Ratings45
Average rating3.8
From the bestselling author of Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-up Bird Chronicles comes this superb collection of twenty-four stories that generously expresses Murakami's mastery of the form. From the surreal to the mundane, these stories exhibit his ability to transform the full range of human experience in ways that are instructive, surprising, and relentlessly entertaining. Here are animated crows, a criminal monkey, and an iceman, as well as the dreams that shape us and the things we might wish for. Whether during a chance reunion in Italy, a romantic exile in Greece, a holiday in Hawaii, or in the grip of everyday life, Murakami's characters confront grievous loss, or sexuality, or the glow of a firefly, or the impossible distances between those who ought to be closest of all.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Reviews with the most likes.
i have to say, my my first time reading murakami was intrguing. I LOVEEE HIS WRITING STYLE, he just has that perfect way of wording things. i just wished he chose different subject matter for his writing, some elements like in “shinagawa monkey” or “a pour aunt story” seemed kind of dumb to me, to me his more practical stories such as ‘tony takitani’ (my favorite of all of them) are his best.
Murakami. Short stories.
That should be enough to either send you directly to Barnes and Noble today or to make you run away in horror.
You love him or you don't.
He is definitely not for all tastes.
If you are still scratching your head, I will add: Twilight Zone. But a deeply thoughtful Twilight Zone. Like it had been written by Dostoevsky.
I am in the love-Murakami group. I never read books this slowly. I started it sometime this summer and here I am, in September, just now finishing it. Sadly. Did not want to finish it.
‰ЫП‰ЫчYou know, eating‰ЫЄs much more important than most people think. There comes a time in your life when you‰ЫЄve just got to have something super-delicious. And when you‰ЫЄre standing at that crossroads your whole life can change, depending on which one you go into ‰ЫУ the good restaurant or the awful one. It‰ЫЄs like ‰ЫУ do you fall on this side of the fence, or the other side.‰Ыќ (From ‰ЫПCrabs‰Ыќ)
I have grown a certain sentiment towards Haruki Murakami's works. In a weird way they are so different but also so close. Culturally and emotionally. I really enjoyed it as it always brings me to this different world where the extraordinary and ‘magical' things actually do happen, even though everything around is very down to earth, pragmatic and ‘normal'. I guess this is what draws me to Murakami's works. It even plants in me some desire to write by myself :) Sometime in the future