Staff Picks #9: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

The newest book recommendation for Lewis Library's "Staff Picks" series of blog posts comes from graduate library assistant Rachel Evans. You might recall Rachel's January review of Kafka on the Shore. This new mini book review is of another novel by the same author, Haruki Murakami, titled The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Both books are available for check-out from Lewis Library. Listen in to what Rachel had to say about this book:

"The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is an incredible tale that gets you lost in a very strange world... half of the time your down in the dark depths of a dried up well with the protagonist of the story, on a mysterious "psychic" quest. This quest starts out as a search for a lost cat, and turns into a seemingly never-ending epic to find the main characters wife. Along the way some very charming and interesting characters arise including a young teenage girl fascinated with wigs and a psychic prostitute. In the process of searching for his missing cat and wife, our main character realizes his own psychic abilities after receiving a strange mark on his face. Although this novel is a much longer commitment of a read, it is well worth the effort! An excellent, sprawling story with all the trademarks you'd expect from Murakami. This was perfect to read after Kafka on the Shore and in many ways is a more in-depth look at the literary ideas and mechanisms explored in Murakami's previous novels. This book also won the Yomiuri Literary Award, and it's no surprise why. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in surreal and dream-like modern literature. This book will really shake-up your perspective on reality and the power of the human psyche!"  Call Number PL856 .U673 N4513 1998