Two Hours

Two Hours is a book about the world’s greatest distance runners and their quest to run previously unthinkable times for the marathon.

It was published in the U.S. by Simon & Schuster, in the U.K. by Viking, and in several other countries around the world, including Germany, The Netherlands, and Japan.

Below are some good things that other people have said about the book:

“Caesar’s Two Hours explodes out of the blocks, continues at a terrific clip, never flags and breasts the tape victorious, its arms in the air. Like the best foot race, it is tight, pacy and riveting (…) A brilliant debut. Give the man a medal and a bunch of flowers” —Esquire (UK)

“You might think, at first, that you’re going for a very long morning run with a small African man through the streets of Berlin. Before you know it, you’re chasing the white whale of human endurance—the two-hour marathon—down every one of its psychological, physiological, geographical, historical, and cultural side streets, running with a tailwind that only great narrative craftsmen like Ed Caesar can exhale.” —Gary Smith

“A fascinating insight into the clockwork of what it means to be an elite athlete, always pushing at the edge of possibility. Like a good runner, Caesar carries the story along with grace and ease and generosity. He brings us to Kenya, New York, London, and Berlin, but ultimately allows us to look inside ourselves. It’s the human story that shines through.” —Colum McCann, author ofTransatlantic and Let the Great World Spin

“Ed Caesar’s treatment of the near-mythical two-hour marathon is both implacably scientific and wonderfully reverential. As a former marathoner I deeply appreciate both. The prose hums along effortlessly and the topic is one of the most profound there is: the absolute limits of human performance. Reading a book that combines those two things is one of the great pleasures in life.” —Sebastian Junger

“There seem to be so few grand pursuits left in sports. Ed Caesar chases one of the last—the two-hour marathon. As he writes, it is sport’s Everest, an utterly impossible thing that, like the four-minute mile, the moon landing, and the flying car, people obsessively chase. Ed Caesar is a wonderful writer and he takes us on the brilliant chase and gets us thinking about what impossible even means.” —Joe Posnanski, author of Paterno and The Secret of Golf

“A fabulously entertaining and thought-provoking ode to perseverance, Ed Caesar’s Two Hours will make you fall in love with elite marathoning even if you can barely jog a mile. It is a tale filled with richly drawn characters whose grit and talent are wonders to behold, as well as keen observations about the twists and turns of the human mind. Read it and you’ll yearn to attend as many marathons as possible, so you can marvel at the athletic geniuses who’ve sacrificed so much to run so beautifully.” —Brendan I. Koerner, author of The Skies Belong to Us

“For a human being—for one of us—to run 26.2 miles in 120 minutes will require a belief in everything but our limits. Only a reporter of Ed Caesar’s diligence, and a writer of his ease, could make such an improbable achievement feel more than likely. He makes Two Hours feel like destiny.” —Chris Jones, author of Out of Orbit

“Combining real drama and pinpoint reportage, Ed Caesar has delivered an absolutely fascinating book about the mother of all endurance events, the marathon, and the outer limits of the human body. Two Hours had me at the ten seconds, and Caesar sets such a compelling, genial pace, synthesizing history, science, and psychology, that his globe-spanning quest to understand everything about the marathon becomes ours. This is a gifted, award-winning writer in full stride, and a must-read pleasure, for you’ll never see the great race, or the human body, in the same way ever again.” —Michael Paterniti, author of The Telling Room

‘I didn’t think any book could make me interested in marathon running. Two Hours did that and much more. Ed Caesar’s in depth reporting explores one of sport’s ultimate questions: is there a final human boundary and, if so, where? A terrific book: elegant, engaging and rewarding.’ —Ed Smith, author of Luck

“A wide-ranging and compelling account of marathons and the very fastest men who run them… Caesar’s winning prose will keep even armchair readers turning pages, perhaps tuning in to watch the next marathon.” —Kirkus (Starred Review)

“Hoop Dreams for runners.”—Ben Markovits, The Spectator

“Fascinating… Caesar’s writing is lyrical and passionate, a celebration of the human spirit and what it can achieve.” —Jamie Doward, The Observer

“Superb. Caesar has established himself as perhaps the best new longform magazine writer since John Jeremiah Sullivan.” —Richard Williams, The Guardian

“[Caesar’s] reportage has the wonderfully old-fashioned feel of the very best of American journalism — as if he has researched the matter to hell, spent his time in the field, nailed down every fact, then bashed it out on a typewriter with a cigarette smouldering in his mouth.” —Nick Pitt, The Sunday Times