CERTAINLY THE BEST AUTHOR OF MYSTERY WRITINGS, HARUKI MURAKAMI dailymorsel, 12 June 202329 June 2023 Spread the love BEST WORKS OF HARUKI MURAKAMI MURAKAMI’S POPULARITY ISN’T UNHEARD OF AND THAT’S FOR A REASON BEST WORKS OF HARUKI MURAKAMI. HE IS BEST KNOWN FOR HIS OPEN-ENDED NOVELS WITH DUAL-DIMENSIONAL REALITIES WHICH KEEP US HOOKED TILL THE END AND LET US EXPLORE TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS LEAVING US WONDERING WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. 10. A WILD SHEEP CHASE – Noma Literary Prize for New Face Prize 1982 Get the book: https://amzn.to/3qEXGEI His life was like a recurring nightmare: a train to nowhere. But an ordinary life has a way of taking on extraordinary turns. Add a girl whose ears are so exquisite that, when uncovered, they improve sex a thousand-fold, a runaway friend, a right-wing politico, an ovine-obsessed professor and a manic-depressive in a sheep outfit, implicate them in a hunt for a sheep, that may or may not be running the world, and the upshot is another singular masterpiece from Japan’s finest novelist. 9. HARD-BOILED WONDERLAND AND THE END OF THE WORLD – Tanizaki Prize 1985, Tahtifantasia Award Nominee 2016, Seiun Award Nominee for Best Japanese Novel 1986 Get the book: https://amzn.to/3Cm4rxQ ‘Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is the tour de force that expanded Haruki Murakami’s international following. Tracing one man’s descent into the Kafkaesque underworld of contemporary Tokyo, Murakami unites East and West, tragedy and farce, compassion and detachment, slang and philosophy.’ 8. AFTER DARK – Dublin Literary Award Nominee 2009 Get the book: https://amzn.to/45TXnGl Nineteen-year-old Mari is waiting out the night in an anonymous Denny’s when she meets a young man who insists he knows her older sister, thus setting her on an odyssey through the sleeping city. In the space of a single night, the lives of a diverse cast of Tokyo residents-models, prostitutes, mobsters, and musicians collide in a world suspended between fantasy and reality. Thus, utterly enchanting and infused with surrealism, After Dark is a thrilling account of the magical hours separating midnight from dawn. 7. SPUTNIK SWEETHEART Get the book: https://amzn.to/3X59Wu4 Sumire is in love with a woman seventeen years her senior. But whereas Miu is glamorous and successful, Sumire is an aspiring writer who dresses in an oversized second-hand coat and heavy boots like a character in a Kerouac novel. Sumire spends hours on the phone talking to her best friend K about the big questions in life. What is sexual desire, and should she tell Miu how she feels for her? Meanwhile, K wonders whether he should confess his own unrequited love for Sumire. Then, a desperate Miu calls from a small Greek island and tells that Sumire has mysteriously vanished… 6. DANCE DANCE DANCE Get the book: https://amzn.to/46021ST High-class call girls billed to Mastercard. A psychic 13-year-old dropout with a passion for Talking Heads. A hunky matinee idol doomed to play dentists and teachers. A one-armed beach-combing poet and an uptight hotel clerk and one very bemused narrator caught in the web of advanced capitalist mayhem. Combine this offbeat cast of characters with Murakami’s idiosyncratic prose and out comes Dance Dance Dance. 5. COLORLESS TSUKURU TAZAKI AND HIS YEARS OF PILGRIMAGE – Independent Foreign Fiction Prize Nominee 2015, Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Fiction 2014, Dublin Literary Award Nominee 2016 Get the book: https://amzn.to/3p0j073 Tsukuru Tazaki had four best friends at school. By chance, all of their names contained a colour. The two boys were called Akamatsu (red pine) and Oumi (blue sea). Whereas the girls’ names were Shirane(white root) and Kurono (black field) but Tazaki was the only last name with no colour in it. One day Tazaki’s friends announced that they didn’t want to see him or talk to him, ever again. Since that day Tsukuru has been floating through life and unable to form intimate connections with anyone. But then he meets Sara, who tells him that the time has come to find out what happened all those years ago. 4. 1Q84 (1-3) – Premio Ignotus for Mejor Novela Extranjera 2012, Andrew Carnegie Medal Nominee for Fiction 2012, Premi Ictineu for Millar novel-la tratuida 2012, Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction 2011, Dublin Literary Award Nominee for Shortlist 2013 Get the book: https://amzn.to/3P7KCBK A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestions and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She realizes a parallel existence and calls it 1Q84- “Q is for ‘question mark’. A world that bears a question.” Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unravelled. As Aomame’s and Tengo’s narratives converge over this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them even closer. A beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision. A mysterious religious cult that investigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police. A reclusive yet wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women. A hideously ugly private investigator. A mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard and a peculiarly insistent television fee collector. 3. THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE – Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature 1999, Yomiuri Prize for Fiction 1995, Dublin Literary Award Nominee for Shortlist 1999 Get the book: https://amzn.to/3N52vhX In a Tokyo suburb, a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife’s missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. Ans as these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an ageing war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan’s forgotten campaign in Manchuria. 2. KAFKA ON THE SHORE – World Fantasy Award for Best Novel 2006, Los Angeles Times Book Prize Nominee for Fiction 2005, and many more Get the book: https://amzn.to/42vx6uU Kafka On The Shore, a tour de force of metaphysical reality. It is powered by two remarkable characters. Their odyssey is enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Cats and people carry on conversations. A ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute. A forest harbours soldiers apparently unaged since world war II and rainstorms of fish (and worse) fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both the victim and the perpetrator. Hence a riddle, along with everything else, is eventually answered. 1. NORWEGIAN WOOD Get the book: https://amzn.to/3qFQ30P Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko. She’s a beautiful and introspective young woman. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there. And Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of her life unbearable. MORE FROM US: https://dailymorsel.info/index.php/2023/06/12/best-of-chetan-bhagat-novels/ DailyMorsel Blog BOOKS Fiction Contemporaryfantasyfictionjapanjapanese literaturemagical realismmysterysurrealismsuspense