What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
By Haruki Murakami, trans. Philip Gabriel
Publication Year: 2008 (originally published in Japanese in 2007)
Type: Non-fiction
Genre: memoir
Read on 2019-05-03
View additional specs on this book in Muhan’s 2019 Reading Survey ➞
★★★★☆
I triumphantly started listening to this book after a very successful long run (after not having run for a whole month and procrastinating starting this book out of guilt and feelings of unworthiness). It was super interesting and a real deep dive into the psyche of Murakami and the kind of person he is (he’s a true Capricorn if anyone wants to skip the book lol). The dude runs a marathon and a triathlon EVERY YEAR and once did a SUPER MARATHON of 67 miles like what the actual fuck. He also describes how he started running when he shut down his jazz bar to write, as a way to stay healthy with a suddenly sedentary lifestyle. He describes how running came to inform his writing. I want running to inform my writing. I mean I don’t run regularly enough and I really haven’t written anything of note but goddammit I want that life. Knocked off a star because, as much as I like Murakami’s no nonsense way of speaking, he does get a bit annoyingly mansplain-y.
See me review this book in this video!
I listened to this as an audiobook, narrated by the author herself, and remember I did in fact cry in a grocery store (not H Mart).