What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
Book Review: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
Genre: Non-Fiction / Memoir
Read Date: April 2026
Score: 5/5 ⭐
Rank: Highly Recommended
Summary:
Haruki Murakami is a novelist and marathoner from Japan, who explores the world around him through an observational and philosophical lens. The central focus of the memoir his writing and running career, though he digs into many topics including aging, creative thought, and what it means to live a good life.
Review:
As someone who has spent most of my adult life writing in one form or another and has run many miles over the years, this book was fascinating. I really enjoyed getting to spend time with a fellow creative from a country I adore. Though he is more than forty years older than me, I found we have a lot in common and that was comforting in ways I never expected.
Murakami explores many topics in this short book. As noted in the summary, he spends most of the time talking about running and his writing career, but the real meat comes in the form of small quips of wisdom he shares from his own life experience. One such note is below:
Thoughts on School 🧠 “The most important thing we learn in school is the fact that the most important things in life cannot be learned at school.”
While that quote alone may not resonate with everyone, the context in which he told the story leading up to it painted a beautiful picture that truly resonated with me in the moment. Enough so that I wrote it down in my current Field Notes so I can review it often - something I only do with quotes that I truly feel are worth chewing on.
Throughout the book you learn that Murakami has been running since his early thirties and prior to that he didn’t really exercise much at all. Actually, he was a heavy smoker and spent most of his time sitting behind a desk writing leading up to the decision to change his life.
In many ways this felt like a validation for my own decision making. I lost over a hundred pounds when I was in my twenties, because I woke up one day and decided I was tired of feeling tired and sick all the time. I’ve often felt like an outsider because I haven’t met many others who have made such large decisions that require true discipline and then stuck to them - but Murakami did for running and for writing novels.
I also feel inspired by his story as an aspiring novelist who has started many projects and failed to complete them over the years. He addresses this in the book, but more so, he proves what I know to be true… writing a novel, just like running a race is one step at a time, requires putting in the work, one word at a time.
There’s too much wisdom and warmth found in these pages for me to cover it all here, but needless to say, I believe it’s well worth a read - especially if you enjoy writing and/or running.
Highly Recommend If you enjoy the process of being mentored from afar and learning from the wisdom of those who have gone before us, give it a read.