Re: books writer: Haruki Murakami
 

Yes! Murakami rules. There's defintiely that indie rock, hipster feel to his books... (to me that's a description of quality, but by no means do I mean this as a factor that limits his audience.)

Haruki Murakami is my favorite writer, and I read a lot of good books. I've read each of his books at least one time.

Something interesting about him is that he used to own a jazz club in Tokyo, and would write from the time the jazz club closed through the rest of the night.

There are great pop/cultural/musical references in his work, and some critics (who I disagree with) think this somehow delegitimizes the literary nature of his work. He is pretty popular now and gets good reviews in major publications though, so maybe this is an older sentiment that has died out, I don't know. I think the inclusions of pop references, the mystery and occult nature of some of the circumstances that arise in his novels and just the general adventure you feel while reading Murakami speak to his ability to blend good literature with pop-styling and make great stories available to a wide audience.

Regardless, Haruki Murakami seems like a really unassuming guy, and tries to stay out of the limelight, which seems like it's probably difficult when you are well known in Japan.

My favorite book ever is "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle", but I also really enjoy what's referred to as the "Rat Trilogy," Hear the Wind Sing, Pinball, and A Wild Sheep Chase. The former two used to be difficult to find, I'm not sure what their availability is online.

"Dance, Dance, Dance" is probably my second favorite from Murakami, and is sort of a pseudo-sequel to A Wild Sheep Chase. You don't have to read the latter to understand Dance, but imo it makes the story more interesting.

Great author suggestion op, Murakami is definitely worthy of his own thread and attention.

(The Murakami Wiki seems to have a pretty good list of his works.)

Re: books writer: Haruki Murakami
 

p.s. You'll see translated short stories pretty often from Murakami in magazines like Harper's and the New Yorker, and legitimate copies or not of these and other of his short stories are all over the web. I would highly suggest googling for some to see if you like his style.

Re: books writer: Haruki Murakami
 

I have read 4 or 5 books by him when people insisted that I should keep giving him a chance and in my opinion all of them are garbage.

Re: books writer: Haruki Murakami
 

I thought his newest book "After Dark" was really good.

I also bought a book that I _thought_ was by the same author, but just happened to have the same last name :/

Re: books writer: Haruki Murakami
 

[ QUOTE ]
I read his Dance, Dance, Dance in high school, and to date, it is still one of my favorite books. He is really a great writer.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yeh, that's my favourite book, perhaps my favourite book ever. Norwegian wood is also really good - I'm not such a big fan of his short stories, and the factual books weren't very interesting for me... He's an author where it's definitely worth reading most of his work though

Re: books writer: Haruki Murakami
 

[ QUOTE ]
I thought his newest book "After Dark" was really good.

I also bought a book that I _thought_ was by the same author, but just happened to have the same last name :/

[/ QUOTE ]
I didn't even realise this was out yet. I guess that's my lunchtime job then...