What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is a wonderful book. As a casual runner and aspiring writer this book really spoke to me, and I felt I related so well to Murakami’s personality, his observations about life, and the connections he drew between writing and running—two commitments that require consistency, motivation, discipline, and a high pain tolerance. In under 200 pages, Murakami managed to inspire me to pick up a pen write for the first time in months. While Murakami claims in this book that few people would like a personality like his, I’d like to think I would be one of the few. Sure, I have not written several renowned novels, and I have not to date completed a full marathon (I cap out at about 16 miles at the time of writing this), but Murakami’s thoughts and descriptions of his physical exertions and mental musings are so clear and articulate in this book that I felt myself constantly relating to him.
I was also very impressed by how entertaining this book is. As valuable and inspiring as Murakami’s insights into habit formation and persistence were to read, I was also genuinely enthralled by his retellings of his experiences as a marathon runner all over the world. In particular, the chapter in which Murakami describes his first marathon experience—running from Athens to Marathon itself in the brutal Greek summer sun was utterly thrilling. I could picture every dead animal on the road, see the city give way to the coastal town, and feel the heat and the sweat he described in such rich detail.
If you are a runner, writer, or have hobbies or a profession that requires persistence in exhausting, solitary conditions, I cannot recommend What I Talk About When I Talk About Running enough. Haruki Murakami sees you and he will inspire you to go the extra mile, write the extra page, and never, ever just walk when you can run.
The Once and Future Lit 