As a novelist, Japanese writer Haruki Murakami is in a different league. It’s easy to identify his books. There are lots of cats. And fishes. Or both. And yet the novels strike a chord, that every time you read one of his books, you discover a new facet of Murakami. Just as appealing as his fictional tales are his non-fiction titles and essays. One that stands out particularly is What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. It’s a memoir translated from Japanese by Philip Gabriel. This is just the perfect book to start your 2021.
The book reveals the marathoner side of Murakami. He vividly describes his marathons, the difficulty of waking up at the crack of the dawn, and what keeps every runner going after marathons again and again. Only Murakami can capture the emotions that push runners to cross hurdles. Non-runners may never be able to figure out why runners do the things they do. And that is the perfect reason to pick up this book, even if you aren’t a fitness enthusiast. Murakami explains why he wrote the book, an idea that he carried in his head for 10 long years before putting it to paper. He writes, “Running is sort of a vague theme, to begin with, and I found it hard to figure out exactly what I should say about it.” The bulk of the book carries this precise feeling in real-time, something that makes this memoir such a joyful read. It’s a slim volume, and you may finish the book in a day or two, but the lessons will remain with you forever. It’s a book for everyone, you don’t have to be a runner to enjoy this one.