New books in the store

The Japanese authors that I know of have been strange but amazing writers like Junichiro Tanizaki and Yukio Mishima. I've read a lot of Tanizaki and his work is a mixed bag. The Makioka Sisters is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read but his other books can be a little creepy. Then there is Mishima, who proved to be an extraordinary writer at a young age then devoted himself to follow the bushido code of the samurai and committed seppuku. No matter how strange these authors may have been they both managed to produce wonderful works of literature.

That brings us to Haruki Murakami. I don't see the strangeness that marked Tanizaki and Mishima but I do see a similuar greatness for letters. I already carry two titles by Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, so I'm putting in more titles to expand our offerings along with his new novel After Dark.

From a "The New York Times Book Review" article by Walter Kirn:
"In the Wee Small Hours" —

“After Dark,” Murakami’s latest novel, is a streamlined, hushed ensemble piece built on the notion that very late at night, after the lamps of logic have been snuffed and rationality has shut its eyes, life on earth becomes boundariless and blurred. Individuals who were separate during the day begin to lose uniqueness, to leak distinctiveness, melting into a soft psychic collective. As the hands of the clock slice deeper into the shadows, physics weakens, yielding to metaphysics, and the rigid you and I of things breaks down. During the wee hours, we’re all in this together, our spirits spooned like lovers’ bodies.

Other Haruki Murakami titles that I included are:

• Norwegian Wood
• Kafka on the Shore
• A Wild Sheep Chase
• After the Quake: Stories
• Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: Stories
• Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
• The Elephant Vanishes: Stories
• Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche