As with Bechdel's previous memoirs, this gently paced narrative interweaves the personal with wider literary and historical references that resonate with the theme of the book. I'm only familiar with some of the references, but enough context is provided for that not to matter (although the context is not always provided with the first reference, so rereading is probably going to provide me with a better feel)

I love that Bechdel told their story of seeking for enlightenment through their serial loves for exercise regimes and sports, along with the whys and wherefores of starting and stopping each one (and that they acknowledge that there are several such that didn't make it in to the book)

In terms of difficult to read sections -- Bechdel has not shied away from discussing their maladaptive uses of alcohol, nor the trouble that being a workaholic has brought. There are also mentions of the deaths of Bechdel's parents -- one by suicide and the other to cancer. ( )

Alison Bechdel has always been fascinated with various forms of exercise and fitness. She recounts her journey from a child learning to ski, through phases of running, cycling, yoga, and more. Throughout, however, she's also trying to come to terms with her place in the world and her own mortality, since her body can't always do what she asks of it.

Interspersed in her personal account, Alison includes Buddhist teaching and Transcendalists, Jack Kerouac, Margaret Fuller, and more. It's about exercise, yes, but it's really about finding herself, using exercise to deal with difficult things and anxiety, but also how nature was an integral part of her well-being. A thoughtful graphic novel memoir I'd recommend widely. ( )

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-secret-to-superhuman-strength-by-alison-bech...

I hugely enjoyed Bechdel’s first major work, Fun Home, a secret biography of her father, but was less wowed by her second, Are You My Mother? In The Secret to Superhuman Strength, she turns to herself, and her own relationships with fitness, literature, writing and other women. I loved this. Wry and self-deprecating, but also raging when it is appropriate and necessary, she takes us into the world of the fitness maniac (which I am not, though many are) and also relates her own struggles to those of, for instance, Wordsworth and Coleridge; Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller; and Jack Kerouac and Adrienne Rich. Margaret Fuller in particular sounds like someone I should know more about.

Anyway, this is excellent and would be a great gift for any fitness fanatics, literature nerds or even normal people in your life. ( )

A memoir in which Alison Bechdel explores her obsessions with outdoor sports, Buddhist insight, workaholism and alcoholism and their effects on her relationships. ( )

Although I generally hate to assign any work a five-star rating, in this case I can't think of a single thing that could be improved upon. She is telling her own story (after telling her father's and mother's in her two earlier books). It feels honest and, if not complete, at least narratively cohesive. I have to wonder how she remembers such details; so much of my own life is a blank. High school? what was that? ( )