Saturday, March 5, 2011

Reading about Running among other Things

Claudia bought me a book at the start of the week by Haruki Murakami called What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, which I am consuming avidly at every opportunity. Even though Claudia gave me the German edition, I am getting through it at a good pace. I have to admit that I had never heard of the author before, but am interested in learning more of his work, although I guess the subject  matter will be different. What I Talk About... is a collection of reflections and memoires about his life, especially his daily running, accounts of his first marathon and a 100 km ultra marthon, and how all this relates to his work as a novelist. From what I have read so far, he seems a very 'sympathisch' (what DO we say in English? Likeable?) person and I can relate to a lot of what he writes about running. (Photo of Haruki Murakami by wakarimasita of Flickr)

Unfortunately I don't make as much time in my daily lif e as I would sometimes like to have, to read as much as I sometimes want to. One of the benefits of teaching English at the TAZ (a German daily newspaper) has been the regular reading of English books, which we discuss each week. Our most recent book is The Other Hand by Chris Cleeve about a young Nigerian refugee, which is also gripping, though in a completely different way. Over the years that I have been teaching this group, we have read a wide range of books, from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole to The White Tiger and The Room.

1 comment:

  1. Ich habe bisher nur wenig von Murakami gelesen, aber er gehört schon zu meinen Lieblingsautoren. Entweder man mag ihn oder man mag ihn nicht. Die meisten Geschichten haben einen Touch, der ist nicht von dieser Welt. Somehow strange. Menschen, die DaDa lieben werden auch Murakami mögen.
    Maitircarya

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