1Q84

"Murakami is like a magician who explains what he's doing as he performs the trick and still makes you believe he has supernatural powers . . . But while anyone can tell a story that resembles a dream, it's the rare artist, like this one, who can make us feel that we are dreaming it ourselves." --The New York Times Book Review

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." Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled.

As Aomame's and Tengo's narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector.

A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell's--1Q84 is Haruki Murakami's most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers.

Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Published: 10/25/2011
Pages: 944
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 2.85lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.60w x 1.90d
ISBN: 9780307593313


Award: International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award - Finalist
Award: Indies Choice Book Awards - Honor Book


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 05/01/2011 pg. 58
Publishers Weekly 08/29/2011
Library Journal 09/15/2011 pg. 69
Booklist 09/15/2011 pg. 23
Kirkus Reviews 09/15/2011
New York Review of Books 12/08/2011 pg. 23
Shelf Awareness 11/04/2011
Kirkus Best Books 11/15/2011 pg. 2067
New York Times Book Review 11/13/2011 pg. 50
NY Times Notable Bks of Year 12/04/2011 pg. 25
Entertainment Weekly 12/23/2011 pg. 109
Booklist Editors Choice/Adult 01/01/2012 pg. 8
LJ Top 10 Book 12/01/2011 pg. 55

About the Author
Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto in 1949 and now lives near Tokyo. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages, and the most recent of his many international honors is the Jerusalem Prize, whose previous recipients include J. M. Coetzee, Milan Kundera, and V. S. Naipaul.