Novelist as a Vocation

By: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator, Ted Goossen - translator

Narrated by: Kotaro Watanabe

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • An insightful look into the mind of a master storyteller—and a unique look at the craft of writing from the beloved and best-selling author of 1Q84, Norwegian Wood, and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

"Murakami is like a magician who explains what he's doing as he performs the trick and still makes you believe he has supernatural powers" —New York Times Book Review

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK: Esquire, Vulture, LitHub, New York Observer

Aspiring writers and readers who have long wondered where the mysterious novelist gets his ideas and what inspires his strangely surreal worlds will be fascinated by this engaging book from the internationally best-selling author. Haruki Murakami now shares with readers his thoughts on the role of the novel in our society; his own origins as a writer; and his musings on the sparks of creativity that inspire other writers, artists, and musicians.

Here are the personal details of a life devoted to craft: the initial moment at a Yakult Swallows baseball game, when he suddenly knew he could write a novel; the importance of memory, what he calls a writer’s “mental chest of drawers”; the necessity of loneliness, patience, and his daily running routine; the seminal role a carrier pigeon played in his career and more.

"What I want to say is that in a certain sense, while the novelist is creating a novel, he is simultaneously being created by the novel as well." —Haruki Murakami

It begins eh…. But finishes well

There are a lot of cliches in the translation, more notably in the beginning. However the point of view is so modest, so self effacing and also so much about the health of creative types- I expect I’ll listen to it twice. Not typical for me.
A wonderful book.

Great book & performance

Very interesting book and a great narrator. Listened to the book in one day. Highly recommend

Unique autobiography

Very interesting autobiographical perspective on why and how Murakami became a writer. His philosophy of writing. Why he thinks he has been internationally successful. “Couldn’t put it down”.

Food for novelists and everyone else

Murakami covers a breadth of topics in this series of talks on the novelist. and what he has written about is applicable and thought-provoking beyond the vocation he specifies. He's given me a lot to digest. The narrator is not an English native speaker and speaks slowly to articulate carefully, but I thought he captured a lot of Murakami's whimsy and idiosyncracies in the way he spoke.

Excellent

I enjoyed the range of topics and learning about the ways Murakami pushed himself to toward new goals as a writer. I loved his humble tone and was inspired by his stories and thoughts.