I've been struggling this year with finding forms of exercise I enjoy, so I was hoping this would show me how lifechanging running is. I may have had unrealistic expectations because this is a memoir so it's largely focused on how running affects his own life. I enjoyed it though it didn't really push me one way or another.

Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running pairs running and the art of writing (and its demands on focus and endurance). After reading Murakami’s Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage a few weeks ago, I had wanted to read more from this author. Admittedly, What I Talk About has a very different (one might say non-literary) quality which differentiates it from his novel. Still, it was an interesting account in which Murakami describes a nearly lifelong connectio...

So many thoughts after reading this memoir!First of all, I would like to say it's totally bizarre to rate a memoir as is similarly felt by many readers and reviewers. I can understand today what they meant by that. And yes, I can also totally understand when a memoir is rated really low. I have done so too with the memoirs about celebrities and famous people because I just picked up the 'memoir' without actually knowing the personality at all or when the so called 'memoirs' are just pictures and...

To get through life some people drink copious amounts of alcohol to de-stress. Others smoke tobacco or cannabis. Some try heavier substances. My drug of choice, my way of clearing my head, calming down and escaping for a few hours, is to run. I am an absolute junkie. Sometimes I feel like I live to run. When I’m not reading, writing or cycling to work, then I’m running. It’s a fantastic experience, blasting my favourite psychedelic rock albums as I lose all my troubles on the road. Anyone who ha...

*happy sigh*You know when you read a book and it just speaks to you? Something about the time and place and just all the circumstances match up and you know you read the book at the perfect time? This was that.My drive to immerse myself in the world of writing keeps growing, and I've found so much fun in collecting books about writers and writing that I can't wait to sink into. I had to start somewhere, so I picked up What I Talk About When I Talk About Running because, back when I bought it a f...

Hashiru Koto ni Tsuite Kataru Toki ni Boku no kataru koto = What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki MurakamiWhat I Talk About When I Talk About Running is a memoir by Haruki Murakami in which he writes about his interest and participation in long-distance running. Murakami started running in the early 1980's and since then has competed in over twenty marathons and an ultra-marathon.Murakami gives reasons that make him run. Physical fitness is important to him and the constant challen...

I'm a bit baffled by how anyone who's not a distance runner could possibly be interested in this book, but I personally got a lot out of it. This is in spite of the fact that I'm not a Murakami girl, and honestly didn't enjoy the style of this book at all. I always feel when I'm reading him that I've somehow wound up with a crappy translation, but then I realize that I'm reading the same version as all the English-only Murakami lovers out there, so apparently I just don't like the way he writes....

This book is literally so pointless

Audiobook.... narrated by Haruki MurakamiListening to Murakami speak about the very universal way our inner voice functions with random thoughts - like clouds in the sky that come and go - was a little taste of heaven for me. Given that I, too, was a runner for 25 years of my life - running marathons - and hilly trail half marathons - often beginning my training runs in the dark with a flashlight — this was absolutely a lovely delightful Audiobook. I enjoyed it very much. I’m familiar with the l...

A collection of personal essays about writing, endurance, and running, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running considers the impact running has had on the author’s life and work. Over the course of nine short essays, Haruki Murakami travels from Tokyo to Boston as he details his training regimen for the 2005 New York City Marathon and reflects on what running means to him. The author argues for approaching running, like writing, as a way to practice self-discipline on a daily basis, but not

It was a rainy evening about seven years ago when I entered a book store. It was the perfect refuge – warm lights, thin crowd, a tea bar and loads of books. I marched to the tea bar, ordered a ginger- mint tea, placed my bag on a chair in the seating area and hopped to the alleys to browse for books while the tea was being brewed. Running my eyes like a squirrel, I was surveying the titles one after another when they came to a halt – they spotted a pristine white cover with a circular swirl in b...

This was great! But I was kind of hoping it would make me want to quit smoking and start being a runner. It did not. If anything, it solidified my already-pretty-solid hatred of the idea of running. God damn stupid healthy Haruki.

"Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest. If you're going to while away the years, it's far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive then in a fog, and I believe running helps you to do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life — and for me, for writing as whole."Haruki Murakami ~~ What I Talk About When I Talk About RunningIf you love ru...

"Nothing in the real world is as beautiful as the illusions of a person about to lose consciousness."Murakami's mind has always fascinated me; that he transcends the normal and dull, spreading them into a realistic, dreamlike, colorful, soulful reality, amazes me. And I think when most of us read someone that fascinates and/or amazes us, we want to know what that person is like -- what makes him or her tick. And obviously we're almost always disappointed: an amazing mind doesn't equal an amazing...

An ideal book for writer runners (or running writers), but also probably worth it for non-running/non-writing readers as there's enough straight talk and suggestion about serious themes: enduring pain, aging, the importance of routine, self-awareness/alertness. Quick, lean, honest, at times amazing, occasionally mundane, definitely worthwhile. BUT WAIT! The really cool thing about this book is that it's also about authority. Murukami has run +25 marathons (including a +62-mile supermarathon) and...

I finally reach the end. Strangely, have no feeling of accomplishment. The only thing I feel is utter relief that I don’t have to runread this book anymore.I started this book with two prejudices.First, that the most tedious dinner party conversations typically start with your interlocutor telling you they are in training to run a marathon.Secondly that an author’s work should stand alone from the author - I am with Elena Ferrante here - and that writers writing about themselves or even, perhaps...