What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki MurakamiMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
A memoir on how running became an important part of author's life. This is a short book where author recounts how he started running one fine day out of the blue when he used to be a chain smoker and decided to change his life by running every day. He stuck to the habit and ran almost 6 days a week, an hour a day, almost covering 6 miles on an average every day, thus running 36 miles a week and running almost 1900 miles a year. At the time of writing this book author has been a runner for 2 decades. There are several books on running - some are about laying out plans for beginners that they can follow like a 20 week plan for preparing for your first marathon, there are others in the same vein about cooking recipes suitable for a runner, and then some about experiences of professional runners. Most of those books have been written by authors who are not novel writers or professional story tellers. This book stands out as being written by an author who is a professional writer who has written several novels of great acclaim and who also happens to be a mature runner with enough experience under his belt to be able to tell others what worked for him or to just recount about his experiences as a runner. It is a short book and written in a way that will engage the reader. I am a beginner in running and this book was a pleasure to listen to so much so that i will be listening to it couple more times. Author's routine of running 6 days in a week may not be good for a beginner as it may tire their knees and make them more susceptible to injury and that is where i plan to go back to the books that cater to beginners and use the information on how to train from there instead. But this book serves well as a good motivator for anyone interested in running - be it a beginner or an experienced runner.
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