A comical account of the author's long term obsession to try and run a sub-3hr marathon. It goes off at lots of tangents to discuss many aspects of running... from stressing about what energy gels to take, to meeting world-class athletes in Ethiopia.
From the best-selling author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and After Dark, a rich and revelatory memoir about writing and running, and the integral impact both have made on his life. In 1982, having sold his jazz bar to devote himself to writing, Haruki Murakami began running to keep fit. A year later, he’d completed a solo course from Athens to Marathon, and now, after dozens of such races, not to mention triathlons and a slew of critically acclaimed books, he reflects upon the influence the sport has had on his life and—even more important—on his writing. Equal parts training log, travelogue, and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers his four-month preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon and includes settings ranging from Tokyo’s Jingu Gaien gardens, where he once shared the course with an Olympian, to the Charles River in Boston among young women who outpace him. Through this marvellous lens of sport emerges a cornucopia of memories and insights: the eureka moment when he decided to become a writer, his greatest triumphs and disappointments, his passion for vintage LPs and the experience, after the age of fifty, of seeing his race times improve and then fall back. By turns funny and sobering, playful and philosophical, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is both for fans of this masterful yet guardedly private writer and for the exploding population of athletes who find similar satisfaction in distance running.
A Geologist Lies Comatose in a Portland, Maine Hospital in A World of Deceit, a Detective Joe Burgess Thriller by Kate Flora --Portland, Maine-- Unable to awaken her father--eminent geologist, Ted Gabbro--nine-year-old Arielle approaches the vacationing Joe Burgess, desperate for his help. Loathe to let anything interfere with his much needed rest on the mountains of western Maine, Joe can't ignore the girl's plea for help and can't deny that something is very wrong. As the frightened girl's father languishes in a coma and her mother can’t be found, Burgess finds himself in a tangle of land disputes, family politics, the child’s parents’ nasty divorce, and the powerful greed that accompanies "gold fever". Winner of the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction "Flora pours on the intensity in this criminal, legal and moral maze." ~Kirkus Reviews "Flora writes cops so convincingly it's hard to imagine she's never worn the badge herself." ~Bruce Robert Coffin, author of Among the Shadows THE JOE BURGESS MYSTERIES Playing God The Angel of Knowlton Park Redemption And Grant You Peace Led Astray A Child Shall Lead Them A World of Deceit