How to Think About Exercise (The School of Life)

At a Stanford climbing class, the instructor had trouble getting the class to understand some climbing techniques. He then resorted to explaining it in terms of physics and vector math. This immediately clicked with the class.

In How to Think About Exercise the author takes a similar approach to help those with intellectual inclinations better relate to exercise. The chapters are divided into topics: Pride, Sacrifice, Beauty, Humility, Pain, Consistency, The Sublime and Oneness. We read about how Haruki Murakami's running enabled his writing and how Darwin's walks helped lead to scientific breakthroughs. Tolkien, Hume and others all make their appearances in the discussions.