Skip to main content

The Latest on Haruki Murakami.

Not sure when they released them but here are the covers for Haruki Murakami's lastest non-fiction book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, to be released in late July in the US and early August in UK. (I'm hoping Kinokuniya will be able to provide a pre-release copy before that but I'm not crossing my fingers.)

This is the US cover...
...and this is the UK cover. (Proving that the UK covers for Murakami's English editions of his books remain superior.)

But what's this? A surprise!
No information about this one yet and it's only hitting bookstore shelves in September. I'm hoping it's more non-fiction (I've mentioned many times before that Murakami has a lot of untranslated non-fiction) instead of just a normal diary but that might be asking for too much. But that only begs the question: why? Am I being too naive in hoping that this isn't merely an exercise in cashing in on Murakami's newly-found Western popularity?

Moving on, from Toronto J-Film Pow-wow we discover that Haruki Murakami has given an interview to a journalist from the Japan Times and he throws out nice little titbits for people like me to quote on blogs:
People have their own stories, but when they fall to the depths of their soul, they are sometimes unable to get out of that darkness.
A nice read but most of it is not new. Ah well.
Labels:

Comments

  1. emilayusof18/4/08 2:44 pm

    Love the cover of the UK version!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous18/4/08 5:13 pm

    I hope it wasn't a diary in a literal sense of words - 12 months calendar with 12 different murakami's book cover. Ah... with monthly planner and all. That'd be bloody ripp off.

    heee.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ted Mahsun18/4/08 9:09 pm

    Emila: The UK covers for Murakami always win!

    John: I hope it won't be so! But the fool I am will probably get it anyway! (Justification: need a cool-lookin' diary for '09)

    ReplyDelete
  4. emilayusof19/4/08 4:06 am

    Lol! Anything Murakami, Ted will buy!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ted Mahsun19/4/08 11:20 am

    But only if my wife approves the budget! :D

    ReplyDelete
  6. saat omar23/4/08 4:53 pm

    love the cover..if only our local books have the same kind of design

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ted Mahsun23/4/08 5:31 pm

    Well, I think some of our local publishers are doing quite well in the realm of covers actually. The English books by Matahari and MPH are quite good. The Malay ones by PTS and Wira Bukit aren't bad either.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lesson: Commemorative Covers are Lame.

Well, I got the first day cover that commemorates the 35th anniversary of the establishment diplomatic relations between China and Malaysia that I mentioned a couple of posts ago. Except that it's not a first day cover, it's a commemorative cover, which is a slightly different beast. I guess I should read the news article properly next time! The difference between the two is that first day covers are specially-designed envelopes stuck on with specially-designed stamps, and marked with a specially-designed postmark. A commemorative cover is a specially-designed envelope... and that's it. All in all, it's an unremarkable affair, especially if you're used to well-designed first day covers (not that Malaysian first day covers are well-designed... but I digress). Oh sure, a commemorative cover has a stamp printed right on to it but that's just like an overglorified aerogramme. Lame. On the whole, what a disappointment. I haven't been collecting first day cover...
5 comments
Read more

REVIEW: Confessions of an Old Boy by Kam Raslan

Kam Raslan's right. In the preface for his new book, Confessions of an Old Boy: The Dato' Hamid Adventures he writes that we've known Dato' Hamid all our lives. Seeing as my own dad is an old boy of MCKK, the people I get to meet when he drags me to an Old Boy function and the people he tells me of, reflect the characters found in Kam's book. It really does feel like I've known Dato' Hamid all my life. Dato' Hamid is a civil servant of the Tunku Abdul Rahman generation. He is the sort of person you rarely see nowadays, a fine example of the anachronistic Malay. This generation, groomed in the ways of the colonial British would be out of place not just in 21st century Malaysia, but in Britain too. And yet, Dato' Hamid, in all his snobbishness and patronising ways, is essentially a Malaysian. Without people like him, our country would probably never exist at all. At least not like we know it now. I'm glad that Kam Raslan decided to capture this ...
5 comments
Read more

An Ipoh Ghost Story.

When I was growing up in Ipoh in the 90s, the only good bookshops around were Mubaruk's, which specialised in textbooks (and still does), and Novelhut, the second-hand bookstore that used to be in Yik Foong (and maybe still is there, but I haven't checked in years since I prefer going to their Ipoh Parade outlet when I'm in town). There was also a pretty good bookstore in the Parkson Grand in Ipoh Parade which could have been a Berita outlet, but I don't remember. This was in the days before they expanded Ipoh Parade into what it is today. (And temporarily causing the Convent school next door to consider moving.) I recall this because I was thinking of when exactly I started reading "serious" fiction, trying to pinpoint the years when I moved from young adult/fantasy/sci-fi books into non-genre fiction. I still can't remember, but it brought back memories of a book I bought from a short-lived bookshop in Old Town. Mum had brought me there, because she must...
6 comments
Read more