Flanagan's Run by Tom McNab

Got post-Commonwealth Games blues? Don’t worry, you can get your fix of Scottish sporting prowess with Tom McNab’s classic novel Flanagan’s Run, re-released to coincide with Glasgow's year of hosting the competition in 2014. Originally published in 1982, the novel charts the progress of 2000 runners as they race from Los Angeles to New York. Scot Hugh McPhail, running in frayed tartan shorts, must dodge corporate officials and survive a trek across the treacherous Rockies to be in with a chance of winning the $150,000 prize money.

Set in 1931, McPhail’s Glasgow is very different to the one which recently received global attention: the city is adrift with groups of unemployed and despondent young men, who run races in frozen parks in the hope of winning pitiful prize money.

McNab was an Olympic coach on both the winter and summer games, adding a certain authenticity to the book. The characters are engaging, though not particularly compelling; rather, it is the descriptions of the adrenaline fuelled race that keep the reader turning the pages. With clear, Steinbeck-esque prose, it is the journey, rather than the characters, that make this a good read.