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

In Running with the Bulls, Gary Gray grabs hold of us and takes us on a grand and intimate tour of one of Spain's most passionate and historic cities. In 1926, Ernest Hemingway brought the frenetic charge of Pamplona's Festival of San Fermin to life in The Sun Also Rises. Today, that same energy still exists for the hundreds of thousands of people who descend upon the city every July. At the center of the celebration is the famous encierro - the running of the bulls. In this traditional event, thousands of thrill-seeking men and women race through the narrow streets of Pamplona just steps ahead of half a dozen angry bulls, each bread to kill and brandishing razor-sharp horns that can impale a victim in a split second. The goal of the corredores, the runners, is to usher the bulls into the Plaza de Toros where, that afternoon, each will meet his death under the sword of a torero, or bullfighter. (6 1/4 x 9 1/4, color photos)

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