Rating: 
Summary: Boooooooo
Review: This book is HORRIBLE. If Mr. Armstrong feels the need to defend himself against the drug charges Europe was holding against him (which nobody believes anyway!), why didn't he just hold a press conference instead of publishing the worst book of all time? And why didn't his journalist co-author put into practice all her copy editing skills? I think my brain would have exploded if I had found one more typo in this book. Seriously.
Rating: 
Summary: An off-the-cuff-style retrospective
Review: This book won't win any literary awards but its an entertaining read. Lance gives his first person account of what life has been like for him since attaining his dual icon status as cancer surviver and multiple Tour de France winner. If your a fan and you've kept up with him throughout his cycling career then you'll enjoy the glimpse into the chaos thats behind his machine-like rides. Its light reading and will be most appreciated by his fans. This is not a continuation of "It's Not About The Bike". The theme's from his first book are visited but only with their relevance to his life since his first Tour de France victory.
Rating: 
Summary: Armstrong continues to amaze!
Review: Enjoyed EVERY SECOND COUNTS, Lance Armstrong's
follow-up to IT'S NOT ABOUT THE BIKE . . . this second book
details how he has continued to beat incredible odds (after
having been diagnosed with testicular cancer).He has now won an incredible record-tying five Tour de France
titles, while also overseeing the Lance Armstrong Foundation--a
nonprofit organization that assists cancer patients around the world
with managing and surviving the disease. Also, he has a busy endorsement career . . . and with three
young children, he seems to accomplish in a day more than
most of us accomplish in a week or month. I very much liked two things about this effort: 1) its descriptions
of actual races that made the sport come alive, even though I don't
even ride a bike; and 2) its brutal honesty about how his life
and career have taken a toll on his marriage, though there appears
hope that things may eventually work out for Armstrong and his wife. While reading, I came across several memorable passages; among them:
* But the fact is that I wouldn't have won even a single Tour de France
without the lesson of illness. What it teaches is this: pain is temporary.
Quitting lasts forever. To me, just finishing the Tour de France is a demonstration of survival.
The arduousness of the race, the sheer unreasonableness of the job,
the circumnavigation of an entire country on a bicycle, village to
village, along its shores, across its bridges, up and over the mountain
peaks they call cols, requires a matchless stamina. The Tour is so
taxing that Dutch rider Hennie Kuiper once said, after a long climb up
an alp, "The snow had turned black in my eyes." It's not unlike the
stamina of people who are ill every day. The Tour is a daily festival
of human suffering, of minor tragedies and comedies, all conducted
in the elements, sometimes terrible weather and sometimes fine,
over flats, and into headwinds, with plenty of crashes. And it's three weeks long. Think about what you were doing three weeks ago. It
feels like last year. The race is very much like living-except that its consequences are
less dire and there's a prize at the end. Life is not so neat. There was no pat storybook ending for me. I survived cancer and made
a successful comeback as a cyclist by winning the 1999 Tour, but that
was more of a beginning than an end. Life actually went on, sometimes
in the most messy, inconvenient, and untriumphant ways. In the next
five years I'd have three children, take hundreds of drug tests (literally),
break my neck (literally), win some more races, lose some, too, and
experience a breakdown in my marriage. Among other adventures. * Mortal illness, like most personal catastrophes, comes on suddenly.
There's no great sense of foreboding, no premonition, you just wake
up one morning and something's wrong in your lungs, or your liver,
or your bones. But near-death cleared the decks, and what came
after was a bright, sparkling awareness: time is limited, so I better
wake up every morning fresh and know that I have just on chance
to live this particular day right, and to string my days together into
a life of action, and purpose. If you want to know what keeps me on my bike, riding up an alp for
six hours in the rain, that's your answer.
* In February of 2003, Kik and I agreed to a trial separation, and we
entered marriage counseling. I moved into my one-room cabin at
Milagro, the small ranch that I had cleared and planted with a soft
green lawn. I sat on a rocking chair on the porch and cast around for
the specific cause of our marital difficulties, but they were cloudy
to me. All I knew was that in trying to do everything, we'd forgotten
to do the most important thing. We forgot to be married. It was like
being in a current you didn't know was there. One day we looked
up and realized we'd been swept downstream from our landmarks,
all the points of reference. People warn you that marriage is hard work, but you don't listen.
You talk about the pretty bridesmaids' dresses, but you don't talk
abut what happens next; about how difficult it will be to stay, or
to rebuild. What nobody tells you is that there will be more than just
some hard days. There will be some hard weeks and perhaps even
some hard years.
Rating: 
Summary: Check this one out from the Library
Review: After reading and re-reading It's Not About the Bike, I could hardly wait to order Every Second Counts. Unfortunately, it's a cheap sequel to the first book. Can you say "Show Me the Money?" The book is a poorly organized and superficial diary of Armstrong's joys, sorrows, hopes, fears, and yes, even a little belly-aching that picks up where the first book stopped. We read about cycling, but not as much as cycling fans would hope - there are few details about training and racing other than some brief comments on well-hashed episodes (this should make airport book purchasers and the majority of American sports fans happy - they don't like cycling anyway). Maybe next time Lance could team up with Bobke Roll, Phil Ligget, or Paul Sherman for some really interesting commentary. Lance talks about how teamwork is a two-way street, but then goes on to point out the many ways that the team supports him. I guess tongue-lashings and financial rewards are payback on USPS. No evidence that Lance rides to support team members (No wonder Heras is leaving - besides the unwelcome pre-race ZZ Top). "Teamwork" comes off sounding like how the team supports Lance, not how Lance supports the team. (What's up with the Kevin Livingston bashing anyway?). Of course, there are lots of thoughts about cancer (this was probably the strongest part of the book - but nothing new from book one). Lance seems to be genuinely concerned with making a contribution towards helping others help themselves. Lance's take on faith and religion was new and interesting reading, as were the thoughts on the joys of children and the challenges of marriage (just enough to figure out that things aren't going well but not enough to conclude that anyone knows why). For local color, we hear about life in Spain and Texas (in which Lance restores a medieval chapel and jumps into a deep swimming hole). Frankly, I doubt that Lance has time to write or even dictate and the book shows it. Better to have waited until after next year's Tour (2004) to see if there will be an extraordinary sixth victory. It would have been a good book to write after retiring from racing - that will probably come in a few years. I'll be looking for the next book, but I won't be buying the hardback! ...
Rating:
Summary: Lance, RIDE THE BIKE and STOP TALKING!!!!!
Review: Who on earth wants to keep hearing the same story over and over? Okay, you had cancer, a woman helped you through it, you won 5 Tours, dumped the woman and kids, and decided to spend your last year as a celebrity chasing "real" celebrities. ENOUGH! You are 30 something and seem to be 17 or 18. Talented on the bike, yes. Otherwise? Hmmmm.
Rating:
Summary: Real
Review: While many don't seem to like this book, I do. I like it because it's honest and real and sincere. When reading this book I felt like I was reading a real account by a real person that wasn't always polished or perfect or even completely well considered. As a racing cyclist, I don't need another book about tactics and all that. If I want that, I'll read Charmichael's or Freil's or Wenzel's books. What I wanted to read was the story of a guy who worked hard, got what he was working for and then found out that he had grabbed the charging bull by the horns. I wanted to read about successes and failures both big and small. In this book, I got what I wanted. I loved the stories about the big jump and working with Floyd Landis and team chemistry. I hated that his marriage fell apart and that he took so long to learn the lesson of failure. Most of all I appreciated that the book was real and not pop packaged for the bicycling or business or housewife or any other community. In many ways, the book is just like "It's Not About the Bike". The only problem is that it lacks the cohesive narrative given by the background of Armstrong's fight with cancer. Without that, it's not quite as compelling a story, but well worth the read regardless.
Rating:
Summary: Mostly a waste of time
Review: Armstrong is really struggling to say something new in "Every Second Counts", and repeats much from the earlier book. Aside from the repetitions, there are many sections describing his personal life which, frankly, are tedious. He provides little description of his training, and the sections on his Tour victories are superficial. The parts of the book describing the cameraderie of the US Postal Team and their "jokes" would make most people glad not to be on the team. They seem to have the sense of humour and emotional maturity of 12 year olds. I have a lot of sympathy for Rubiera and Heras complaining about the Americans' preference for playing ZZ Top loud in the team bus. There are no new thoughts on cancer, but more surprisingly Armstrong really has no insights to offer about the experience of cycling and racing. (Read Tim Krabbe's novel "The Rider" for real insight as to what a bicycle race is like from the inside). I can't criticise Armstrong for being brash, arrogant or crude, for being self-centred or abrasive, or for lacking real introspection and insight - he is an athlete, after all, not an artist - but I can criticise him for producing this shallow book when he has nothing of interest to say in it.
Rating:
Summary: Boring, Too Much "Philosophy"
Review: After reading "Its Not About The Bike" (a great book) I had really high expectations for this. Unfortunately, this book really disappointed me. There were some interesting notes from the 2001-2002 tours, but a lot of the book was just the same "carpe diem" philosophy over and over and over. The stories about the race and the team were good, but way too much filler in this book.
Rating:
Summary: A good book, spoiled by the last chapter
Review: I loved the accounts of the 2nd to 3rd accounts of the tour de france and they were on the most part accurate, if not a bit exagerated. I thought in this book there would be more accounts of le tour, and less about the cancer. The last chapter is an insult to lances fellow proffesionals. Its not accurate as to what happenedm, and he accuses Ulrich of not waiting for him after the minor crash he had. He fails to acknowledege the part his team played in him winning the tour in 2003 (the team time trial). I felt this chapter runied the whole book, and I lost a lot of respect for Lance after this.
Rating:
Summary: Lance wins 5 tours - loses all that really matters....
Review: Okay, he talks about all 5 of his tour wins in this book but the unwritten story is that he loses his wife and three children. Lance is self-centered, egotistical and at the end of the day, a real loser when it comes to what really matters. He is obviously frantically attempting to live big in his last year as a celebrity. There will not be a 6th. His ego is too much in the way. The book is a dismal failure although I enjoyed his first book. Poor Kristen, Luke, Isabelle, and Grace. Through familial association with this loser, they lose big too.
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