Running with the Bulls: Fiestas, Corridas, Toreros, and An American's Adventure in Pamplona

Some days you skewer the bull, and some days the bull skewers you: this is one of the many useful lessons to be learned from Gary Gray's memoir of seasons spent in Pamplona, Spain, where life revolves around the rituals and realities of tauromachy.

Stockbroker and finance professor Gray caught the bullfighting bug twenty-odd years ago while vacationing in Spain, and swiftly advanced from rank turista to learned aficionado by, among other things, participating in (and surviving) Pamplona's famed "running of the bulls." For those interested in doing the same, he offers notes on how best to ensure emerging ungored and unscathed (walk the narrow course beforehand, he counsels, and "plan an escape route should you become a bull's bull's-eye"). Elsewhere he revels in other aspects of Spanish life, recounting travels throughout the country, impossibly rich meals, complicated political discussions, and all-night drinking sessions in the company of men and women who share his passion for the corrida.

Though no threat to Ernest Hemingway's classic Death in the Afternoon, Gray's book capably describes a most dangerous pastime--and some wonderful Spanish places. --Gregory McNamee