More than a beautiful, coffee-table photography book, Running Douglas County is a story of the love of running and the struggle to overcome physical hardships to get back to it. The author wants something more - a deeper experience than simply running again. But running is the only way to get there. Come along for the journey.
The softcover edition of the book is available from this website: Go to “Store.”
Hardcover copies are also at The Raven Bookstore in Lawrence, KS; S&S Artisan Pub and Cafe, Lawrence; Ad Astra Running Store, Lawrence; Phoenix Art Gallery, Lawrence; Lumberyard Arts Center, Baldwin City; Made in KC Lenexa, Corinth Square and Prairiefire locations; Watermark Books, Wichita. The softcover and Ebook editions are also available on Amazon.
For retailers and libraries:
Title – Running Douglas County – Losing the best thing a lifetime of running had brought and searching the entire county to find it.
By Steve Pierce
Genre – Photography, Running, Rural Landscapes, Mind/Body/Spirit, Kansas, Non-Fiction, OCC010000, PHO0023040, SPO035000
Hardcover ISBN - 979-8-218-10350-7
Publication date – 20 April, 2023. 184 pages with 197 color photographs. (Limited number available. Contact me for more info.)
Softcover ISBN - 979-8-218-21232-2
Publication date - 9 October, 2023, 184 pages with 197 color photographs. Suggested retail $29.95
Synopsis - With stunning photos of extraordinary skies and landscapes in Douglas County, Kansas, this book tells of a man’s love of running and love for the rural areas where he runs. Part One takes you around the southeast part of the county where he has run some 35,000 miles over two decades.
He then takes you on his journey running all the rest of the country roads in the county. He had been unable to run for four years, and when he was able to run again, he set out to cover every stretch of gravel road on his county map. A rebirth story unfolds in his year of journaling his excursions into the countryside. He had to regain the lost fitness, but he wanted more than crossing roads off the map and getting in shape. He wanted that feeling of floating across the planet and something else that fleetingly comes with that feeling.
Lost in those years of physical disability was a connection to the cosmos that had come with running so much under the moon, stars, and planets. Lost too was the easy mindfulness that comes with running smoothly and pain free. And there was something deeper than mindfulness that had touched his soul. He searched the entire county. Would he find it again?
Available in hardcover, and softcover 8.5” x 8.5.” Use contact information on this website.
Reviews –
For more than 20 years, while the rest of us were still in bed, Steve Pierce was out running our county's backroads. All of them. At once a kind of runners’ atlas, a meditation on physical adversity, and an homage to the understated beauties of rural Kansas, this deeply felt, and exquisitely photographed book invites us into the hushed, magical world of the solitary runner under the predawn sky.
—Walter Michener, Michener-Rutledge Booksellers
As a native of Douglas County and someone who has lived here for most of his life, I thought I knew just about everything about the area. I was once a runner and then a serious cyclist, so I'm no stranger to the backroads of Douglas County. However, Steve Pierce’s book, Running Douglas County, is a revelation and an education in its subtle, understated beauty.
Pierce paints a loving, vivid picture of the captivating, simple beauty of Douglas County. He does an exquisite job drawing the reader into his reverence for running and his love of the county's backroads. Illustrated with his own beautiful images (he’s an excellent photographer), it’s readily apparent that he loves a world that too few people stop to savor or even get out of bed to experience.
This book is one of the few things I’ve read in the past few years that had me smiling, and that’s no small feat for an old, jaded photographer. I’m already making a list of runners I know who would love to have a copy.
—Earl Richardson, professional photographer who would be annoyed with anything pretentious here. He is talented and successful and does have a share in a Pulitzer Prize.
This book represents how the “running thing” can be a complex weaving of the human experience. Steve brings thoughtful language and photography that illustrate the beauty of a runner’s mind on the move. Runners tread the earth for so many more reasons than gaining miles and beating time. It made me pause and reflect on the unique adventure of putting one foot after the other and the people, creatures, landscapes, and sky that I have encountered over decades of running. Some of the most special runs happen to have been in Kansas.
—Mary Powell is a lifelong runner who grew up in Lawrence, Kansas. She was the 6A cross country champion in 1985, ’86, and ’87, then ran at Wake Forest and hasn’t stopped.
In a lot of running books the authors spill their guts. Steve Pierce spills his soul. And takes his camera with him. A straight shooter on both accounts.
Pierce’s secret garden is a little astronomy, botany, history, philosophy, physiology, and topography, oh, yeah, ornithology. Animal behavior, too. Meanwhile, taking photos like a combination Carl Sagan and Ansel Adams.
—Jack D. Welch, cofounder of Running magazine, who covered road racing for Track & Field News