Mobyskine's Reviews > Murakami T: The T-Shirts I Love

"𝘐'𝘮 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦'𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘧 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦: 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘤 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘰𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘦..."

Welcome to the other side of Murakami's world; no fictional characters whatsoever, just Murakami and a closet of his personal T-shirts collection with a writing series spotlighting those collection-- short and light, uniquely told, bit quirky and so chilled!

Consists of 18 short essays which once published in 𝘗𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘺𝘦, a Japanese men's fashion magazine, these writings featured few random things associated with his T-shirts like food and booze, animals, music, superheroes or even a muse like how he found Tony Takitani at a thrift shop and wondering about who the heck is Tony Takitani that he ended up writing a fictional story about him.

It feels so delightful to read his stories and how each T-shirt bringing a memorable fragment to his life-- a record hunting day, a thrift shop encounters, walking into an event, launching a book, running a marathon, meeting a friend, a beach visit, surfing or movies outing; these are all a story living in a piece of his T-shirt. Might be underwhelming to few and the collection pretty ordinary too, but being a fan to the novelist, this was such an endearing read to me.

Few memorable T-shirts and stories that I love--
1. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle's T-shirt that he gets from a reader who was inspired to create it after reading the novel
2. "Record Stores Are A Blast" story about his record stores hunting, jazz music and all those vinyl shirt designs
3. 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?"
4. "A Book, Anyone?" story that revolves around reading and bookstores
5. "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)

Love that it also includes a bunch of his T-shirts (that Kafka on the Shore!) that didn't make it for an essay together with a series of his interviews at the back!

(I wonder if he'll ever write something about his stubs of pencils collection, I would love to read that too)

"𝘛-𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘰𝘶𝘵. 𝘐 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮."

Huge thanks to Pansing (Definitely Books) for this gifted copy!