The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

By: Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin - translator

Narrated by: Rupert Degas

Brought to you by Penguin.

Toru Okada's cat has disappeared and this has unsettled his wife, who is herself growing more distant every day. Then there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls he has started receiving. As this compelling story unfolds, the tidy suburban realities of Okada's vague and blameless life, spent cooking, reading, listening to jazz and opera and drinking beer at the kitchen table, are turned inside out, and he embarks on a bizarre journey, guided (however obscurely) by a succession of characters, each with a tale to tell.

© Haruki Murakami 1994 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Critic reviews

Murakami writes of contemporary Japan, urban alienation and journeys of self-discovery, and in this book he combines recollections of the war with metaphysics, dreams and hallucinations into a powerful and impressionistic work

Deeply philosophical and teasingly perplexing, it is impossible to put down

Murakami weaves these textured layers of reality into a shot-silk garment of deceptive beauty

Critics have variously likened him to Raymond Carver, Raymond Chandler, Arthur C. Clarke, Don DeLillo, Philip K. Dick, Bret Easton Ellis and Thomas Pynchon - a roster so ill assorted as to suggest Murakami is in fact an original

Mesmerising, surreal, this really is the work of a true original

How does Murakami manage to make poetry while writing of contemporary life and emotions? I am weak-kneed with admiration

[A] mesmeric story

Visionary...a bold and generous book

The performance was immaculate

I loved reading this. As usual, it kept to the usual flow of a Murakami novel, something I can’t seem to get tired of.

Long, otherwise interesting

the drawback of 3D characters is length, this book did the thing we want usually, juicy details of everything. But that requires time, and also secondguessing if it was always neccessary. if you can, stick the book out, the twists and turns are gobsmacking!!! Performance was so good, who knew there were so many voices on one body...

the book is interesting overall. i learnt quite a bit about a war time id never knew much about.

Cant stand Mei’s voice

Mei’s voice was unbearable and there were too many distinct voices in general which distracted me. Other than that great book

Feels like I spent time in an alternate reality

A Book Club read for me, which explains why I was reading it, and why I managed to finish it. I didn't hate it, but it's a very long book, with some gruesome descriptions included, and even after reading it, I am not really sure what it was all about. Not really my thing.

Worst Voiceover Ever

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