Recommendations based on "Blood on the Tracks 7"

Kafka on the Shore follows the fortunes of two remarkable characters. Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy. The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down. Their parallel odysseys are enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerising dramas. Cats converse with people; fish tumble from the sky; a ghostlike pimp deploys a Hegel-spouting girl of the night; a forest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since WWII. There is a savage killing, but the identity of both victim and killer is a riddle. Murakami's novel is at once a classic quest, but it is also a bold exploration of mythic and contemporary taboos, of patricide, of mother-love, of sister-love. Above all it is an entertainment of a very high order.

For fans of Shōgun: The best stories by the father of the Japanese short story—including the two that inspired Kurosawa's classic samurai film about the subjectivity of truth—featuringan introduction by Haruki MurakamiRyünosuke Akutagawa is one of Japan's foremost stylists—a modernist master whose short stories are marked by highly original imagery, cynicism, beauty and wild humour. "Rashömon"and "In a Bamboo Grove" inspired Kurosawa's magnificent film and depict a past in which morality is turned upside down, while tales such as "The Nose," "O-Gin" and "Loyalty" paint a rich and imaginative picture of a medieval Japan peopled by Shoguns and priests, vagrants and peasants. And in later works such as "Death Register," "The Life of a Stupid Man," and "Spinning Gears," Akutagawa drew from his own life to devastating effect, revealing his intense melancholy and terror of madness in exquisitely moving impressionistic stories.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Yasuko hanaoka accidentally kills her ex-husband, when circumstances rose to an unendurable level of ghastly behaviour from him. What follows is an elongated and witty brain-game between the investigator and her accomplice, ishigami, who aided yasuko in covering up the murder. The devotion of suspect x is the story about an ingenious plotter, and clever dr manabu yukawa, who helps in solving the case. Yasuko hanaoka works in a restaurant. She is divorced, and is a single mother to misato. Her ex-husband, togashi, was an abusive man, stalking and extorting money from her. With similar intentions, he showed up at yasuko’s home, this time threatening to kill her and her daughter if she refused to lend him money. What started from denial, reached to a heated argument, and within a short span of time, turned to a nasty fight. In the spur of the moment, yasuko killed togashi. Hearing the commotion in their apartment, tetsuya ishigami came into the picture. Ishigami was a middle-aged, singl

The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon is a fascinating, detailed account of Japanese court life in the eleventh century. Written by a lady of the court at the height of Heian culture, this book enthralls with its lively gossip, witty observations, and subtle impressions. Lady Shonagon was an erstwhile rival of Lady Murasaki, whose novel, The Tale of Genji, fictionalized the elite world Lady Shonagon so eloquently relates. Featuring reflections on royal and religious ceremonies, nature, conversation, poetry, and many other subjects, The Pillow Book is an intimate look at the experiences and outlook of the Heian upper class, further enriched by Ivan Morris's extensive notes and critical contextualization.

Dance Dance Dance—a follow-up to A Wild Sheep Chase—is a tense, poignant, and often hilarious ride through Murakami’s Japan, a place where everything that is not up for sale is up for grabs.As Murakami’s nameless protagonist searches for a mysteriously vanished girlfriend, he is plunged into a wind tunnel of sexual violence and metaphysical dread. In this propulsive novel, featuring a shabby but oracular Sheep Man, one of the most idiosyncratically brilliant writers at work today fuses together science fiction, the hardboiled thriller, and white-hot satire.

“Soseki is the representative modern Japanese novelist, a figure of truly national stature.”—Haruki MurakamiThe father of modern Japanese literature's best-loved novel, in its first new English translation in half a centuryNo collection of Japanese literature is complete without Natsume Soseki's Kokoro, his most famous novel and the last he completed before his death. Published here in the first new translation in more than fifty years, Kokoro—meaning "heart"—is the story of a subtle and poignant friendship between two unnamed characters, a young man and an enigmatic elder whom he calls "Sensei." Haunted by tragic secrets that have cast a long shadow over his life, Sensei slowly opens up to his young disciple, confessing indiscretions from his own student days that have left him reeling with guilt, and revealing, in the seemingly unbridgeable chasm between his moral anguish and his student's struggle to understand it, the profound cultural shift from one generation to the next that characterized Japan in the early twentieth century.

What if you woke up one morning, and everything changed?It's one week before Christmas Eve, and Haruhi and the S.O.S. Brigade (a club for her high school's strangest and most extraordinary students) are gearing up for holiday festivities. But just before the fun kicks off, Kyon, the only 'normal' member, wakes up in a weird alternate dimension, one where Haruhi attends another school entirely, Nagato the time traveling robot is just an ordinary human, and Mikuru (the cute girl of Kyon's dreams) doesn't even recognize him-in other words, S.O.S. Brigade never existed.The only clue Kyon can find is a bookmark left by the robot version of Nagato, which leads him on a quest back in time, where he interacts with the storyline from 'Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody', a short story from the previous Haruhi book, The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya. This fun and quirky holiday tale is reminiscent of A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life

'It was with awe That I beheld Fresh leaves, green leaves, Bright in the sun' In his perfectly crafted haiku poems, Basho described the natural world with great simplicity and delicacy of feeling. When he composed The Narrow Road to the Deep North, he was an ardent student of Zen Buddhism, setting off on a series of travels designed to strip away the trappings of the material world and bring spiritual enlightenment. He wrote of the seasons changin, of the smells of the rain, the brightness of the moon, and beauty of the waterfall, through which he sense mysteries of the universe. There’s seventeenth-century travel writing not only chronicle Basho's perilous journeys through Japan, but they also capture his vision of eternity in the transient world around him. In his lucid translation Nobuyuki Yuasa captures the Lyrical qualities of Basho's poetry and prose by using the natural rhythms and language of the contemporary speech. IN his introduction, he examines the development of the haibun style in which poetry and prose stand side by side. this edition also includes maps and notes on the texts. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

A tetralogy containing "Spring Snow", a love story, "Runaway Horses", with a protagonist a right-wing terrorist, "The Temple of Dawn", where a Thai princess is mystically linked with the heroes of the preceding works and, written under the shadow of the author's death, "The Decay of the Angel".