In Murakami T, the famously reclusive novelist shows us his T-shirts - including gems found in bookshops, charity shops and record stores - from those featuring whisky, animals, cars and superheroes, to souvenirs of marathons and a Beach Boys concert in Honolulu, to the shirt that inspired the beloved short story 'Tony Takitani'. Accompanied by short, frank essays that have been translated into English for the first time, these photographs reveal much about Murakami's multifaceted and wonderfully eccentric persona. In Murakami T, the famously reclusive novelist shows us his T-shirts–including gems from the Springsteen on Broadway show in NYC, to the Beach Boys concert in Honolulu, to the shirt that inspired the beloved short story “Tony Takitani.” Accompanied by short, frank essays that have been translated into English for the first time, these photographs reveal much about Murakami’s multifaceted and wonderfully eccentric persona. Since childhood, Murakami has been heavily influenced by Western culture, particularly Western music and literature. He grew up reading a range of works by American writers, such as Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and he is often distinguished from other Japanese writers by his Western influences. Murakami’s charming, utterly self-effacing eccentricity—one of the hallmarks of his fiction—shines brightly here…”—Bill Ott, Booklist Mr. Murakami takes readers through a sartorial journey, sharing memories and musings through the lens of the clothes he has accumulated over the years.”–Anna P. Kambhampaty, The New York Times

This is light diversionary reading but it may also make you realize what your own qualifications are for which T-shirts you'll actually wear as opposed to those you keep as souvenirs or memorabilia. Aside from his well known collection of jazz LPs, Murakami is also quite the collector of T-shirts, most of which he doesn't wear but instead stores away in file boxes. As you can imagine, many of these are ones that he is given as take-aways from book signings or readings and/or marathon runs (one of his other obsessions c.f. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running ). I love how REFRESHING this collection of essays are, and fact is, Murakami is just a funny uncle who likes to collect t-shirts and records as a hobby, whilst going for a beer in a jazz bar. Although maybe it’s fitting that the t-shirts themselves are unimpressive given that the essays too are quite forgettable. They’re easy to read and well-written, but for the most part they’re a series of underwhelming pieces. The only one that stood out is the t-shirt with “Tony Takitani” printed on it which inspired the short story, and subsequent film adaptation, of the same name (published in the collection Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman). In Murakami T,the famously reclusive novelist shows us his T-shirts—from concert shirts to never-worn whiskey-themed Ts, and from beloved bookstore swag to the shirt that inspired the iconic short story “Tony Takitani.” These photographs are paired with short, frank essays that include Murakami’s musings on the joy of drinking Guinness in local pubs across Ireland, the pleasure of eating a burger upon arrival in the United States, and Hawaiian surf culture in the 1980s.I began by pretending this was a short novel about a t-shirt and vinyl-record-obsessed old guy, who happened to also be an obscenely successful novelist and it worked for the most part in the sense that I enjoyed reading these table scraps of autobiographical reminiscences from the most influential Japanese author ever. Keep Calm and Read Murakami" story on T-shirts related to his books; of his book launch and about his publisher (love both the Dance Dance Dance and Norwegian Wood shirts) Murakami’s books have galvanised millions around the world and there is indeed a t-shirt he treasures the most, the one that inspired his beloved short-story ‘Tony Takitani’. He writes about how he encountered the t-shirt in ‘a thrift story in Maui’ and bought it ‘for about a dollar’. It turned out to be one of his best investments, as he asked himself ‘what kind of person could Tony Takitani be?’, let his imagination run wild and ended up writing a ‘short story with him as the protagonist, which was later made into a film’. I didn't expect much going into the book cause let's be real, the moment I heard its about his collection of t-shirts.... I'm here going ... okay? Haruki Murakami has certainly been keeping his translators busy this year. First, he published the very good short-story collection First Person Singular, and, later this fall, he’ll be publishing in English a rather slim volume of autobiography about his T-shirt collection, of all things. That book is called Murakami T: The T-Shirts I Love and features photos and essays of more than 100 T-shirts in his massive collection — some that he never wears and keeps inside boxes. The short essays first appeared in the Japanese men's fashion magazine Popeye not too long ago, and this book also features a couple of interviews Murakami did for the same magazine around the time that the photos and essays were published, just to pad things out a little bit. (I found that the interview section did repeat some information found in the essays, so I’m not entirely sure why it’s there in this book or was even included in the magazine to begin with, except that, in the case of the former, it slightly lengthens a very short book.)

One of the running T-shirt during Murakami triathlon that he gets a lot of people asking; "So, Mr. Murakami, you're sponsoring a marathon now?"Murakami T: The T-shirts I Love, is part ode, part exhibit that reads with restrained affection for his accidental accumulations…The diaristic entries have the simplicity of a show-and-tell, with Murakami’s spare prose offering a material history of his closet…Haruki Murakami’s understated love letters to his T-shirts convey how we give life to our things and vice versa.”–Charlene K. Lau, The Atlantic Murakami studied drama at Waseda University in Tokyo, where he met his wife, Yoko. His first job was at a record store, which is where one of his main characters, Toru Watanabe in Norwegian Wood, works. Shortly before finishing his studies, Murakami opened the coffeehouse 'Peter Cat' which was a jazz bar in the evening in Kokubunji, Tokyo with his wife.