Used. Paperback. Long before a sub-four-minute mile was common track-meet trivia, the feat was widely deemed physiologically impossible, a mythical barrier akin to scaling Everest without oxygen. Neal Bascomb’s brisk, brilliant narrative follows three obsessively driven athletes—a time-strapped British medical student, an ascetic Australian aristocrat, and a swaggering Kansas farm boy—as they independently chase history across three continents. It is a masterclass in pacing that captures how these men briefly managed to steal global headlines from the Cold War arms race with nothing more than spikes and sheer stubbornness. Whether you are a lifelong track junkie or just a sucker for a cracking good historical underdog story, this page-turner will leave you breathless long before you cross the finish line.