Book: Kafka on the Shore
by: Haruki Murakami
Chosen by: Illandro Pebiblio
Everyone loves Murakami.
Over the past few years of working at Capitol Hill Books, I’ve noticed that no author sells out as quickly as Haruki Murakami. If we get a copy of the Wind-up Bird Chronicle in and shelve it on Saturday morning, I would be shocked to see it sitting there on Sunday.
So, after destroying the rest of the bookclub in the Suicide Blonde race, I’m going with Kafka on the Shore, Murakami’s latest full-length novel. Not only did this book get short-listed for the Booker Prize, it also has all the hallmarks of books I like.
The title sounds cool and makes me look cool for reading it, the author has a good non-Anglo-Saxoney name (important if you’re trying to keep your esoteric bookstore worker cred), and the trade paperback has a snazzy look to it and will catch someone’s eye when you’re reading it on the metro. The last one is especially important if you’re planning on, as I am, peering down haughtily at the other metro riders reading the DaVinci Code and James Patterson novels.
Oh, and I guess the characters are compelling and the deceptively breezy prose sort of draws you in… blahbity blah blah.
