Takahashi was born in Onomichi, Hiroshima prefecture and attended the Economics Department of Yokohama National University without graduating.
As a radical student, he was arrested and spent half a year in prison, which caused Takahashi to develop a form of aphasia.
In addition, his Yuga de kansho-teki na Nippon-yakyuu ("Japanese Baseball: Elegant and Sentimental") won the Mishima Yukio Prize in 1988, and his Nihon bungaku seisui shi (The Rise and Fall of Japanese Literature) received the Itoh Sei Literature Award.
He is also a noted essayist, covering a diverse field of topics ranging from literary criticism to horse-racing.
His essays on popular culture and current events regularly appear in the Asahi Shimbun and in English translation on their website.