Read it, but only after you have read other books by Murakami
343578
A great book, and a must read if you enjoy Murakami. To be honest, when I picked this up I was not at all in the mood for a college coming of age novel, but I had so enjoyed the way Murakami writes I figured I had to read it. It was (of course) the right decision - Doesn't matter what its about, the way he writes pulls you in, the characters are incredible and like the rest of his books it will keep you thinking about it long after you've put it down.

Strong recommend. It reads a little differently than most of his other novels, feels more autobiographical. I would not start with this book, I personally recommend Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World, or a Wild Sheep Chase for people who are just diving into Murakami for the first time.
3067600
Both this book and the new Takashi Murakami book, Ego, are key pieces to have for anyone interested in following Japanese Pop Art.

This book includes gorgeous plates of then-cutting-edge, now-classic Murakami works, such as

1. KaiKai Kiki paintings/sculptures
2. Hiropon/My Lonesome Cowboy
3. Tan Tan Bo Puking
4. Mr. DOB
5. Louis Vuitton paintings

This book offers a way to understand the cultural climate of the Japan that Murakami is interested in representing. Though Murakami's works always stun with their brightness, you might be surprised (or not) to learn about the critical undercurrents of these pieces. Of course, the book is a few years old, but it is fascinating to see how Murakami's goals have shifted or stayed the same from the release of (c)Murakami to Ego .
4043960
Providing one of the more enjoyable reading experiences in quite some time, the balance of magical realism and philosophy in this quirky and engaging novel was perfect.  I've been meaning to read Murakami for a long time, but somehow hadn't managed to get to it.  Having heard that The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was perhaps the best place to start, I finally jumped in, and upon finishing it, proceeded to put every available Murakami title on hold at my local library.

The story is narrated by its protagonist the laid back, passive Toru Okada, who is in a seemingly successful marriage and living a satisfactory and fairly uneventful life up to the point that the novel begins and he takes a phone call from an unknown woman who sets the story in motion. I want to avoid spoilers, so I'll just say that Toru's simplistic life becomes one of mystery and enigma as he attempts to solve the novel's ultimate puzzle, and meets several interesting and highly memorable characters along the way.

Murakami has a gift for the fusion of eastern and western culture, and I get the sense that in his own country his writing is well outside the bounds of traditional.  To the westerner, his style, though at times quite strange, feels familiar enough that it requires no real adjustment.  At the same time, the novel maintains an eastern mystical feel from which its magical realism and philosophy greatly benefit.  I guess what I'm getting at here is that an American will read this book and come away feeling that it had a distinctly Japanese flair while a Japanese reader is just as likely to come away feeling it had a very American feel.  This ability to communicate in what feels like some universal human language is perhaps one explanation for Murakami's worldwide appeal,

I highly recommend The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and am glad I chose it as my jumping off point into the Murakami's mind.  I look forward to reading the rest of his work, but here he's set a very high bar.
2046198
At first, I picked up this novel because i was curious as to what it was about.  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance practices the zen it professes.  It was reading for one of my classes, but the professor decided to teach another book instead.  For this I am highly grateful.  It definately wouldn't have had the impact it has had on me if I were required to read it.  I wouldn't have paid as much attention to what it had to say.  It is a book that must read itself.  You can't pick it up and force yourself to read it.  It should be savored like a moist piece of tiramisu.  I found that at some points I had a hard time reading some of the philosophy, and that was when i needed to put the book down and get a fresh start on it the next day.  Pirsig does a fantastic job at building up the plot and the theory until it all finally lets loose on the second to last page (before the afterward).  I say that if you begin reading it and don't like it, put it down, give it some time, pick up where you left off, and you might get something out of it.
2338857
This is my sixth book by Murakami, and so far I have not found a bad apple in the bunch.  Some Murakami fans are picky, but I love them all, and this one is no exception.  It has the classic elements of a Murakami novel, notably his balance of realism and surrealism, and the usual strangeness and humor, but it is also different enough to keep the seasoned Murakami reader interested and submersed.  Also notable in this book is the beautiful translation.  A must-read for HM fans.
2567568
First off, I am a big Murakami fan. This was the first book of his I read, but I read quite a few others since. This is one is still one of my favourties. I really liked how westernized the heroes were in their daily actions and habits, yet how that made them only more non-western, more japanese, more human. Contrasts of all types abound. Writing is strong, Mr. Murakami is a great writer and Alfred birnbaum did an amazing job translating. The language is fluid, forming itself on my mind and adding an atmosphere and context all by itself without the use of words for descriptions, thoughts, and feelings.

As with many other books, the story itself is somewhat secondary, the quest is more important than its result. In this book, however, I did not even thirst for a climax. I just savoured each page and hoped to find more of the same in other books by the author. I did.
43082
While these stories are intriguing each in their own way, there seems to lack depth. When I first read Murakami, he blew me away with his metaphysical, surreal stories. The Rat Series seems to have been his peak, and I feel he's slowly drifting toward a different genre, a genre more calming, sustained, reality-like, devoid of any major fantastical happenings like fish falling from the sky or an emerging sheepman. Granted these stories revolve around a certain theme, Men Without Women, to me they don't really stand out like they did with his other short stories collections such as the Elephant Vanishes and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. Certainly not something to read first in the Murakami collection.
4614551
I continue to count myself a Haruki Murakami fan and will continue to pick up every release and peruse literary magazines for his name.  My interest in Murakami started from a brilliant collection of contemporary Japanese fiction called _Monkey Brain Sushi_.  The story, "TV People," led me to pick up _The Elephant Vanishes_, and from there I was hooked.

I wouldn't call this collection a stunning one, though it does contain some works that will be rightfully named as Murakami essentials.  Aside from "The Ice Man," which has already found its way into _Vintage Murakami_, stories like the title story, "Birthday Girl" (one that I didn't like at first when I read it in _Harper's_, but grew on me the next time through), "A 'Poor Aunt' Story," "Nausea 1979" and others are strong pieces of prose that, in the Murakami tradition, challenge one's perception of fiction and what it can do.  As always, the prose is elegant and quietly laced with indomitable sadness, or joy, or strength.  Murakami is a kind of master of misdirection--his stories tend towards one direction, but in a subtle and not overly suprising way, they turn out in another.  This is not so much deception as it is the reticent mastery of Murakami's method, for when you go back over the piece, it becomes quite clear that the story has been leading in that direction all along.

This style is not uncommon to Murakami's novels.  This collection also emulates that work (which he calls "challenges" in his opening remarks, while writing stories is a "joy") in that there is a wide variety of genre, from the magical realism of books like _Sputnik Sweetheart_ and _A Wild Sheep Chase_ in stories like "The Ice Man" and "A 'Poor Aunt' Story" to the strikingly realistic and deeply emotional like _Norwegian Wood_ and _South of the Border, West of the Sun_ found in "Hanalei Bay" and the title story.

Having only one other collection of short fiction to compare to, though (I am discounting _After the Quake_ due to its thematic approach), I found this one, overall, more like a pile of manuscripts that have been collecting in an attic than a collection bound by a singular vision like _The Elephant Vanishes_.  Stories like "The Year of Spaghetti" and "A Perfect Day for Kangaroos" fall rather flat and feel included simply because of their existence and not because of their contribution to a sense of the Murakami world of art.  This is an odd statement to make even as I write it, for it is true that the Murakami world is chameleon-like, but also true is that there is a binding force to Murakami's work, an honesty to human emotions and the subtle causalities of existence, and the paler stories detract from that vision.  Even the author's introduction seems to concede to this fact, with a nod to his publisher and her outcries to "write more stories!"  Though momentarily providing interesting insight into the more short-lived pleasure of putting together a short story versus putting together a novel, and the association of short stories to "shadows," Murakami in his introduction mostly provides a timeline of the work.  It is interesting to see that these stories come from a long expanse of his artistic timeline, but in the end some selections give the impression that they were used to fill up the volume rather help provide another representative glimpse into Murakami's artistic vision the way _The Elephant Vanishes_ does.

No doubt a great drive for this collection is the kind of hunger that Murakami's work creates (another book to be published in early 2007, no?), and there are few other writers for whom I search regularly when looking at the lists of upcoming publications.  Going through this collection has helped to remind me of why I like Murakami's writing so much, though I would have appreciated even more a slightly slimmer volume that would have knocked me for a loop with every single entry.
1559530
I kind of have a thing about contemporary Japanese fiction. I don't know why, really, but books by people like Ryu Murakami, Banana Yoshimoto, Natsuo Kirino, and Mitsuo Kakuta, who are very different from each other in style and subject matter, nevertheless appeal to me on a number of levels. Of course, I don't speak or read Japanese, so I have to wait for English translations. Nakamura has written three novels and won a stack of prestigious awards, but this is his first book available for us gajin.

The nameless narrator is a nonviolent career criminal, a thief and burglar when necessary, but a pickpocket by preference, a trade in which he has considerable talent. He doesn't really do it for the money, though. Perhaps it's for "what will happen to me in the end. What happens to people who live the way I do? That's what I'd like to know." He's also beset by iron and stone towers and pylons that haunt his dreams and appear unexpectedly in his peripheral vision -- one of several impressionist elements in the story. And when his girlfriend ODs, he goes out and steals indiscriminately from everyone, even packs of gum and handkerchiefs, to assuage his grief.

So the thief operates independently but still sees Ishikawa, his old mentor, and that's how he gets caught up in an armed robbery organized by Kizaki, who (he thinks) is a yakuza boss, though he seems awfully intellectual for a hood. The gang he's suddenly a part of is supposed to just break into an old guy's house, steal a large amount of money and (more important) a stack of mysterious documents, and split. A little later, the thief learns the victim was a noted politician and that he was killed. And shortly after that, a number of the old man's business and political associates are dying and resigning. Time to get the hell out of Tokyo.

So now he's somewhere else, lifting wallets from well-dressed pedestrians and railway passengers and waiting to see what's going to happen next, and whether Ishikawa, who also disappeared the night of the robbery, will ever reappear. And he finds himself inexplicably taking up with a young boy whom he observes shoplifting groceries on his mother's orders. He covers for the kid and tries to instruct him in some basic thief-craft, but recommends he quit stealing. (Like he would listen, right?) And then, naturally, the thief becomes equally involved with the boy's slutty mother. And then, between one eye-blink and the next, Kizaki is back. And the thief is working for him now, whether he likes it or not. More than that, his life and future now belong to Kizaki, the great manipulator, whose view of the world as he explains it is truly horrific. Or maybe just realistic. And Kizaki has a little list of tasks he wants the thief to do.

It's a fascinating story, like an oil painting in dark colors, and the author's characterizations are very original. It's also a somewhat strange book -- with a very strange ending -- which is probably why I enjoy Japanese fiction. In any case, I'll be keeping an eye out for Nakamura's next translation.
2925961
I couldn't wait to start reading this book after a sensational reading of Murakami's `Norwegian Wood'. Half way through, I couldn't help but asking both myself and around, why write and why read. Certainly, Murakami knows how to write targeting a certain group of audience, which might be a clear goal for most of the writers, which his clear presence, would be contrived story revolving sex, myth, and a bit of history presented in a way of no obvious trace of the real impact. The common characteristic of all these elements, however, is nonetheless confusion. Though quite compelling, the reading wasn't as meaningful and satisfactory as I had expected. One chapter after another, the only motive for my turning the page, was often the last few sentences, promising to reveal some excitement, which was never profoundly presented before coming to another turning point for the next chapter. For something profound and intriguing as to search for meaningful life with a realistic culture background, I am a big fan of the work of Almodovar of Spain; for something with twisted and complicated story line without regard to any realistic meanings, I would recommend the books of Harry Potter. This `wind-up bird chronicle', simply wasn't developed either way, as far as my taste concerns.
4513868
I absolutely loved "1Q84."

I have read most of Haruki Murakami's novels and this might be my favorite.  At first I was intimidated at the over 900 pages but they went by really quick.  Towards the end, I was sorry to finish it because it was so enjoyable.

If you have never read Murakami before, you should probably start with "Kafka on the Shore."  If you have already read some of his novels and short stories, you already know what to expect.  He takes you to a world that looks like our world but is remarkably different.

There is nothing else quite like it.
701774
I was one of the few Murakami fans who did not enjoy 19Q4 - I found it unintersting and soulless.  Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki was the opposite. Not much happens, but it doesn't feel that way, and the novel, though about an "empty" person, is full of soul.  Murakami's writing, even in translation, is pure beauty. Like his best work, reading this book created within me a sense of quite concentration, where every sentence is to be pondered and no word is out of place.

As an aside, I read this in actual book form (not Kindle), and I highly recommend it.  It is easy to hold, with good font size, and a beautiful and creative cover (the design of which makes more sense after the first 20 or so pages of the book).
231855
The reader will bump into the little people, two moons, a sect, a love story, romance, lust, desire, deception and revenge, yes, it's your typical, Murakami. After reading the three book bound version (over a whopping 1300 pages), this reader has to say that if the first two books were a bit long, then the last one could have easily been shortened by at least two hundred pages. It wasn't shortened, however, because the last book was originally published one or even two years (?) afterwards. People had to wait for third and last instalment because Murakami was still writing it.  Even though it was a bit too long (no kidding), I thoroughly enjoyed the ambience of his writing. I found myself simply floating along with the pace of the story. I enjoyed what the different characters did in Tokyo, the minor stories that occurred along the way (that didn't necessarily have a definitive conclusion) and, of course, the suspense and the offbeat love story that built up in book three. Since my version was over a thousand pages though, it's no small undertaking to finished it, even though it was very good. This reader could, to some degree understand how people stopped at book two because of the length and the pace of his writing. This reader, however, really really wanted to know what was going to happen at the end and he, ultimately, was not disappointed.

Mr. Murakami writes about his characters vividly and really enhances the story line as a result, but I can't say that I always like the characters. In some ways, Mr. Murakami doesn't always make the characters appealing, but he makes them very real and very human. They make mistakes, they sleep with people they probably shouldn't and they drink and stay out a bit too much. They appeared, I think, a bit lost with their lives or, in the very least, a bit lonely. It mirrors, in some ways, our own lives. If this reader had the writing skills to express what he thought of the characters then he would say this,"Murakami's character's are saturnine, gloomy, darkly existential but all too human in a very lonely kind of way. No one laughs or seems to enjoy. His characters although often young, bear the heavy burden of the dark side of being human" (Joyce Dade. 2014, September 26). But, I think, that's what makes the characters and the storyline so immensely satisfying. They are human and that's how many people feel at different times of their life. Not always, mind you, but Mr. Murakami tries, very successfully, to show how some of us live ~ and in a very real way.

If you want to start an easier Murakami novel, you could start with, "Kafka on the Shore" which is only a mere 615 pages or "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles" which is only 604 pages! All in all, very good, but long read. I did mention that, didn't I?! Lastly, this reader really liked some of the quotes on in the Amazon's editorial review section. Some of the quotes which best sums up how this reader felt about 1Q84 would be these, "An all encompassing meganovel. It is a book full of anger and violence and disaster and weird sex and strange new realities, a book that seems to want to hold all of Japan inside of it", The New York Times. And this one, "At the center of [1Q84's] reality . . . is the question of love, of how we find it and how we hold it, and the small fragile connections that sustain us, even (or especially) despite the odds". David L. Ulin, The Los Angeles Times.
 It's grade A! A 5 Star masterpiece!
20548
This book has pleasantly surprised me. Murakami's writing is original and entertaining : quality literature and certainly not the everyday thriller novel that you can find by the dozens. Reality and fiction constantly mix to create a style full of metaphors and illusions. I certainly recommend this book, but at the same time I am not really tempted to go and read all of Murakami's other novels.
684526
This, out of the many many Murakami books I have read, connected with me the most. Murakami's works tend to be like variations on a theme. Sometimes different elements of the theme pop out at you.....I have read other reviews that compared this book to Norwegian Wood, and in some ways that is an apt comparison. Both are stories that take place more or less in reality, without any mystical elements, or dream logic. That said, I feel that this is the most balanced book he has written. I think anyone can read this and connect to a point in their past where they had a connection with someone that inexplicably faded over time or was suddenly severed...but from time to time is still on their mind. The book is deeply rooted in examining your past and the way you interact with the world. It made a lot of sense to me. I loved it, though would probably not recommend it to most of my friends. If you have a taste for melancholy, self examination, isolation, and nostalgia...then this might be a good book for you.
350506
If you're already a Murakami fan, you will likely love the book as much as I did. The style is unmistakable and, as always, beautiful in its deceptive simplicity. Although there's nothing magical (a la Wild Sheep Chase or Kafka on the Shore), there's plenty of dark and spooky to go around. It's not a perfect book, but it's a welcome return from the self-indulgent 1Q84.
972857
Murakami has a true gift when it comes to writing. His gift is his ability to create characters that are instantly familiar to the reader and extremely colorful. He can place the reader into his imaginary worlds almost effortlessly. East to read. Enjoyable characters. End of story. Literally.

The man can not seem to construct a story that actually has a point, plot, or conclusive ending.

This collection of short stories is a perfect example of his "art." Why do most of Murakami's fans defend his lack of story-telling skills? They say things like, "you're missing the point." It's meant to be artistic." It's haiku-like, read between the line."

Whatever. Is it not possible that the man is a genius when it comes to creating envisionable worlds with great characters but that he is clueless when it comes to story structure? Is this possible? Maybe what is being hailed as literary genius that passes over the common man's head is nothing more than an undeveloped skill that needs to be strengthened. Perhaps the author could attend a workshop that deals with basic story structure.

Yes, I have read more than one of his books(4 total). Which is why I feel qualified to say that in the case of him being hailed as one of the best writers of all time I say the Emperor trully has no clothes.