{"id":31343,"date":"2012-08-06T11:49:25","date_gmt":"2012-08-06T15:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=31343"},"modified":"2012-08-06T11:58:20","modified_gmt":"2012-08-06T15:58:20","slug":"unsolicited-book-review-road-to-valor-a-true-story-of-wwii-italy-the-nazis-and-the-cyclist-who-inspired-a-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=31343","title":{"rendered":"Unsolicited Book Review: Road to Valor: A True Story of WWII Italy, the Nazis, and the Cyclist Who Inspired a Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/bartali.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-31344\" title=\"bartali\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/bartali.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"310\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/bartali.jpg 310w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/bartali-206x300.jpg 206w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 310px) 100vw, 310px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Short Review:<\/strong>\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Road-Valor-Cyclist-Inspired-Nation\/dp\/030759064X\">Go buy this book<\/a>.\u00a0 If you aren\u2019t pleased with it, email me through Jonn and I will buy the copy from you, because I want to share this book with damn near everyone who can read.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Video of the Book:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3zuUlQTDiP4\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"500\" height=\"240\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Longer Review<\/strong>: I read non-stop, but I seldom do book reviews, and usually only when I had the book sent to me.\u00a0 So, when I come out and do a book review on a book that I had to pay full price for, and am under no moral obligation to tout, you can bank on it being good.<\/p>\n<p>For a host of reasons, I have been in an absolute funk lately, not helped by the week-long cold that is still crushing me.\u00a0 My usually recourse is to dive into reading, since I generally read about 3 to 4 books a week.\u00a0 But since I finished the \u201cIron Druid Chronicles\u201d by Kevin Hearn a few weeks ago, I\u2019ve been reading books that were adequate, but not altogether stand-outs by any stretch.\u00a0 \u00a0(Hearn\u2019s books though are outstanding in every way, and should be read.)<\/p>\n<p>So anyway, yesterday I was in an even bigger funk, and enroute to church I was bemoaning that I didn\u2019t even have anything to read when I got home.\u00a0 In a moment of serendipity, a lady named Aili McConnon came on the radio to discuss with some host her new book, \u201cRoad to Valor: A True Story of WWII Italy, the Nazis, and the Cyclist Who Inspired a Nation.\u201d\u00a0 To be perfectly honest, I didn\u2019t really intend to read it, but I wanted to buy it because the story seemed like one that should be told.\u00a0 I\u2019m weird that way.\u00a0 I buy a ton of books I probably won\u2019t read, just because I think the author should be applauded for actually writing it.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I decided to crack the first chapter yesterday about 3pm.\u00a0 I finished reading the book at 9:30 last night.\u00a0 And, yeah, I would definitely place it in the top 5 non-fiction books I ever read.\u00a0 If you liked \u201cUnbroken\u201d by Laura Hillenbrand, you will love this book.\u00a0 And, I am not too proud to admit I did get choked up reading it a couple of times.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Now, I don\u2019t want to ruin too much of the book, on the off chance any of you will actually read it, but a couple of things.\u00a0 First off, the author did a great job of doing what I want all non-fiction authors to do, largely get the hell out of the way on a story that doesn\u2019t need too much literary frills.\u00a0 When I read Joseph Conrad, I do so for a clever turn-of-phrase, etc, when I read books like this, I\u2019d rather not even notice the story-teller, vice the story itself.\u00a0 Which is not to say she didn\u2019t write superbly; I mean she just didn\u2019t make it all about her writing style, which I appreciated.<\/p>\n<p>Because this story is all about Gino Bartoli, and if you don\u2019t know who he is, you should.\u00a0 A sort of pugilistic, cantankerous and devoutly Catholic Italian, Bartoli won the Tour de France in 1938, and again ten years later in 1948.\u00a0 But it\u2019s what he did in-between that truly makes him a hero, as during WWII, at the behest of a local cardinal of the Catholic Church, Gino smuggled documents around inside the frame of his bicycle for Jews who were hiding in the area.<\/p>\n<p>Some of my favorite moments of the book showed just what kind of a tough bird this dude was.\u00a0 At one point in the middle of a race a spectator began yelling anti-Catholic things at him.\u00a0 He pulled his bike over, dismounted and punched the dude in the grape.<\/p>\n<p>During the 1948 Tour, Gino was off to a rocky start, and the media had turned on him pretty bad, claiming that he was too old, and just didn\u2019t have it anymore.\u00a0 On July 15<sup>th<\/sup>, back in Italy, the leader of the Communist party was shot, and it looked like Italy might descend into total anarchy.\u00a0 The media in Gino\u2019s hotel got the call about the events, and they all made to leave.\u00a0 When Gino saw them leaving he erupted:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Go! Go home!\u00a0 I know what you\u2019re thinking. \u00a0I\u2019m old.\u00a0 You came here and tired yourselves out for nothing.\u00a0 There\u2019s no point in following Bartali\u2019s race, that poor old man, eh?\u00a0 But I\u2019m warning you: a stopwatch won\u2019t be big enough to record the amount of time by which I\u2019ll beat the others.\u00a0 And don\u2019t come back to interview me when I have the yellow jersey.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00a0I remember one time watching the Tour de France late at night with a couple of suds in me.\u00a0 I\u2019m not absolutely certain, but pretty sure I was watching Armstrong.\u00a0 Anyway, he was struggling badly.\u00a0 Just couldn\u2019t settle into his seat, seemed to be overheating, kept unzipping his jersey etc.\u00a0 Was pretty clear dude was screwed, and so some of the other contenders took off.\u00a0 All of a sudden the guy looked at the camera, and his face took on this sublime look and he zipped up his jersey and winked at the camera.\u00a0 \u00a0And off he went.\u00a0 I just got chills watching it.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0Well, Gino pretty much invented that move in 1948.\u00a0 Down by like 17 minutes he won the event the next day by 16, even though it was snowing in July, and he was nearly starving to death.\u00a0 Then the old man went out the next two days and won each of those by substantial margins as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0Anyway, even if you don\u2019t care about cycling, go buy this book, even if only to read about his heroism during the war.\u00a0 \u00a0Only, it took 70+ years to come out because he decided not to tell anyone what he had done, explaining that:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00a0I don\u2019t want to appear to be a hero.\u00a0 Heroes are those who died, who were injured, who spent many months in prison.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I\u2019ve been watching You Tube videos of this guy all morning, even though the vast bulk are not even in English.\u00a0 While everything is about his cycling, I just keep looking at him and marveling at this guy\u2019s depth of character.\u00a0 He literally risked his life repeatedly, and then didn\u2019t tell anyone.\u00a0 And this quote that is at the end gave me chills:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00a0If you\u2019re good at a sport, they attach the medals to your shirts and then they shine in some museum.\u00a0 That which is earned by doing good deeds is attached to your soul and shines elsewhere.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00a0<strong>My only complaint, and I mean literally the only one, is that I can\u2019t find the author\u2019s email address, and when a book moves me, I like to let the author know.\u00a0 So if anyone finds it, can you share it with me?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Either way, go buy this book.\u00a0 It&#8217;s not really about cycling, that&#8217;s just the back drop.\u00a0 It&#8217;s about a poor kid growing up in Italy who would become a household name for something that wasn&#8217;t even his greatest accomplishment in life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Short Review:\u00a0 Go buy this book.\u00a0 If you aren\u2019t pleased with it, email me through Jonn &hellip; <a title=\"Unsolicited Book Review: Road to Valor: A True Story of WWII Italy, the Nazis, and the Cyclist Who Inspired a Nation\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=31343\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Unsolicited Book Review: Road to Valor: A True Story of WWII Italy, the Nazis, and the Cyclist Who Inspired a Nation<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}