Rating: 
Summary: Great, great story and well written
Review: I truly enjoyed this book for the joy of the story. I get to read so few books for fun (I read a lot in connection with my work) and this was fun. I've recommended it to many of my family and friends, and the book is now in circulation among them. It was extremely engaging and well paced. I was able to read it over the course of two weekends (fast for me). Thank you to author Hillenbrand for introducing me to this wonderful sport and wonderful story. Yes, horseracing is now in my book as a sport, thanks to this author (I pooh-pooh'ed it before). And, indeed, Seabiscuit and his jockeys and trainer should go down in the annals of sport as one of the greatest athletic teams ever.
Rating:
Summary: Four Winners
Review: My peculiar reading habits do not usually take me to books on the best seller lists. I don't have an interest in sports, so I don't wind up reading much about them. I don't know the first thing about horses or horseracing. So take a real expert's opinion: if you are one of the few readers who has yet to take up _Seabiscuit: An American Legend_ (Random House) by Laura Hillenbrand, I tell you to put down what you are reading right now and take it up. It is simply a magnificent story, beautifully written, about one of the best athletes in history and the men who eased him into expressing his potential. Seabiscuit didn't look a winner. His body was low and his knees didn't straighten all the way. His gait was so peculiar that people mistook it for lameness. His gallop was such chaos that he could hit his front ankle with a hind hoof. He had a bloodline, but he lacked the looks, and he lacked the background. His jockey, Red Pollard, kept with him pocket volumes of Shakespeare and Emerson (whom he called "Old Waldo"), and he had much of the contents memorized, quoting it and spouting jokes. At fifteen, he hung around the "bush tracks," the lawless races that followed the carnivals. Even when he graduated to racing at the official tracks, he had no home, for he slept in empty horse stalls wherever the riding circuit took him. He might get hired, and he might win, but he seldom had money because everyone knew he was a soft touch for a "loan." Horseracing ripped his body apart; he was blinded in one eye (a dangerous secret he managed to keep), and he had his chest crushed and a leg ripped up in racing accidents. Perhaps the strangest character in the book is the trainer, the sphinx-like Tom Smith, who had learned horsemanship from the Plains Indians. It was he who saw Seabiscuit's potential when it was invisible to everyone else, and he who convinced his employer to buy the horse. Smith used to give sportswriters fits, as he seldom strung any words together for humans, and when he did deign to talk to a reporter, he could deliberately spout the most outrageous lies, such as that all of Seabiscuit's legs had been broken (that one was picked up by the wire services). The man who took Smith's advice to buy Seabiscuit was Charles Howard, who had come to San Francisco and begun a bicycle repair shop, but started repairing autos when no one else during the turn of the century could do so. Howard took on the Buick distributorship, making the fortune by which he could play the racing game. Unlike Smith, Howard loved publicity. Hillenbrand's description of how the contract for the race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral was arranged between Howard, War Admiral's owner, and the different target tracks is almost as exciting as the race itself. Hillenbrand's book includes quite a bit of American history, especially of the Depression, from which Seabiscuit fandom was a special relief. She has traced the arcs of the careers of these three remarkable men, and that of one legendary racehorse, with great attention to period detail. Seabiscuit was lucky to have the men on his team, and now he is lucky to have such a riveting story made of his life to bring his fame back sixty years on.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece!
Review: As an English teacher, I have read thousands of books. But I've never finished a book one night and started reading it again the next night -- until Seabiscuit came into my life. Before reading this book, I knew absolutely nothing about horse racing. Now, I am hooked on it. If you enjoy improbable, underdog stories, you will love this book. And if you have a heart and a soul, you will fall in love with this magnificent animal. If you appreciate powerful, graceful and beautiful writing, this is a must read. Five stars is not enough for this book.
Rating:
Summary: the greatest book i ever read
Review: you've read all the other reviews...the only thing i can add is this book will stir up all of your emotions about races, horses and people that lived over 60 years ago....i recommend the book to people of all ages...
Rating:
Summary: Odds-on DO NOT beat heart and soul !
Review: Laura Hillenbrand has put into a captivating prose the essense of what makes horse-racing the 'sport of kings'! Extreme sacrifice, intrique, exultation and devastation in the click of a hoof. Seabiscuit was much more than a horse or even a legend. Seabiscuit was the result of ethic and morality born of down-and-out, fueled by the unforgiving spirit of 'never say die': by man and horse. A wonderous read; informative history; captivating even though you already know the outcome! In her own right, Laura is a formidable warrior in her own painful struggles. Though suffering the ravages of CFS, she maintains a stamina and energy in her writing that masks the pain and suffering endured to produce this fine work. Highly recommened reading! Worth re-reading regularly! Textbook examples of continuing on in the face of defeat, pain, trauma, danger and ridicule. Seabiscuit: An American Legend will get your heart thumping, your mind racing, tears flowing and pride swelling. What an amazing story of commradre, perseverance and respect. Get it today! And read it often .. it will be good therapy!
Rating:
Summary: A galloping good read!
Review: I,... was entranced by the NPR interview that introduced me to Ms. Hillenbrand and Seabiscuit. Her book does a beautiful job of capturing - not just the racing world, but the time - post-depression 1930s. One can close one's eyes and hear the static-y radio broadcasts of Seabiscuit's races, or picture the triumphal banner headline finally announcing his championship. Hillenbrand recreates for us the racing family - owner, trainer, jockeys - who recognized Seabiscuit's talent and nurtured his success, and she communicates the sense of nationwide excitement for and embrace of this unlikely equine hero, who ran with heart and soul. It's a book I couldn't put down, hated to finish, and would love to see transformed for the small screen as a documentary. A National Book Award candidate, for sure!
Rating:
Summary: It is so much more than just horseracing!
Review: I laughed, cried, and cheered. It is so well written that you are there, in a different era, in a different type of life, and you are an intimate part of it. The men, women, and horse(s) are woven into a blanket of passion and love. It also gives us a valuable lesson in listening to the heart of someone we care about and understanding what that person (or horse) is really about.
Rating:
Summary: Brief thoughts on Seabiscuit
Review: Hats off to Laura Hillenbrand! What an astonishing feat! In retrospect one realized that an astounding amount of research went into the book. But the information was presented so effortlessly one felt one was actually back in time with the horse, jockey, trainer and owner. The book was a pleasure to read. While some seemed bothered by the cover, as the head of Seabiscuit was cut off; I began feel it makes sense. Every time I picked up the book and opened it it felt as if one were getting into the life and mind of that most amusing beast - as it were "getting into his head". I was allergic to horses as a kid and so missed out on getting to know any well though my sister used to muck out for a son of War Admiral, known as Amicable. Never the less I love animals and have the sense as it seems does Ms.Hillenbrand that they do know rather more than they are often given credit for. On a slightly different note; there is another reason Ms Hillenbrand's achievement is all the greater. She suffers from a disease I know all too well, called chronic fatigue syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis. The latter name gives a much better sense of the severity of the illness. The disease can vary in from mild (where people can still work) to totally disabling. I gather that Ms Hillenbrand has a quite severe form of the illness. That she was able to persevere and produce such a compelling book, given her own handicap is nearly unbelievable. But there it is; she has done it.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Hype, Nice Story, Pretty Good Book
Review: Well, let me offer a slightly different view of this extremely well publicized book. While there is a lot to enjoy in the story and in some of the writing, the first hundred pages should have been trimmed to twenty. The book doesn't get going till the second section, the first being a kind of prologue that wanders all over the place - you get the whole life story of people who have nothing to do with the tale at all, and you will learn more than you ever wanted to know about Mexican brothels before the writer remembers what the book is supposed to be describing. That is worth a one-star deduction on my scorecard. And I have problems with the author's writing style, mostly during this part of the book as well. "Smith cleaned up good," is one example of the kind of thing the author tosses out every page or so, a vernacular style that works as a direct quote but not in narrative, to my ear, at least. She also throws out quotations that I suspect are invented, something that blurs the line between a work supposedly of fact with fiction. Occasionally we get a detailed description of some casual conversation sixty years ago and asked to accept it at face value, such as when Red Pollard, the jockey, is supposed to say from his hospital bed, " ..."Go get those bums, Seabiscuit!" Pollard sang out, "Get 'em, you old devil!'" (page 169). He really said that? How do we know? And then, there are the factual problems. "A few days after the Bay Meadows Handicap, the Overland Limited clattered to a stop at the Tanforan siding for the long trek east." The Overland Limited never came within thirty miles of Tanforan, on the opposite side of San Francisco Bay from Oakland, where the train began its journey. Not a big deal, but not accurate either. Most editors won't let most writers get away with this sort of thing. All that said, once you get past page 100, the story begins to hit its stride and is worth the price of admission. The author finally gets down to business and tells the story, and it is a story worth hearing. It just isn't quite up to its extremely expensive publicity campaign, but it is good enough. Skip Section One and it is a four star book. The publicity campaign, however, wins the prize for best of the year.
Rating: 
Summary: The Legend Lives
Review: I read Seabiscuit: An American Legend and found it very thorough and a wonderful piece of history about a time when horse racing played a very different role in American sports than it does today. As a child I'd read Moody's Come On Seabiscuit and loved it (still have my copy), and this book, though more scholarly in nature, cites that book often. Just as Hillenbrand's cover picture shows more of the people than of the horse, so does her text extensively pursue the humans involved as well as the spirit of this great horse. She retells some stories from earlier books and articles, in many cases adding more details, frequently insights from eyewitnesses. It's interesting that some phrases appear here as in other racing books. I don't know who first wrote that when a fast horse had a good workout "the trees swayed" - the first time I remember seeing it was when Red Smith wrote about Majestic Prince's sire, Raise a Native, and I think the whole phrase may have been "the trees on the backstretch swayed" - it certainly sounds like something Smith could create - a tremendous image that appears again here describing another horse. Seabiscuit's story is a great one of spirit and persistence and more than a little bit of luck, and, in the end, despite all the problems along the way, his luck was good and history was made.
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