Cosy and well paced like long distance running. Beautifully written.

I’m no runner. At least not a long-distance runner. But this was more than about just running.

I knew the book was going to be a memoir kind of thing. It was really interesting to see a different side of a person for something he is not known for. I loved some of the chapters about running marathons. I did my first 10k this year and the way he wrote about running marathons was so well that it felt like I was literally there watching it happening. This was my first murakami book and i want to read more now.

Such a wonderful book, makes me want to try and do a triathlon ☺️

Interesting insights into Murikami through his ritual of running. Even as a runner I didn’t find him the most relatable and don’t feel like the book left me with much wisdom or takeaways. It’s more of a diary about his rather anticlimactic experience with running over the course of a few years. Beautifully written.

always interesting to get a glimpse inside murakami's head

Not incredible, but the traditional truisms about a healthy creative life and the audio book is good company. Listened to a lot of it while actually running

BESTTTT BOOK of the (1/3) year, but i’m sure it’ll still be the best book i’ve read until the end of this year, or ever. not just about running tips and stuff, the memoir also shares contemplation on mundane things that we do, according to Murakami, can be meditative acts if we keep them long enough. as a person who keeps failing to stick to routine(😭) i was encouraged by the book. i sense a delicate nudge in me, a slight-but-profound revelation. i love how the book is not trying to lecture us readers about being a healthier, more productive human being, but to be more aware of how we see ourselves & how we want to live our lives💯👍 bonus point: it contains many life lessons (from the life of Murakami himself) that we can learn from p.s i’m the living proof of a 10K finisher after (although not straight after) reading the book😭✋ am not bragging but it is what it is. it is all because of Mr. Murakami🏃‍♀️🤍

A collection of meditations written from various races, training runs, and just runs for the fun of it. This will only be appealing to you if you’re a runner and even more so, if you have a creative career in any way. I personally loved a lot of Murakami’s philosophies on running, progressing, creating, and starting again, etc. I have many similar trains of thought while I run and/or create. Good book and quick easy read :)

Memoir + Murakami = utter happiness. Whatever respect I had for Haruki Murakami as a writer - which is (beyond) considerable - it is as nothing to the depth of my bow down before the Japanese novelist on discovering that he has run an ultramarathon. His description of the physical and mental agonies as he struggled to complete the 62-mile course, followed by the near-religious experience of the last few miles, when he knew he was going to finish, is one of the highlights of what he calls "a kind of memoir". Non-running readers of his novels will probably ask: "Why on earth did he run 62 miles when he knew it would hurt so much?" Runners ask a different question: "Why have I never done that?" This book is in some ways the story of the workings of Murakami's mind, dressed up as a book about running. Maybe he doesn't want to do a more standard autobiography. He should. He is a fine writer, and an interesting man. As I closed this slim volume, I was left wanting to know more about him, not less, also let my adoration for him to go beyond limits!. Then I went for a run and tried to imagine what the last half-hour of a 62-mile run would be like. He knows, and I'm jealous.

The only Murakami's book that i can't engage. Anyway, Murakami obsession still work for me.

I was disappointed in this book. The writing felt so amateurish and unpolished, like a collection of stream of conscious notes that were in the process of being turned into a first draft. He repeated points over and over within paragraphs as well as throughout the book, over-explaining and in the process killing the vitality of the ideas. Also, there was the big problem that the book didn't make any point - it felt like listening to a very detailed and long-winded description of a mildly interesting person's day.

If you’re looking for an inspiration to run, this is not the book you’re looking for. At least it’s not to me, more like a diary with random thoughts and memories of running and nothing more.

Loaned by Mariana, post Frauenlauf, perhaps in an attempt to inspire me to train for a half marathon (still unsure if I have the drive/focus for this).

Great Sunday afternoon read. I particularly liked how Murakami explains the physical and emotional feeling of running long distances, and how that changes over time. It's part memoir, which also makes it enjoyable to follow.

My favourite quote - "Sometimes I run fast when I feel like it, but if I increase the pace I shorten the amount of time i run, the point being to let the exhilaration I feel at the end of each run carry over to the next day. This is the same sort of tack I find necessary when writing a novel. I stop every day right at the point where I feel I can write more. Do that, and the next day's work goes surprisingly smoothly".

Fell even more in love with this excessively selfcritical sweetheart.

it's like murakami is writing me a love letter at this point

Sums up the enjoyment of doing.

Makes me wanna start running. Haha

this is one of the only memoirs that i enjoyed. i would 10/10 recommend.

Murakami’s running based memoir is an instruction manual for using different disciplines to buoy one’s primary creative practice. Detailing the prolific author’s start at running (running a marathon at 33), and also writing, it goes on to tell how he built the general discipline into his life as a form of routine. In his efforts to run a marathon a year from that point and the related anecdotes of some of these races, I felt some inspiration and also resonated with my own relationship to physical endurance and creative output. 

Some of the books' stronger narrative and literary point’s muse on the greater more universal challenges that confront creatives and athletes alike. Some of the author’s treatise on what one could call the ouroboros effect of loneliness were striking: 

“ Sometimes, however, this sense of isolation, like acid spilling out of a bottle, can unconsciously eat away at a person’s heart and dissolve it.” Loneliness can beget more loneliness, by making one un-empathetic. You can see this double edged sword of obsessive discipline in professional athletes like Ronaldo or Micheal Jordan, i.e. the “I took that personally” in The Last Dance.

The author goes on further to illustrate a constant of more sensitive loners everywhere, describing how self imposed isolation in order deal with or overcome rejection— sometimes necessary for a creative or physical discipline— also feels like self sabotage; “It protects me, but at the same time it steadily cuts away at me from the inside. I think in my own way I’m aware of this danger—probably through experience—and that’s why I've had to constantly keep my body in motion, in some cases pushing myself beyond the limit, in order to heal the loneliness I feel inside and put it into perspective. Not so much as an intentional act, but as an instinctive reaction. 

 The loneliness of long distance runners isn’t anything new, as seen in Tony Richardson’s British realism film from 1959, of the same name. But Murakami doesn’t get hung up on this. Other more poignant passages illustrate the camaraderie of the sporting life. One too short but entertaining anecdote details the author’s running interview with John Irving in central park in the 80’s. And passing references to the early deaths of fellow competitors, individuals with whom the author felt an unspoken kinship, and the deep sorrow at the wastefulness of cruel early death bring back the main point that most good writing about sports, (or anything for that matter) is really writing about life. 

Murakami shows this last point well in many passages, linking the endurance needed to write to the endurance needed to run. He almost describes it as a relationship of maintenance from one to the other. And how the rigor of life, and satisfaction in these disciplines, is pushing yourself farther than you have before, trying to prove the inner critic wrong; “ If you’re going to while away the years, it’s far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive than in a fog, and i believe running helps you do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: thats the essence of running and a metaphor for life– and for me, for writing as well. I believe many runners would agree.”

This is my first audiobook in english i Wanted to read it in my language which is swedish but i could listen in it in english it wasnt hard Now i would buy or rent it in swedish i like the book and i like to run! Ok min första engelska ljudbok och det gick bra att följa med trots att den var på engelska vill ha den på svenska bra bok och visst jag gillar ju löpning" - written in #booklyapp

It's almost an autobiography. For most of the book, he talks about all the feelings he has while running. As a runner, I relate to his experience A LOT. The way he talks about self-sabotage, mind games, and the body and the mind wanting to quit all the time. But, even though it's a short excerpt, he also talks about his experience while running a Jazz bar and the decision to start writing novels at 30. Another interesting topic (for me the most interesting one) is how he thinks about running and self-improvement. How being arrogant and thinking you don't need much training to run a marathon can lead to a huge failure. The way he preps to run marathons months ahead. And actions and constant feedback he takes from his failures. I liked his writing style. Very simple and descriptive (not only about physical things and places but also about his feeling in each running experience). --- This book was read at home in São Paulo - Brazil, at the Guarulhos Airport, on the bus from Schiphol Airport to the Centre of Amsterdam, in Museumplein park, and in Vondelpark in Amsterdam.

An excellent insight into the world of dealing with the weight of life’s realities via one of its most singular forms of exercise