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After too many late nights and cigarettes in the late 1970s, Japanese jazz club owner Haruki Murakami was struck with the idea of writing a novel. What he penned between booking saxophone players and sweeping floors won him a prize for amateur fiction writers. But to focus on writing full-time, he would have to sell his club (and quit the cigs). Those close to him advised against it -- there was no money and great obstacles to overcome as a writer -- but he went ahead anyway, noting those same people had told him not to open a jazz club. And in order to keep himself fit for the sedentary act of writing, he began jogging; this turned into training for a marathon every year for the next three decades as he became Japan's most celebrated novelist.

Murakami's memoir/travelogue Running organizes the author's meandering thoughts on running and writing. When he talks about running, Murakami focuses on pain, loneliness and freedom, which also happen to be the dominant themes of his playfully digressive, dream-like novels (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Kafka on the Shore). From Murakami's perspective, runners and writers draw inspiration from within, not from the competitive rat race. "In long-distance running," he notes, "the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be." Murakami's accounts of rousing his aging body and weak knees to do the seemingly impossible are funny and positive, egging you to cheer him on, maybe offer him a cup of water as he runs by. His message is never hokey, even though he hit his stride in running during the "Just Do It" jogging craze of the 1980s. Instead, he creates an atmosphere of entertainment and awe with life.

Running loses some of the reality-bending nature of Murakami's best fiction, but fans of the author's day job can still latch onto his trademark affable protagonist striving to find his way in an impossible setting. Now the hero is the Murakami himself, and the impossible settings are the marathon courses he hits in Greece, Boston, New York City and eventually an incredible 62-mile ultra-marathon in Japan. The result: personal essays rich in heart and heart-rates.