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The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami


Whoa, what a long and strange trip this book was. In a nutshell, the novel is about Toru Okada's (an "Everyman" kind of character) journey to find his wife who left him suddenly and mysteriously. But really, this book is way more than that - along the way, Okada encounters a bunch of very eccentric and weird characters. What results is an intensely surreal, bizarre and disturbing story. I like how Amazon puts it - Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment.
Murakami is very popular in Japan, but for some reason, never made it into the American mainstream, which is a shame.

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