Alex Zanardi: My Sweetest Victory : A Memoir of Racing Success, Adversity, and Courage

Rating:
Summary: Many thanks to Alex
Review: Although this book has moments when the narrative loses its rhythm, it is still organized and it is meaningful. Moments when the narration deviates off course can be managed by imagining Mr. Zanardi sitting with you at a Cafe, telling you all his memorable moments and anecdotes. He always has a great regard for his fans, so I can imagine this meeting easily. His narrative deviates like most casual speakers when he chooses to tell some extra information about the current subject, perhaps jumping to another time in his life. Still, the book reads well. The book is an English translation, and the translation is a good one.

In my opinion, Alex Zanardi lifts a huge burden from his fans. Please read this book to see how. His enthusiasm towards his American fans is obvious.

Alex Zanardi, as well as his best friends (like J.V. and T.K.), provides such a model for us in sportsmanship and acceptance of our human nature. This book shows how the best find each other, and support each other. Does Mr. Zanardi ever give up being this role model? Read to find out. Does Alex take his share of responsibility when his career is not going so well? I have a better idea about this now. Does he take or share the credit when things go well? Any fan who has watched him knows how gracious he is.

My review is about how I appreciate what Alex Zanardi has done and how he tells us about it. If you are an auto sport fan, or simply a Zanardi fan, you will enjoy this book. I imagine that anyone having to experience rehabilitation will find a true companion in this book. I can also imagine someone enjoying this book just for Alex Zanardi's sense of humor and how he manages it in this highly competitive endeavor of life. It is a fun read and very much appreciated.



Rating:
Summary: Real story of a real human
Review: As a long time racing enthusiast, the pay off for me was watching the nuts and bolts of someone building a career. The fact is that Zanardi worked incredibly hard, and with huge focus to become a successful driver... and it worked! He is one of the most successful open-wheel racers in U.S. history. Then the crash and the whole battle of over coming incredible odds starts again -- bare bones.

I agree with the reviewer who says that Zanardi is definitely the center of his story, but it's a memoir. If it were fiction, I don't know how I'd feel, but it isn't. Alex does not promote himself as a saint or anything but a regular guy. He definitely didn't set out to become the poster-child for recovery; but he has tacked the challenges in his life with (a Mediterranean?) intensity.

Zanardi's childlike enthusiasm are core to his success and survival: He is very emotional guy. Most of the time, I find his tone and emotional honesty positive. Sometimes, the voice gets a little whiney, or just too emotional for me. But I was hooked, the basic story is incredible and inspiring. And it's the real deal. God help me if I have to deal with these challenges. I hope I'm half as graceful and positive.

Overall, I can only give Zanardi, and his book, my best rating.

For what it's worth, the book has more color photos than I can remember seeing in a relatively cheap book. It's got an interesting, if cheerleading, foreword by Mario Andretti, and a more or less complete career chronology at the back, with maps. My best $12 read in a long time.



Rating:
Summary: An excellent book of an extraordinary story
Review: Being Italian I had the opportunity to read the original book. I began reading at night time, and it was a big mistake because I could not put it down. The book is really cool it has funny parts and you really laugh. But the book makes you emotional when Alex talks in details about the horrific racing accident. My mother, who does not like racing, liked the book a lot and found it very inspirational. I think it's a story that crosses the motorsport community. If I could paraphrase Lance Armstrong I would say "It's not about the car". I just bought the US edition because I'm eager to read Mario Andretti's foreword and the exclusive new chapter that was not in the Italian edition. My suggestion is buy it, it's worth it!
Ciao
Gabriele


Rating:
Summary: Inspirational Story
Review: It's great to finally hear Alex tell the inspirational story of his racing career, as well as the terrible accident in Germany. Reading the book is like hearing Alex tell his story in his own voice. The pictures are terrific too, like browsing through the Zanardi family photo albums.

Rating:
Summary: Better than any self-help book on the power of optimism
Review: This book taught me the power of approaching life with a positive attitude. Throughout Zanardi's life and career he keeps coming up against people who tell him, "that can't be done." Then Zanardi brings to the situation his unique passion, curiosity, and optimism -- and proves the doubters wrong. And nowhere is this approach to life more evident than in the way Zanardi deals with his rehabilitation after losing both legs in a racing accident. He refuses to accept the limitations that people want to impose on him as a double-amputee. Instead he gets curious, focuses on solutions instead of problems, and ends up walking, swimming, skiing, and racing competitively again.

The book is written as if Zanardi were sitting down to a long dinner with you and telling you the story of his life. His story-telling is rich with details and he completely charms you with a combination of bravado and self-effacing humor. It was very interesting to learn what it takes to rise up through the world of open-wheel racing. Any young person who wants to race professionally could learn a lot about how it's done from this book (and how difficult a career choice racing is).

And he tells with the same level of detail the devistating story of his accident, the slow recovery from the edge of death, and his challenging adjustment to life with no legs. His curiousity and determination during his rehabilitation are infectious. There's no room for pity in Alex's story. Instead he has you laughing as he speculates about what height he'd like to be with his new prosthetic legs!

In his Author's Note at the back of the book, Zanardi claims he wanted to share his story in case it could give hope to any other people who have had to face difficult challenges in their lives. I'd have to say by that standard, this book is a great success!


Rating:
Summary: A TERRIBLE DISAPPOINTMENT
Review: Unfortunately, the book just doesn't flow very well, lacks critical explanations, has little depth and fails to add anything to our understanding of the sport or his part in it. The chapter devoted to his recovery from his horrible accident in Germany is very good, but the rest of it reads like a hastily thrown-together hodge podge of contradictory paragraphs. I felt none of the drama of the sport and gained absolutely no insight of the machinations involved. Rather, it serves as a diatribe against seemingly everybody he's been involved with and an endless list of unsupported excuses for his failings in everything other than the three seasons he spent on the Target-Ganassi team of 1996-1998. Even the people he professes are his greatest friends get a thorough trashing at one point or another. It reads as though he believes he is the only person who truly knows what to do in any given situation, and those who disagree are simply ignorant or inferior. Frankly, even if I were one of the great friends he speaks of, I would be angered by the condescending and insulting manner with which I were treated.

I was saddened by the unmitigated arrogance of the narration and, despite the occasional and half-hearted self effacing comments, the underlying impression that he accepts no real responsibility for his miserable failures in the Williams F1 team or on his return to CART with the Mo Nunn team, despite being soundly thrashed by his teammates in both instances.

His recovery is indeed inspiring, but as a read this book fails on many levels, and I liked him more before I read it. Sorry...