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Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
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Men Without Women
- Stories
- By: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator, Ted Goossen - translator
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 462
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 419
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 419
Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are vanishing cats and smoky bars, lonely hearts and mysterious women, baseball and the Beatles, woven together to tell stories that speak to us all. Marked by the same wry humor that has defined his entire body of work, in this collection Murakami has crafted another contemporary classic.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Murakami Being Murakami
- By Jay Quintana on 05-10-17
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The Elephant Vanishes
- Stories
- By: Haruki Murakami, Alfred Birnbaum (translator), Jay Rubin (translator)
- Narrated by: Teresa Gallagher, John Chancer, Walter Lewis, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 95
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 82
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 83
With the same deadpan mania and genius for dislocation that he brought to his internationally acclaimed novels A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami makes this collection of stories a determined assault on the normal. A man sees his favorite elephant vanish into thin air; a newlywed couple suffers attacks of hunger that drive them to hold up a McDonald's in the middle of the night; and a young woman discovers that she has become irresistible to a little green monster who burrows up through her backyard.
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1 out of 5 stars
-
dull
- By michelle-lee rodgers on 01-06-19
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Killing Commendatore
- A Novel
- By: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator, Ted Goossen - translator
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 28 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 782
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 736
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 731
In Killing Commendatore, a 30-something portrait painter in Tokyo is abandoned by his wife and finds himself holed up in the mountain home of a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When he discovers a previously unseen painting in the attic, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it, he must complete a journey that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a two-foot-high physical manifestation of an Idea, a dapper businessman who lives across the valley, a precocious 13-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt during World War II in Vienna.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Masterpiece and A Good Novel To Start
- By Elif Kaya on 10-18-18
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Sputnik Sweetheart
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Adam Sims
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 244
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 225
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 226
K is madly in love with his best friend, Sumire, but her devotion to a writerly life precludes her from any personal commitments. At least, that is, until she meets an older woman to whom she finds herself irresistibly drawn. When Sumire disappears from an island off the coast of Greece, K is solicited to join the search party - and finds himself drawn back into her world and beset by ominous visions.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Lonely?
- By Bulent Basaran on 11-10-16
-
South of the Border, West of the Sun
- A Novel
- By: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel (translator)
- Narrated by: Eric Loren
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 394
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 346
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 349
Born in 1951 in an affluent Tokyo suburb, Hajime - beginning in Japanese - has arrived at middle age wanting for almost nothing. The postwar years have brought him a fine marriage, two daughters, and an enviable career as the proprietor of two jazz clubs. Yet a nagging sense of inauthenticity about his success threatens Hajime's happiness. And a boyhood memory of a wise, lonely girl named Shimamoto clouds his heart.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A River of Unmindfulness
- By Darwin8u on 10-12-13
-
After Dark
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Janet Song
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 318
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 224
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 226
Here is a short, sleek novel of encounters, set in Tokyo during the witching hours between midnight and dawn, and every bit as gripping as Haruki Murakami's masterworks The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore. At its center are two sisters: Eri, a fashion model slumbering her way into oblivion, and Mari, a young student soon led from solitary reading at an anonymous Denny's toward people whose lives are radically different from her own.
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3 out of 5 stars
-
Intriguing book, Poor Narration
- By Ellen Clary on 07-27-08
-
Men Without Women
- Stories
- By: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator, Ted Goossen - translator
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 462
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 419
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 419
Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are vanishing cats and smoky bars, lonely hearts and mysterious women, baseball and the Beatles, woven together to tell stories that speak to us all. Marked by the same wry humor that has defined his entire body of work, in this collection Murakami has crafted another contemporary classic.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Murakami Being Murakami
- By Jay Quintana on 05-10-17
-
The Elephant Vanishes
- Stories
- By: Haruki Murakami, Alfred Birnbaum (translator), Jay Rubin (translator)
- Narrated by: Teresa Gallagher, John Chancer, Walter Lewis, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 95
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 82
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 83
With the same deadpan mania and genius for dislocation that he brought to his internationally acclaimed novels A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami makes this collection of stories a determined assault on the normal. A man sees his favorite elephant vanish into thin air; a newlywed couple suffers attacks of hunger that drive them to hold up a McDonald's in the middle of the night; and a young woman discovers that she has become irresistible to a little green monster who burrows up through her backyard.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
dull
- By michelle-lee rodgers on 01-06-19
-
Killing Commendatore
- A Novel
- By: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator, Ted Goossen - translator
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 28 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 782
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 736
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 731
In Killing Commendatore, a 30-something portrait painter in Tokyo is abandoned by his wife and finds himself holed up in the mountain home of a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When he discovers a previously unseen painting in the attic, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it, he must complete a journey that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a two-foot-high physical manifestation of an Idea, a dapper businessman who lives across the valley, a precocious 13-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt during World War II in Vienna.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Masterpiece and A Good Novel To Start
- By Elif Kaya on 10-18-18
-
Sputnik Sweetheart
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Adam Sims
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 244
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 225
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 226
K is madly in love with his best friend, Sumire, but her devotion to a writerly life precludes her from any personal commitments. At least, that is, until she meets an older woman to whom she finds herself irresistibly drawn. When Sumire disappears from an island off the coast of Greece, K is solicited to join the search party - and finds himself drawn back into her world and beset by ominous visions.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Lonely?
- By Bulent Basaran on 11-10-16
-
South of the Border, West of the Sun
- A Novel
- By: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel (translator)
- Narrated by: Eric Loren
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 394
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 346
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 349
Born in 1951 in an affluent Tokyo suburb, Hajime - beginning in Japanese - has arrived at middle age wanting for almost nothing. The postwar years have brought him a fine marriage, two daughters, and an enviable career as the proprietor of two jazz clubs. Yet a nagging sense of inauthenticity about his success threatens Hajime's happiness. And a boyhood memory of a wise, lonely girl named Shimamoto clouds his heart.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
A River of Unmindfulness
- By Darwin8u on 10-12-13
-
After Dark
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Janet Song
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 318
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 224
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 226
Here is a short, sleek novel of encounters, set in Tokyo during the witching hours between midnight and dawn, and every bit as gripping as Haruki Murakami's masterworks The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore. At its center are two sisters: Eri, a fashion model slumbering her way into oblivion, and Mari, a young student soon led from solitary reading at an anonymous Denny's toward people whose lives are radically different from her own.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Intriguing book, Poor Narration
- By Ellen Clary on 07-27-08
-
After the Quake
- Stories
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Rupert Degas, Teresa Gallagher, Adam Sims
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 95
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 86
The six stories in Haruki Murakami’s mesmerizing collection are set at the time of the catastrophic 1995 Kobe earthquake, when Japan became brutally aware of the fragility of its daily existence. But the upheavals that afflict Murakami’s characters are even deeper and more mysterious, emanating from a place where the human meets the inhuman.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Reading is very annoying
- By Y.E. on 02-11-19
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Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 197
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 183
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 184
Across two parallel narratives, Murakami draws listeners into a mind-bending universe in which Lauren Bacall, Bob Dylan, a split-brained data processor, a deranged scientist, his shockingly undemure granddaughter, and various thugs, librarians, and subterranean monsters collide to dazzling effect. What emerges is a novel that is at once hilariously funny and a deeply serious meditation on the nature and uses of the mind.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Highly recommend
- By Amazon Customer on 07-23-18
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Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage
- A novel
- By: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel (translator)
- Narrated by: Bruce Locke
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,079
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 971
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Story4 out of 5 stars 972
The new novel - a book that sold more than a million copies the first week it went on sale in Japan - from the internationally acclaimed author, his first since IQ84. Here he gives us the remarkable story of Tsukuru Tazaki, a young man haunted by a great loss; of dreams and nightmares that have unintended consequences for the world around us; and of a journey into the past that is necessary to mend the present. It is a story of love, friendship, and heartbreak for the ages.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very unfortunate narration...
- By Nicholas Szasz on 03-30-15
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Norwegian Wood
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: John Chancer
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 914
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 825
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Story4 out of 5 stars 828
This stunning and elegiac novel by the author of the internationally acclaimed Wind-Up Bird Chronicle has sold over four million copies in Japan and is now available to American audiences for the first time. It is sure to be a literary event.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Beautiful, Wistful...
- By Douglas on 02-18-16
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Underground
- The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin, Ian Anthony Dale, Janet Song
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 152
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 141
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 141
On a clear spring day in 1995, five members of a religious cult unleashed poison gas on the Tokyo subway system. In attempt to discover why, Haruki Murakmi talks to the people who lived through the catastrophe, and in so doing lays bare the Japanese psyche. As he discerns the fundamental issues that led to the attack, Murakami paints a clear vision of an event that could occur anytime, anywhere.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Just as you breathe, you dream your story
- By Darwin8u on 08-26-15
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1Q84
- By: Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin (translator), Philip Gabriel (translator)
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto, Marc Vietor, Mark Boyett
- Length: 46 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 7,781
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 6,956
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Story4 out of 5 stars 6,932
The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.
A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 - "Q" is for "question mark". A world that bears a question....
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5 out of 5 stars
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I've never read a book quite like this one
- By Joey on 04-23-12
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The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
- A Novel
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Rupert Degas
- Length: 26 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,965
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,715
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,716
In a Tokyo suburb, a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife’s missing cat - and then for his wife as well - in a netherworld beneath the city’s placid surface. As these searches intersect, he encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful book, flawed narration.
- By REBECCA on 02-08-14
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Kafka on the Shore
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett, Oliver Le Sueur
- Length: 19 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,321
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,112
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,105
With Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami gives us a novel every bit as ambitious and expansive as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which has been acclaimed both here and around the world for its uncommon ambition and achievement, and whose still-growing popularity suggests that it will be read and admired for decades to come.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Love it!
- By bleadof on 10-04-16
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What I Talk about When I Talk about Running
- A Memoir
- By: Haruki Murakami
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,047
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,611
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,614
From the best-selling author of Kafka on the Shore comes this rich and revelatory memoir about writing and running and the integral impact both have made on his life. Equal parts training log, travelogue, and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers Murakami's four-month preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon. Settings range from Tokyo, where he once shared the course with an Olympian, to the Charles River in Boston, among young women who outpace him.
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5 out of 5 stars
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It is what it says it is
- By Rick on 03-10-09
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How Long 'Til Black Future Month?
- Stories
- By: N. K. Jemisin
- Narrated by: Shayna Small, Gail Nelson-Holgate, Robin Ray Eller, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 72
N. K. Jemisin is one of the most powerful and acclaimed speculative fiction authors of our time. In the first collection of her evocative short fiction, Jemisin equally challenges and delights listeners with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautiful
- By R. Davis on 11-27-18
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The Strange Library
- By: Haruki Murakami, Ted Goossen (translator)
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 1 hr and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 117
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 104
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Story4 out of 5 stars 102
From internationally acclaimed author Haruki Murakami - a fantastical short novel about a boy imprisoned in a nightmarish library. A lonely boy, a mysterious girl, and a tormented sheep man plot their escape from the nightmarish library of internationally acclaimed, best-selling Haruki Murakami's wild imagination.
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3 out of 5 stars
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It was okay
- By Manuel on 09-18-16
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No Longer Human
- By: Osamu Dazai
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 4 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 135
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 127
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 128
Portraying himself as a failure, the protagonist of Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human narrates a seemingly normal life, even while he feels himself incapable of understanding human beings. Oba Yozo's attempts to reconcile himself to the world around him begin in early childhood, continue through high school, where he becomes a "clown" to mask his alienation, and eventually lead to a failed suicide attempt as an adult. Without sentimentality, he records the casual cruelties of life and its fleeting moments of human connection and tenderness.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Reassuring in its bare-boned humanity
- By Michael - Audible Editor on 07-19-17
Publisher's Summary
The 24 stories that make up Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman generously express the incomparable Haruki Murakami’s mastery of the form.
Here are animated crows, a criminal monkey, and an ice man, as well as the dreams that shape us and the things for which we might wish. From the surreal to the mundane, these stories exhibit Murakami’s ability to transform the full range of human experience in ways that are instructive, surprising, and entertaining.
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- Maggie McMeekin
- Arlington Heights, IL, US
- 05-05-15
Fantastic, just like how all Murakami books are
Amazing collection of short stories. While I prefer his novels, simply because I love his writing so much that I love the fact I can stay longer in a novel's unique reality than in a short story's, it must be said that these short stories were also a fantastic experience.
What fantastic voyages! What surreal experiences intertwined with moments that are instantly relatable! I find Murakami extremely brilliant and quotable, I have made countless Facebook status updates that are just quotes from his works. This short story collection is no exception, with plenty poignantly worded quotes that speak to me.
Those who have read Murakami's novels will recognize that one of the short stories is almost like an excerpt from one of his novels... I didn't look at publication years but I assume this short story collection came first. Perhaps the short story is what inspired the novel to come to be? If so, I wonder if any of the other short stories will blossom into full length novels someday.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- MaryAnn
- 09-18-18
This author is usually creative and amazing but
This particular book of short stories was bland. I kept thinking I must be misunderstanding something.