A deeply personal, intimate conversation about music and writing between the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author and the former conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In Absolutely on Music , internationally Haruki Murakami sits down with his friend Seiji Ozawa, the revered former conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, for a series of conversations on their shared passion: music. Over the course of two years, Murakami and Ozawa discuss everything from Brahms to Beethoven, from Leonard Bernstein to Glenn Gould, from Bartók to Mahler, and from pop-up orchestras to opera. They listen to and dissect recordings of some of their favorite performances, and Murakami questions Ozawa about his career conducting orchestras around the world. Culminating in Murakamis ten-day visit to the banks of Lake Geneva to observe Ozawas retreat for young musicians, the book is interspersed with ruminations on record collecting, jazz clubs, orchestra halls, film scores, and much more. A deep reflection on the essential nature of both music and writing, Absolutely on Music is an unprecedented glimpse into the minds of two maestros.
The Japanese writer recalls his four-month preparation for the 2005 New York City marathon, interweaving his reflections on the meaning of running in his life, his thoughts on the writing process and his career, and his experiences as an author and as an athlete.
The internationally best-selling and award-winning author of such works as What I Talk About When I Talk About Running presents a psychologically charged tale that draws on Orwellian themes. 100,000 first printing.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER In the spring of 1978, a young Haruki Murakami sat down at his kitchen table and began to write. The result: two remarkable short novels-- Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 --that launched the career of one of the most acclaimed authors of our time. These powerful, at times surreal, works about two young men coming of age--the unnamed narrator and his friend the Rat--are stories of loneliness, obsession, and eroticism. They bear all the hallmarks of Murakamis later books, and form the first two-thirds, with A Wild Sheep Chase , of the trilogy of the Rat. Widely available in English for the first time ever, newly translated, and featuring a new introduction by Murakami himself, Wind/Pinball gives us a fascinating insight into a great writers beginnings.
