Tag: haruki murakami

What I Read This Year

It was another excellent reading year in which I met my goal to read more than 50 books in 2021. As the pandemic continued to plague us1, I found myself drawn toward re-reading a number of books that I had read before. There is definitely comfort to be found in the familiar. On top of the books I read this year, I was no less inveterate with the amount of news articles and blog posts that I consumed. Although, in-keeping with another of my goals, I avoided as much doom-leaden news as I could.

  1. Aurelius, Marcus: Meditations (r2)
  2. Dahl, Roald: Fantastic Mr. Fox (r)
  3. Dahl, Roald: Danny the Champion of the World
  4. Dexter, Colin: The Dead of Jericho
  5. Dexter, Colin: The Riddle of The Third Mile
  6. Dexter, Colin: The Secret of Annexe 3
  7. Dexter, Colin: The Wench is Dead
  8. Dexter, Colin: The Jewel That Was Ours
  9. Dexter, Colin: The Way Through the Woods
  10. Dexter, Colin: The Daughters of Cain
  11. Dexter, Colin: Death is Now My Neighbour
  12. Dexter, Colin: The Remorseful Day
Remorseful Day
Wind-Up Bird
  1. Flea: Acid for the Children
  2. Glei, Jocelyn K.: Unsubscribe: How to Kill Email Anxiety, Avoid Distractions, and Get Real Work Done
  3. Kiedis, Anthony (with Larry Sloman): Scar Tissue (r)
  4. King, Stephen: On Writing
  5. Kureishi, Hanif: The Buddha of Suburbia (r)
  6. le Carré, John: The Looking Glass War
  7. Murakami, Haruki: Sputnik Sweetheart
  8. Murakami, Haruki: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle3
  9. Packer, Dr J. I., et al (Ed): Holy Bible (ESV) (r)
  10. Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone4 (r)
  11. Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (r)
  12. Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (r)
  13. Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (r)
  14. Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (r)
  15. Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (r)
  16. Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (r)
  17. Rowling, J. K.: Tales of Beadle the Bard
  18. Shakespeare, William: Macbeth (r)
Half-Blood Prince
Maigret
  1. Simenon, Georges: Pietr the Latvian5
  2. Simenon, Georges: The Late Monsieur Gallet
  3. Simenon, Georges: The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien
  4. Simenon, Georges: The Carter of Le Providence
  5. Simenon, Georges: The Yellow Dog
  6. Simenon, Georges: Night at the Crossroads
  7. Simenon, Georges: A Crime in Holland
  8. Simenon, Georges: The Grand Banks Café
  9. Simenon, Georges: A Man’s Head
  10. Simenon, Georges: The Dancer at the Gai-Moulin
  11. Simenon, Georges: The Two-Penny Bar
  12. Simenon, Georges: The Shadow Puppet
  13. Simenon, Georges: The Saint-Fiacre Affair
  14. Simenon, Georges: The Flemish House
  15. Simenon, Georges: The Madman of Bergerac
  16. Simenon, Georges: The Misty Harbour
  17. Simenon, Georges: Liberty Bar
  18. Simenon, Georges: Lock No. 1
  19. Simenon, Georges: Maigret
  20. Simenon, Georges: Cécile is Dead
  21. White, T. H.: The Sword in the Stone
  22. Wolf, Virgina: A Room of One’s Own

In 2022, I intend to continue my journey with the inimitable Inspector Maigret; immerse myself in George Smiley‘s battle with his nemesis Karla; and return to the fantastical realms of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld and Tolkein’s Middle-earth.

  1. Pun definitely intended.[↩]
  2. (r) Indicates ‘re–reading’.[↩]
  3. Easily the most enjoyable, strange and challenging book I read this year.[↩]
  4. Revisiting the world of Harry Potter during the summer holiday epitomises the pull towards comfort that I felt this year.[↩]
  5. Having completed the Martin Beck series last year and the Inspector Morse series early this year. I needed to select the next detective, whose world I could lose myself within. I settled on Georges Simenon’s Jules Maigret and have not been disappointed. I am already 20 books in to the series of 75 currently available from Penguin.[↩]

I’m standing “on the side of the egg”!

2020 seems to have begun where 2019 left off; already charged with sorrow, anger and uncertainty. Leaders, systems and structures are failing us, we must therefore rely on each other…

“If there is a hard, high wall and an egg that breaks against it, no matter how right the wall or how wrong the egg, I will stand on the side of the egg. Why? Because each of us is an egg, a unique soul enclosed in a fragile egg. Each of us is confronting a high wall. The high wall is the system which forces us to do the things we would not ordinarily see fit to do as individuals . . . We are all human beings, individuals, fragile eggs. We have no hope against the wall: it’s too high, too dark, too cold. To fight the wall, we must join our souls together for warmth, strength. We must not let the system control us — create who we are. It is we who created the system.”

~ Murakami, Haruki, Jerusalem Prize acceptance speech, Jerusalem Post, Feb. 15, 2009

Reading to Run; Running to Read

I just finished reading Footnotes by Vybarr Cregan-Reid. It was an excellent book… as much a travel diary and literary history as a book about running.

I normally do a bit more research before starting a book but this one came highly recommended so I jumped right in. I was unaware that the author was a Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Kent. Cregan-Reid underpins and punctuates his running journey with numerous literary references and quotations. They are all apposite, detailed and creatively employed.

I can certainly recommend the book to fellow runners as I came away feeling that Cregan-Reid unearths the very essence of running and its role in our relationship to the world around us. But, I can also recommend the book to those who have an avid interest in literature and travel; particularly those with an enthusiasm for writers who extolled the virtues of nature like Blake, Coleridge, Hardy, Tolstoy and Woolf.

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This was my sixth running-related book during what has been a very good reading running year:

  1. Askwith, Richard – Today We Die a Little: Emil Zátopek, Olympic Legend to Cold War Hero
  2. Cregan-Reid, Vybarr – Footnotes: How Running Makes Us Human
  3. Finn, Adharanand – Running with the Kenyans: Discovering the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth
  4. Finn, Adharanand – The Way of the Runner: A Journey into the Fabled World of Japanese Running
  5. McDougall, Christopher – Born to Run: The Hidden Tribe, The Ultra-Runners and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
  6. Murakami, Haruki – What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir

They are all well written and each is uniquely different.

Today We Die a Little by Richard Askwith was the most interesting read. I knew nothing about Emil Zátopek prior to reading the book. I had never even heard of him! Askwith’s biography is rich in detail; profoundly inspirational; and deeply heartbreaking.

However, I feel that Born to Run by Christopher McDougall has had the most significant impact on my running. Not only is there a fantastic over-arching story about the Tarahumara and Micah True’s tireless efforts to organise a race in the Copper Canyons (Mexico), but weaved into the narrative is a well-researched argument for barefoot running.

McDougall uses historical facts, scientific data and a wealth of anecdotal evidence to present a compelling case for freeing one’s feet from the tyranny of running shoes. I am not fully converted. My feet remain shod when I run but I spent three months focussing intently on my running form. I now land mid to forefoot; run with a slight forward lean; and have increased my cadence significantly. The impact has been huge. I am quicker; I can run further; and I have been close to injury free ever since. No plantar fasciitis here!

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Next up is… The Runner: Four Years Living and Running in the Wilderness by Markus Torgeby.