. John sets off on a marathon run of 42.2 kilometres through his native Longford, the scene of his award-winning book. As he runs across woodlands, fields and tiny roads, he tells the story of his life and contemplates Irelands history, old and new.

He also remembers other great runs he has done, from Australia to Canada, and tells the stories of some of his running heroes, such as Haile Gebrselassie. Part memoir, part essay, The Running Book explores what it is to be alive and what movement can do for a person. It is deeply intimate and wide-ranging, local and global: Connell is as likely to write about colonialism and the effect of British imperialism in Ireland and its former colonies as he is about life on his family farm in Ballinalee, County Longford.