The Wind Up Bird Chronicle (Haruki Murakami)

My first Murakami novel! I had heard of his book 1Q84 before, but had no idea he was such a widely known and celebrated author until I read this.

This book is...complicated, to say the least. It starts out with the story of Toru Okada and his wife Kumiko, two young professionals living in a sleepy Tokyo suburb. But when their beloved cat, and later Toru's beloved wife vanish, Toru enters a bizarre world of intertwining people, time periods, and stories all somehow relating back to Japan's actions in Manchuria during WW2. To accompany this, Toru has strange and recurring dreams- that he begins to suspect are infringing on reality.

So a while ago I said that The Alex Crow was the strangest book I'd ever read, but I don't think that anything could beat this book (although I haven't yet read 1Q84). It's surreal and half the book almost messes with your sense of reality. However, this is just what made the book an incredible read, I couldn't put it down, because I wasn't sure if the world would be the same as it was when I picked it up.

WARNING!

This book can be disturbing and does contain some mature content.