Nobel disappointment: among 'Harukists'

       Murakami Haruki doesn't sound all that disappointed at not winning the Nobel Prize this year, despite being one of the betting favorites:

When I asked him about the possibility of being awarded the Nobel Prize, he laughed. "No, I don't want prizes. That means you're finished."

       But as Roland Kelts reports in his profile at The New Yorker's Page-Turner weblog, there are The Harukists, Disappointed.
       Among the interesting bits from Murakami:

"Every book I publish," he noted, "even before it is promoted or reviewed, it sells three hundred thousand copies in Japan. Those are my readers. If you're a writer and you have readers, you have everything. You don't need critics or reviews."

       Sounds good.