Haruki Murakami

this one then?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0307593312/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 2 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds

yikes

i meant this one:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51mGxL5j-CL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

yup

"it's easily the grandest work of world literature since Roberto Bolaño's 2666 and represents a monstrous literary event"

monstrous!

Does that actually mean anything than "guys! It's really long and is in translation".

all the magical little people are horribly killed during the third part of the book, each death dryly but meticulously described.

sorry should have ****SPOILERS**** there.

got a feeling it's either gonna be the ULTIMATE MURAKAMI NOVEL or a run-on mess.

there's a difference?

i'm guessing the mess would involve no less than 1/3 of the book's total length being devoted to cooking scenes and mentions of old records

:D

That still leaves 1/3 available for icky sex stuff with younger women.

i forget where i read it (maybe in that nyt profile?) (or maybe upthread?) but whoever said murakami's books after hardboiled wonderland read like him trying to tinker with and hopefully perfect a formula was otm. i still kinda love him though.

thats okay with me, i like the formula!

as far as I'm concerned, he never topped 'Dance, Dance, Dance'

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is the best for me, but Dance Dance Dance is my favourite of the rest. I was pleasantly surprised when I read Wonderland as well, because people seem to be so down on it, although that was after about 5yrs of not reading any Murakami so anything was welcome by that point.

wind-up is probably still the one to put in the canon but wonderland is my fave because it's an easy trick (contrasting the kafka-esque sections in the mysterious city with the typically wacky-in-modern-japan stuff) but a good one.

i actually remembered i had wind-up on my phone kindle last night and started reading it again since i wont be able to read the new one for a long while, despite having many paper books i need to read.

http://i.imgur.com/FGAbl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/3Bylw.jpg

the dust jacket is impossibly thin, like tracing paper. it's about the same size as Wind Up Bird tbh, it's not as massive as people are making it out to be.

yeah the book is beautifully designed. you can sort of see in shasta's photo how the hard cover is printed so that the vellum jacket completes the image

its like 300 pages longer that WUBC but printed on thinner paper. also slightly taller.

haha sorry theyre like right in front of me right now so

i'm guessing the mess would involve no less than 1/3 of the book's total length being devoted to cooking scenes and mentions of old records

― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Wednesday, October 26, 2011 3:16 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark

My kind of book. Pissed off that we can't buy the one volume book in the UK and that the cover looks better in the US version. Also on Amazon.com it's $16 - over here both volumes would set you back nearly twice that (on Amazon anyway). Any American's coming to the UK with a spare suitcase soon?

From the official website:

In order to reflect the experience of 1Q84's first readers, Harvill Secker is publishing Books One and Two in one beautifully designed volume and Book Three in a separate edition.

So you see, you US readers are missing out on the "experience", even tho you are saving 16 bucks.

I would really prefer the 16 bucks thanks Harvill Secker.

Fuck it, I've just ordered the one-volume version from the US, if it's huge I'll just read it over the Christmas holidays.

It's like £10 for the book and £8 for the shipping, that's got to be cheaper than buying both volumes in hardback. Excellent work fucking this up, British publishing industry.

that's got to be cheaper than buying both volumes in hardback.

Yep, it's £18.29 for both from Amazon.co.uk with free shipping, so you've saved yourself 29p. Congrats!

1Q84 is my favorite book title since 2666

Another member of the choir that says he peaked with Wind-Up Bird but also enjoyed Dance Dance Dance and HBW. New one seems too long to tackle without some kind of running start. I think I read almost everything up until Kafka on the Shore where I ran out of gas. Should I try that one again? Read something short like After Dark?

If you are an endurance athlete, his previous book "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" is rewarding and inspiring.

...yet still written in "that voice" not uncommon among his narrators.

...in his fictional works.

Even if you're an endurance athlete it's worth a look. I found it v. enjoyable for instance.

that's got to be cheaper than buying both volumes in hardback.

Yep, it's £18.29 for both from Amazon.co.uk with free shipping, so you've saved yourself 29p. Congrats!

Yes, but you've got better looking book imo and in handy brick form. Will customs hit u with tax tho, is my serious question? I think books are exempt from such shenanigans?

Damn, I meant even if you're NOT an endurance athlete obv.

was a limit of £18 for non 'gift' marked imports, being reduced to £15 on Nov 1st. just in time for xmas.

How will they know how much you paid for the book? These things have bugged me since I was caught out for some ridiculous amount for a Seinfeld boxset back in the day.

sender has to mark the value on the customs declaration. i bought something from someone on ebay for £10 and they marked the value as $40, completely fucking me over. grrr still mad about it.

that is awful... i'd leave them negative feedback for that alone.

jealous of that dude that got to hang out and run with murakami

When choosing from among his best books, do not neglect the short story collections, which are awesome. He is a fantastic short story writer.

The last few days I've been reading the short story collections, going through the stories in the order of composition (anyway, the order they're listed on his Wikipedia page). It's been kind of fascinating to follow the development of his themes and methods, which seem to have stayed much the same from the beginning. Everything is in first person, more or less in the same voice -- in some instances, the same character appears to be the narrator of otherwise unrelated stories.

I love this guy.

i first read murakami in high school and ray carver in college but when i found out the former loved the latter it was like oh yeah duh.

1Q84 is my favorite book title since 2666

― ∞th-wave ska (diamonddave85), Wednesday, October 26, 2011 10:59 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

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OK, I guess I'll give Blind Willow, Sleeping Womam a try and after that the running book, even though I am am not an endurance athlete.

do not neglect the short story collections, which are awesome

Recently finished After the Quake, and it's great. Previously I'd read W-UBC and NW, and the stories of ATQ are kind of a mix of both these styles. Engaging and a quick read.

Came across ATQ at the bookshop the day after the quake this year and thus couldn't resist the purchase.

Got my US copy yesterday and stayed up too late reading it, spurred on by the fact that I was listening to Janáček's Sinfonietta literally a couple of hours before I opened the book - you can't ignore synchronistic shit like that.

did not like him before this one but this one is really, really good