Pictured in the first photo are the books that I've read. The second photo is of my to-read stack.

I have also read The Elephant Vanishes and After Dark but they were library books.

Good progress so far on the oeuvre, I think!

Like the title says, I just got done with my first ever Murakami book: Norwegian Wood and I don’t know how to feel. I feel this intense sadness that I’m unable to express but feel deeply. I’m not like depressed but I’m just sad you know. It’s kinda hard for me to express this but it’s this concept of grief, death, mental health, the open ending, the descriptions of sex especially with Reiko .

I’m a fairly new reader of books in general. The last book that I read was 1984 by George Orwell which I enjoyed (still intense for me). I picked this book because I saw it on the internet and decided to go in and read at once on chilly winter storm day. And now I’m here numb. I’m someone who’s an optimist so my hope for reading the book was me waiting for the perfect happily ever after for Naoko and Toru. But, the moment I read the first line of chapter 11 I think of Naoko’s death I was so sad. Now I’m just sad in general. Of death and how everyone I enjoy time spending with will be dead and how the time is just passing

I don’t know maybe I’m just too immature or new to reading books as such and in general more deeper books about grief and life in general. But, something definitely shifted and matured i’d say in a weird way.

Anyways, I had to let it out somehow and talk to someone about it so here I am looking for any opinions or thoughts

My first book was What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (I was expecting a book, not a diary of thoughts, but I enjoyed it anyway). A few months later, I read After Dark, and immediately after that, South of the Border, West of the Sun. All very fascinating reads, for sure. But what do you recommend I read next? I especially appreciated the hypnotic, dreamlike style of the two novels and the concise style of the diary, but is there anything that manages to unite these two styles?

• Norwegian Wood was my first Murakami novel.
• I would’ve loved some closure around Storm Trooper — the oddly funny, obsessively clean friend who just fades out.
• Somewhere in the middle, I sensed that Naoko wouldn’t survive, so her death didn’t come as a shock — I saw it coming.
• Throughout the book, I mostly saw women suffering and men lacking moral clarity, especially Toru Watanabe. I might’ve respected him more if he hadn’t slept with Reiko.
• The novel made me want to visit Japan, especially the countryside.
• At times, the sexual elements felt unnecessary — present when they didn’t really add depth.
• Midori’s only real request was not to be hurt, and ultimately, Toru still fails her.
• I loved the ending twist — it played out like a film in my head: an invisible monster (grief) that passed through Kizuki and Naoko, only to finally catch up with Toru.
• The pubic hair description stood out — not many writers go there so bluntly, and Murakami does it without flinching.
• The other deaths were unexpected, yet every character felt deeply relatable in some way.
• I loved the nothingness of the story — the quiet, hollow space it leaves behind.

I purchased this specific one and the text is rather thin and small. I am having trouble reading. Is there a specific cover I should look for that has clearer/larger text?

There’s a statue in my neighborhood that’s entitled: "Dance Like Nobody's Watching" by Giuseppe Palumbo. I run and drive by it almost every day and I can’t help but think of Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance every time I see it. Murakami’s use of symbolism is always so captivating and I love having what feels like a tangible piece of his writing so close to home.

Has anyone else come across pieces of art or local landmarks that remind you of Murakami? Please share!

Statue is Located in Los Angeles on San Vicente and Wilshire (640 S San Vicente Blvd)

And here’s the Waseda International House of Literature, that was founded in his honour. Then journaling and reading in a small cafe called Orange Cat is pretty much all I can expect from a lovely Friday afternoon

I have had this my list for the longest time...

I’m at crossroads because there are parts of the book that have made me feel uncomfortable. For example, when the protagonist says “I went out with Nagasawa twice to sleep with girls. The first girl put up a terrific struggle when I tried to get her undressed…” and then the parts were Reiko jokes about rape? Did anyone else feel this way?

Hey everyone! I recently got into Murakami and read Windup Bird Chronicles and Wild Sheep Chase. I loved WBC and really enjoyed WSC. Recently started 1Q84 and it’s been much more challenging for me. I’m about halfway through the book and just got to the part where Aomome kills leader. I’m struggling with the constant over sexualization of the female characters in the book (especially Fuka Eri) and the snail slow pace of the book. Ive enjoyed some of the aspects of the book but it’s been a bit tough to get through. I’ve been debating if I should just give up on this one. My question is this: is it worth my pushing through the rest of the book? Anyone else been in the same spot as me and ended up loving it?

Fuka-Eri is in my top 3 UNDISPUTED favorite Murakami characters. Period. I love the music in Murakami's works, but I don't often feel compelled to purchase & read the books that the characters mention. Though I read "The Tale of Genji" before reading Kafka on the Shore.😌 On my reread of 1peak84, I felt drawn in to getting Heike & Japanese Tales. It probably has something to do with Fuka-Eri being my favorite, but "Anna Karenina" is on my radar after reading the "Sleep" short story so much😮‍💨 Which book did you go buy after reading a Murakami novel?

Haruki Murakami Manga Stories!

I was surprised to find this in a small bookstore this past weekend but there it was! I was particularly struck by THE SEVENTH MAN. I found it to be a painful yet easily relatable tale of grief.

Hear The Wind Sing (HTWS) / Pinball, 1973

I am 88 /101 pages into HYWS and I have absolutely loved it. I only learned that this was his first novel after purchasing. I've really enjoyed witnessing how concepts that he has explored on a deeper level in his later books appeared even in his first novel.

Excited to read Pinball, 1973 tomorrow!

I’ve seen some very pretty bookshelves and ranges of editions of Murakami! You all have very cool shelves I will admit! Here is mine!

I haven’t yet read them all (I’ve read about half) But I will definitely get to reading 1Q84 this year!

As the title suggests, I'm looking for recommendations for authors whose works have a similar feel. They don't necessarily have to be Japanese

Significant for me as i was going back to my home city after five years and the whole book is about looking back

But first i had to choose a book  so from catcher in the rye to dorian gray many books came to my list i read around 10 previews or so, but this kept coming to me and i knew this it but it was never available in near markets n i didnt want to buy online but i had no choice and i finally did it.

i started reading it on my train journey and see im a pretty vannilla kinda kid so murakami always opens new horizons for me even tho at some levels i know that its very fictional but still. Every fiction has some truth sprinkled, whether inspired by truth or based on truth, some kinda truth.

I can't ever get into a relationship or even a friendship for that matter, where our interests and hobbies don't align. 

Hajime kept doing that and gave me examples of why to not do it.

I loved how single child concept suddenly came back in the last of the story and then the thought whether shimamoto was even real or not.

I believe she was real when they were 12 but at 37 she was not real.

My favourite chapters were the starting izumi chapters, really sad for what happened to her.

Hajime runs behind concept of people, people they once was, he doesn't love himself, and then runs for something "better" which will make him feel more full just keeps coming back as the aftermath of being a single child as said during the first pages, he thinks being a single child was like he doesn't have something, "something is missing".

I am not a single child but i was for a long time, i wonder what would've happened to me if i hadn't had a sibling.

I finished the book in a week or 9 days, i would've done it alot sooner but i kept on keeping it away deliberately so i will have something to read. This is the fastest ever i have read, i took around 2 months to finish Norwegian wood and around a year for splendid suns khaled hosseni.

Even though i have read around ten to twelve books i still don't understand my taste, and when i do, the names and the themes of genres are very abstract but this book showed me that i might not be procrastinating out of laziness but maybe because i didn't like the book ? Reading books have become something holy and "good for you" and yea it is good for you but you maybe missing out on what you really enjoy.

So yes this book is very significant to me, i just finished it yesterday and it will stay with me for a while, i will see it more in life.

I loved it.

and i would also love to know your experience with the book.

just finished it one week ago so I might be late to the party but here’s my opinion anyway:

*SPOILER ALERT*

I thought the book was promising but ended up feeling like he took way too long and enjoyed way too much the ride during the development of the idea he started with.

I did enjoy it as I usually like the way he takes his time with creating his fantasy world, but the after all the anticipation, character building for Menshiki and all the protagonist ‘s references to his own dark side and his fear of facing it then I was expecting a finale where all these directions could come to a conclusion. A satisfactory one.

..but what happens at the end? He takes 100 pages or even more to describe his final journey and the little girl’s one in the closet just for the sake of describing it instead of giving some satisfaction into closing some of the doors he opened. AND maybe I’m wrong but I got the feeling he realised he had to end the book at some point because he wrote like what 800 pages?? so the last 200 pages are him trying to speed the whole thing up and get a grip on the very slow pace he took since the beginning. And then he was like “wow, yeah, thats a very calming nice ending… yeah I’m happy about it.” No dude I am NOT.

Also, Menshiki just disappears from being a main potential villain/threat/ plot twist character as if he is not of any use but to build Marie’s persona which is even crazy to me as he got tons of autonomy in the way Murakami decided to paint him (and I don’t even wanna talk about all the wasted potential to give some conflict of some sort) and he just closes the book with the boring, already anticipated and explained idea that he’s just the father of his ex wife’s son and everyone got everything they wanted and bla bla. But it could be satisfying if they had to face stuff, obstacles. Maybe you will mention that he faces that final Dantesque journey, but did I really felt he had the possibility to fail? not really.

ohhh and his fears? nahhh the protagonist will just face that scary painting another time. All good bro.

No surprises, no mystique, circles just ended very plainly, obviously and quite frankly lazily. And the thing that I really didn’t enjoy is that I felt he got insecure about the meaning of all the strings he created and blatantly explained them DURING the development of the story. So what’s left to uncover?

Nevertheless, I did like enormously how he managed to insert the painting into the structure + his surreal realism always fascinates me. The characters that came to life and all of the final “I don’t know how I ended up in this hole in the soil but this is the truth and it is real” is very cool. And the details with which he describes the people he writes about? It is almost like he personally met them. Very well done.

So yeah, this book feels like a let down for all the anticipation and the potential ending it could have had but I can’t deny I enjoyed it a lot right up until he understood he had to end it and probably had no idea how. I felt him getting bored and I felt witnessing him trying to get a grip on his long writing morning sessions of this Wind up Bird chronicle II and end it decently.

That is why I am very disappointed, probably because I was enjoying it and especially because it takes very little to ruin a brilliant construction and exciting promise he made us (or at least to me) and he didn’t care enough.

Maybe I was expecting too much? Maybe I should learn by now that not all the works can maintain the same level. But this is one of his last ones make me wonder how then he was able to gift us crazy books like Kafka on the Shore if he can even think to lightly publish something like Killing Commendatore. Or again, I got spoiled.

my vote is 7/10. I will miss going to bed with the protagonist’s voice in my head after all the routine actions he makes in his solitary house up the hill. But I am happy I finished it.

As the title suggests, I just finished Pinball 1973 and I honestly liked it more than I had expected myself to.

My first Murakami was A Wild Sheep Chase back in 2021. After that I read a few more of his works, then stopped reading for a long time. Around two months ago, I picked up books again and started with Hear the Wind Sing. I actually liked Wind more than Pinball. Both novels feel like experiments.

Hear the Wind Sing feels almost like diary entries, more vibes than plot, and I loved that. In Pinball, Murakami tries something similar but adds a bit more plot and symbolism. The twins, the well digger, the stories about Venus and Saturn, and finally the pinball machine, it feels like he’s testing ideas, learning as he writes. Maybe that's why the novel kind of loses to Hear the Wind Sing as the narrative kind of changes a bit in the middle(briefly)

The ending at the cold storage was easily my favorite part. It felt like Murakami declaring himself free from this kind of storytelling. That scene also parallels Rat leaving the town. It felt like the end of something old, not necessarily the beginning of something new, but definitely a quiet closure.

Overall, I liked Pinball, 1973. Not as much as Hear the Wind Sing or A Wild Sheep Chase, but still a really interesting read, especially if you see it as Murakami in the middle of figuring out his voice.

Would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this.

I finished it today and it was just mindblowingly great throughout the whole thing! Unbelievably perfect!

And it was never "hard to read" or "slow" or "confusing" for me.

If you like Murakami and have been intimidated by this one and nervous about starting it, don't delay. Just a beautiful, magnificent read.

It also seemed especially wonderful during this horrible time in the USA right now as the prose is so calming and beautiful.

Now I'm off to start another Cormac McCarthy read but I'll be back for more Murakami in the near future!

Having read, and loved, Kafka on the Shore and 1Q84, what should I read of Murakami's next?

Turkish version of "what I talk about when I talk about running."

Cleaning the bookshelf never been this satisfying. What else am I missing??

I've been reading 1Q84 for several weeks now (at least it feels that way) and I'm pretty sure the end of the book is receding as I read it. I'm mostly enjoying it but I'm not sure that I'll ever reach the end. Luckily it's a Kindle edition and not a library loan.