Full name: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir

Author: Haruki Murakami Year: 2007 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Memoirs, Non Fiction Culture: Japan Purchase/reserch links: Goodreads Amazon LibraryThing ISBNs: 9780307389831 0307389839

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 distance running. Similar books: Japan Took the J.A.P. Out of Me by Lisa Fineberg Cook Finding Ultra by Rich Roll Eat and Run by Scott Jurek Wildflower by Drew Barrymore Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes The Opposite of Fate by Amy Tan Hungry Heart by Jennifer Weiner It All Changed in an Instant by Larry Smith Down the Rabbit Hole by Holly Madison 50/50 by Dean Karnazes Ambulance Girl by Jane Stern I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This by Nadja Spiegelman This Will Only Hurt a Little by Busy Philipps Where Am I Now? by Mara Wilson When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom Born a Crime by Trevor Noah Educated by Tara Westover Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls The Story of My Life by Helen Keller