Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Name: Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Brand: Naxos
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.67 (12 reviews)
Author: Haruki Murakami
ISBN: 9781843793809

Author: Haruki Murakami

Narrator: Adam Sims, andIan Porter

Unabridged: 14 hr

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Naxos

Published: 03/29/2010

Categories: Fiction, Literary Fiction

Synopsis

Information is everything in Hard-boiled Wonderland. A specialist encrypter is attacked by thugs with orders from an unknown source, is chased by invisible predators, and dates an insatiably hungry librarian who never puts on weight. In the End of the World a new arrival is learning his role as dream-reader. But there is something eerily disquieting about the changeless nature of the town and its fable-like inhabitants. Told in alternate chapters, the two stories converge and combine to create a novel that is surreal, beautiful, thrilling and extraordinary.

About Haruki Murakami

Born in Kobe in 1949, Haruki Murakami studied Greek drama before managing a jazz bar in Tokyo from 1974 to 1981. His third novel, A Wild Sheep Chase, earned the Noma Literary Award for New Writers and ended his career at the jazz bar. His next novel, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, won the prestigious Tanizaki Prize. In 1996, Murakami received the Yomiuri Literary Award for Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. In addition to being a prolific writer of novels and short stories, he is also known as a skillful translator of Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Carver, John Irving, Paul Theroux, and other American contemporary authors. His work has been translated into thirty-eight languages, and he has taught at Princeton and Tufts Universities.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Andrew on April 30, 2007

This is your brain (an egg). This is your brain on Murakami (an egg sprouting arms and legs and attempting to hump other eggs while doing the Electric Slide and attempting to save the world to a killer soundtrack). If you like Murakami, you'll like it, although it doesn't blend the two twisted sides......more

Goodreads review by Liong on October 09, 2024

Another wonderful story by Murakami. You may find reading and understanding Murakami's story difficult for the first time. The story of odd chapters is different from that of even chapters. Finally, the two stories are related in the end. Peculiar presentation and storytelling. I enjoyed reading his......more

Goodreads review by Baba on May 03, 2023

Two stories told in alternating chapters that converge to a degree as they progress. They explore concepts of consciousness, the subconscious and identity. Not one character is given an actual Name! A surreal, yet strangely mesmerising tale by Murakami. 7 out of 12, Three Stars. 2010 read......more