Publication Date:July 29, 2008 Shipping:Eligible for Super Saver Shipping Promotion:Save $5.00 when you spend $25.00 or more on Qualifying Items offered by Amazon.com. Enter code BMLSAVES at checkout.Terms and Conditions Availability:Usually ships in 24 hours
Product Description In 1982, having sold his jazz bar to devote himself to writing, Murakami began running to keep fit. A year later, he’d completed a solo course from Athens to Marathon, and now, after dozens of such races, not to mention triathlons and a dozen critically acclaimed books, he reflects upon the influence the sport has had on his life and—even more important—on his writing.
Equal parts training log, travelogue, and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers his four-month preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon and takes us to places ranging from Tokyo’s Jingu Gaien gardens, where he once shared the course with an Olympian, to the Charles River in Boston among young women who outpace him. Through this marvelous lens of sport emerges a panorama of memories and insights: the eureka moment when he decided to become a writer, his greatest triumphs and disappointments, his passion for vintage LPs, and the experience, after fifty, of seeing his race times improve and then fall back.
By turns funny and sobering, playful and philosophical, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is rich and revelatory, both for fans of this masterful yet guardedly private writer and for the exploding population of athletes who find similar satisfaction in running.
My new man!September 3, 2008 I am enthralled with Haruki. This is the first work of his that I have read. What a delight! I will be reading more of his work.
Keep on running, old man Murakami!August 29, 2008 6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Taking its name from the play on the title of a Raymond Carver short story, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," the prolific and popular on both sides of the Pacific Japanese author Haruki Murakami's memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running covers a little more than a year in the author's life as he prepares to run a marathon in New York. However, as to be expected from Murakami, the memoir is much more than a simple exercise journal. Through it's all too brief 175 pages, Murakami weaves his own personal narrative where running, if not as essential to his life as writing novels, acts as a strong supporter for Murakami's professional career because, unlike a number of other Japanese writers such as Osamu Dazai and Ryunosuke Akutagawa for whom self destruction through alcohol and other substances acted as a creative boost, Murakami advocates a healthy lifestyle in order to keep writing, yet, Murakami had not always been quite the health nut.
Writing from a desk in Kauai, Hawaii, Murakami tells of his lifestyle before he became a fulltime writer during which he ran a successful jazz bar owner with such unhealthy habits as smoking 60 cigarettes a day, but after the success of his first two novels Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 which he mainly wrote at a table where he sliced onions and cabbage, he decided to give up his jazz bar to become a fulltime writer. Along with the bar and its noisy patrons, Murakami decided to give up cigarettes and other things which were injurious to his health and to take up running. But why running? Murakami states that it is because it fit his solitary nature best and that it required no equipment besides running shoes and because it was something that he decided to do himself without pressure from others, he took to it as easily as he took to writing novels and translating works of American fiction. Therefore, from the time he began running to the publication of his memoir on running, Murakami has been running for some twenty five years and added such sports as squash and triathlons to his repertoire.
However, things are not completely smooth for Murakami, because as the years go by not only does his interest in running begin to fade, but he gets older, he will be sixty in 2009, and his body is no longer able to perform as strongly as it had when he was younger. As his muscles cramp into hard stones, Murakami, like a number of his characters, contemplates death and aging and what impact he has had, if any, on this world.
Some Murakami fans grumbled when it was revealed that his next book would revolve around running because the sport was so removed from their lives and they desired a new collection of fiction more. Yet, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is an invaluable source for the Murakami fan because one can easily see Murakami's characters within the being of Murakami's personal makeup and understand a bit how Murakami's different and somewhat difficult nature has made him bit of an outsider within Japan's literary establishment.
The memoir itself consists of nine chapters which Murakami wrote in various locations including Kauai Hawaii, Cambridge Massachusetts, Tokyo, Japan, and Sapporo. The writing style, like Murakami's fiction and other nonfiction, is very conversational and gives the reader the feeling of listening to an old friend talk about exercise and aging, and how said exercise helps sustain his professional work. The essays might be a bit loose for some readers because Murakami constantly jumps from topic to topic is each chapter such as from running to novel writing and then, quite unexpectedly, to something like record collecting. However, this gives the memoir more of a friendly, personal edge and makes each chapter full of small vignettes of knowledge about Murakami.
Although its focus on running, and its recent appearance in Sports Illustrated might put off some potential readers, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is a fine memoir which gives the English reading fan of Murakami so more info on the reclusive author.
Liked itAugust 28, 2008 For a number of years, I was a big Murakami fan. Then a few of his books disappointed me so much, I sort of 'fell out of love' with his work. This non-fiction work appealed to me and I'm glad I purchased it. In fact, I purchased the audible version which is great. It reminds me a lot of Stephen King's "On Writing," which is half about living your life, half about the art of writing. I pulled a lot of useful information from this book that I won't soon forget. Don't expect some grand climax to this book, however. For what it is, I think it's a great book and a short read (or listen if you're on audio)
Read Sheehan instead.August 24, 2008 1 out of 4 found this review helpful
The publishing world has a (monetary) fondness for pushing non-fiction books by fiction writers on us, hoping to capitalize on the author's readership. Stephen King's lovely tome about writing worked. This, Murakami's book on running, did not. I, too, am a middle-aged long-distance runner but found little insight or comfort of either subject in these pages. If you want to read something of depth about running, life, and aging, buy any one of George Sheehan's books instead.
I know how he feelsAugust 22, 2008 Well I'm coming at this from he opposite direction from Emma (above), but I agree with her assessment of the book.
As a 50-something runner and lover of Murakami's novels I found this fascinating - read it in one sitting (well, lying - it was an overnight hospital stay).
