I can’t stand many of Murakami’s books, but Norwegian Wood and South of the Border, West of the Sun are really excellent.

So this may just be a question of taste, but I don't feel that 1Q84 is the most accessible of Murakami's novels. Norwegian Wood is probably a more typical entry point, or else Kafka On the Shore, or his latest book, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.

Surprised no one mentioned any of Haruki Murakami's books. Norwegian Wood made a big impression on me as a young man in my late teens. Kafka on the shore and the Wind-up Bird Chronicle are both trips. A Wild Sheep Chase is hilarious.

Haruki Murakami. Sputnik Sweetheart, Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore. After the Quake, if you like short stories. Great stuff.

If you want something lighter, try Banana Yoshimoto. If you want something with more sex and gruesome murders, try Ryu Murakami.

I'd recommend to start with Norwegian Wood for Murakami. Didn't like Sputnik Sweetheart at all, and many of his other books tend to be too esoterical for my taste. But NW was esoterics-free, if I remember correctly.

When you miss a lot of things in popular culture, you may start to become irrelevant. But I think missing a couple things is OK. I don't want to be the same as everyone else. "If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking." -- Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Almost a day late, but I'll throw this in here if people come by later looking for more suggestions.

From this year, I read all but two of the Haruki Murakami books and all short stories. I love his writing style (great translations), and the fact that the stories are about not all the time realness. Kafka on the Shore is a great starting book. Also Norwegian Wood is another example, though this strayed away from the magical aspect I like of his.

Another from this year was The Dubliners, collection of short stories from James Joyce. I was stuck in Dublin during a snow storm this past spring, so I'm sure this lead me to like the stories more, but I swear they're amazing and I haven't found anything else like them. They're all tiny points in people's lives, and the things that happen make differences for the people or are also easy to remember and not forget. Get one with reference notes in the back too.

Besides those, Love in the Time of Cholera was another one way up on my list. Similar to One Hundred Years of Solitude, which I think I prefer slightly more, but reading both is interesting to read since Cholera was written 20 years after Solitude and we can see how the author changed over time.

Overall though, my absolute top tier books are East of Eden, Catch-22, and My Struggle (Knausgaard). 1000% read those. I like including these so if somebody reads this and likes these books as well, they can somewhat trust my other suggestions.

The Catcher in the Rye and Norwegian Wood. A goal is to read them both in Japanese, as the former was translated by the author of the latter.

That's a very astute observation. I read Norwegian Wood first, but that is so different from most his other works and I didn't love it. I don't remember which one I read after that, but I got hooked around the 2nd or the 3rd.

Common themes: a guy, living on his own (or with an often absent girlfriend), cooking simple dishes while drinking beer after working out. He has an ear fetish. There is a cat somewhere. Some magic realism and lots metaphors.

I read Norwegian Wood and 1Q84, and those got me hooked.

I've read and enjoyed some Murakami (Norwegian Wood and Hard-boiled Wonderland), but can anyone recommend some (or one) other Japanese authors to check out? This is especially intriguing to me:

> ... Japanese stories focus on the individual adrift in seas of excessive convenience and information, obsessed with personal not political identities, and questions of the soul.

Or maybe some other Murakami. I can say I enjoyed Norwegian Wood quite a bit more then Hard-boiled Wonderland.

If you haven't read "Diamond Age" yet, I highly recommend it. I loved "Snow crash" too, but DA is arguably his best book. Let me know if you ever finish anything he wrote later than that, to be honest I think he is in dire need of a strict editor that cuts his books in at least half.

I see we disagree on "The Unberable Lightness of Being", but that is fine, I guess.

I think Murakami is at his best in "Norwegian Wood" and "South of the Border" -- in different ways. You might also enjoy "Chrome Yellow" by Huxley.

For something a bit different, try: "American Essays" edited by Shaw (http://www.amazon.com/American-Essays-Charles-B-Shaw/dp/B000...).

If you enjoyed the books on Steve Jobs, you might enjoy "The new new thing" by Lewis (on the founder of SGI and Netscape).

I don't know if you've read any William Gibson, if not, at least read "Burning Chrome" (and everything else he's ever written ;-).

Finally, you should read "The Code Book" by Singh.

Fiction:

Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami (I love Murakami’s novels, recommend starting with Hard Boiled Wonderland though)

Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball - Haruki Murakami

The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammet (Surprising just how much San Francisco is in it)

The Postman Always Rings Twice - James Cain

Seveneves - Neal Stephenson (recommended)

Pattern Recognition - William Gibson

The Sun Also Rises - Hemingway (recommended, refreshing language)

Non-fiction:

Running Lean - Ash Muraya

Lean Customer Development - Alvarez

Talking to Humans - Giff Constable

Hooked - Nir Eyal (probably not need the book to get the thesis)

Sprint - Jake Knapp

Juno Beach - Mark Zuehlke

Anti-Education - Nietzsche

as a Murakami fan (both Hiroku and Ryu), I have to admin that a lot of the feeling of the novels come from the translator. I've been a bigger fan of Birnbaum than Rubin, which led me to attempt to find Birnbaum's translation of Norwegian Wood, hoping that I'd like it better.

Unfortunately, no Birnbaum Norwegian Wood for me, but reading Haruki's books put me into an interesting state of enlightenment. Contrasted, Ryu's books bring in a dark whimsical side which is also enchanting.

> I've often wondered how much of my opinion I could chalk up to translation.

I think I understand your point, but I reckon a good translation is far from hearsay. That said, I have never taken a single book, and read multiple translations of it. Perhaps someone has, and can determine how big a difference an individual translator has on the work of the original author...

But I've read a handful of Murakami books now, and this post made me think about that. Most recently, I'd read 'Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki', as translated by Phillip Gabriel, and 'Norwegian Wood', translated by Jay Rubin.

Now every book is different of course, but while the stories are different, all the Murakami books tend to rely on a number of tropes, which seem to appear in all his books (at least the one's I've read), no matter who translates them... Strong female characters, especially supporting characters. Explicit, but not overt, references to sex. Fleeting, but highly edifying references to classical music. Numerous references to drink...

It felt like I was reading the same author, for sure.

Hard Boiled Wonderland was my first Murakami... The odd conjoined narrative made me think of Final Fantasy 8 a lot for some reason (which also had a strange twin narrative). I thought the book was at it's best when he was trying to work out what was happening to him...

Yes! My mind was blown when I read this. Here are some others:

"A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" by David Foster Wallace, pretty sure this book has changed how a generation writes. At least it convinced a generation they'll never be as good as DFW.

"Norwegian Wood" by Haruki Murakami, which I like to think of as a Japanese C.i.t.R.

G.E.B. - power through it, soldier!

"Making Certain it Goes On", by Richard Hugo. An instructional book on how to write poetry, or to basically do just about anything. I highly recommend it to all programmers.

I believe that the Strange Library (2014) is his latest book, but yes, Norwegian Wood or Kafka on the Shore would be a great entry point. Really, anything but 1Q84.

One thing to note is that Norwegian Wood is perhaps his most "normal" book. His other books have a distinct surrealist undertone that might be hit-or-miss to some readers (like how he mentions in the article).

> [...] he made it a rule never to touch a book by any author who had not been dead at least 30 years.

> "That's the only kind of book I can trust", he said.

> "It's not that I don't believe in contemporary literature," he added, "but I don't want to waste valuable time reading any book that has not had the baptism of time. Life is too short.

- Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood