The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

I have a bit of a queue going; I read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle based on suggestions from here, and it was definitely worth the investment. Next on my list is Graham Greene's The Comedians.

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.

Getting More - Stuart Diamond. I still think this is the best book on the art of negotiation. Getting Things Done - David Allen. If you have adult ADHD like me, and you haven't read this, it's the first system that's really worked for productivity for me. Man's Search for Meaning - Victor Frankl. Living Buddha, Living Christ - Thich Nhat Hanh. Cosmos - Carl Sagan. The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. LeGuin. The One who Walks Away from Omelas - U.K. LeGuin. Wild Seed - Octavia Butler. The Heike Monogatari - (tr. Helen Craig McCullough) “The sound of the Gion Shoja temple bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sala flowers reveals the truth that to flourish is to fall. The proud do not endure, like a passing dream on a night in spring; the mighty fall at last, to be no more than dust before the wind.” If you need a comparison. this is the Japanese historical equivalent of Game of Thrones combined with a bit of MacBeth. The rise and fall of two shogunate families, and an analysis of the tragic flaws of character that brought their fall about. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo. Small Gods - Terry Pratchett. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad.…

Anything by Haruki Murakami. Start with "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" and never look back. Supernatural and super good.

I had read zero books by April 2015. Have read the following since then. 1. 1984 by Orwell 2. Animal Farm by Orwell 3. 40 Rules of Love by Elif Shafak 4. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline 5. The Man in the high castle by Philip k Dic 6. Tuesdays with morrie by Mitch Albom 7. Broken Verses by Kamila Shamsie 8. The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell 9. Veronica Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho 10. The Little Prince by antoine saint exupery 11. A Monster calls by Patrick ness Books that I am currently reading very very slowly ( 1-3 chapters per week ) 1. The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking 2. The Wind Up Bird Chronicles by Murakami (I am really enjoying the slow reading here) 3. Zen and art of motorcycle by Robert Pirsig Edit: Formatting

I went of a bit of a Murakami bender after reading The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. While it's still my favorite of his works, Kafka on the Shore is pretty fantastic as well.

I liked 1Q84. I felt it could have been a bit shorter without much loss to the story though. 'The Wind Up Bird Chronicle' and 'Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World' remain my favorite Murakami novels.

Haruki Murakami: 1Q84 -- title's a nod to Orwellian dystopia; awesome mystery with a dash of sci-fi that takes place in a parallel universe sort of Tokyo; the English editon's 3 books in one so it's quite looong Wind Up Bird Chronicle -- another 3-books-in-one psychological thriller, but the plotline's really just a device for telling the story of the Soviet-Japan border clashes during WWII and the atrocities committed by both sides; I loved the story but it's long and really weird, even for Murakami Hardboiled Wonderland And The End Of The World -- really fun and imaginative book about a guy who can encrypt data by passing it through his subconsciousness, and ends up getting stuck there himself; I think this was the book that made Murakami famous in the US

Professionally, The Art of Project Management did the most for me. Privately, general-fiction-wise, The Wind-up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami did the most for me. Privately, SF-wise, three books by Kurt Vonnegut: Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-five and The Sirens of Titan

(I'm going to ignore the prohibition on "programming/technical books".) - GEB - SICP - anything by Paul Auster or Hermann Hesse - most Haruki Murakami, especially "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle" - Joan Didion, "Where I Was From" - Richard P. Gabriel, "Patterns of Software" - Durbin, Eddy, Krogh, and Mitchison, "Biological Sequence Analysis" - Italo Calvino, "if on a winter's night a traveller"