Haruki Murakami

The New York Times' Paper Cuts blog has an item today by Jennifer Schuessler headlined "What We Search for When We Search for Books About Running."

What's strange about the piece is that it ends with an apology to a semi-anonymous reader called "Jacob S." who complained the day before about editors and writers abusing the title of Raymond Carver's 1981 short-story collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.

In his comment, Mr. S. wrote:

I know [Haruki] Murakami could be blamed for the title of this blog post, but can we institute some sort of embargo against invoking the title of that Raymond Carver story (collection)? It’s used far too often on numerous lit.  read more »

Gotta question for the hippest Japanese novelist (and memoirist) around? Log in to Time magazine's Web site, where you can ask Haruki Murakami a question and possibly read the answer in a subsequent interview. Be careful what you ask for. Your question will be posted underneath the submission form after you enter it, along with your name and location.

So what does America want to know about Mr. Murakami? Here are some gems:

Posted by Kwok Sing in Amsterdam:

In stories like ‘Slow Boat to China’ or in your novel ‘wind up bird’, you are cautiously tackling the problematic relationship between Japan and China which of course is shaped by the historical events in the 20th century.  read more »

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After Dark, Mr. Murakami’s latest, confines itself to the witching hours between 11:56 p.m. and 6:52 a.m. There isn’t a plot here so much as a flipbook of Edward Hopper paintings.  read more »