THE AMBIDEXTROUS LIBRARIAN

NORWEGIAN WOOD (Haruki Murakami) Murakami is a strange reading experience.  If you like solid, fast-paced realism with a clear, satisfying ending - Murakami is probably not for you.  If you like something a little more gossamer and ethereal.  Something that floats around the edges of magical realism, or perhaps dips its toes lightly in a pond of peculiar every now and then - you will love Murakami. Having said that, Norwegian Wood has no magical realism in it at all (sorry about that), but it still embodies that floaty, misty, breathy (how many adjectives can I insert here?) mood of his writing.   Norwegian Wood is a tale of a boy and a girl making their way gradually into adulthood.  One tragic event from their past keeps them joined, yet also keeps them apart.  Set in the late 60's amidst the urban mass of Tokyo, Murakami still manages to take this landscape and puff wistful. lonely tendrils down it's back alleys and dormitories.  And yet the ...

The Strange Library (Haruki Murakami) It's been a while. And I gotta say, as a Librarian I seem to find little time to read books these days, which is sad and pathetic, but seems to be the lot of many of my Librarian friends!  It's a cycle of irony which we can't seem to escape.  What's worse is that I am constantly bombarded with books I want to read, and this just makes the whole situation even more depressing.  But enough excuses, I should make the time, and I am trying! One little book that popped up on my radar recently was Murakami's "The Strange Library".  Mainly because a) it is written by Murakami, who is one of my favourite authors, b) it had the word "Library" in the title, and c) the hard-cover was on special from Readings for $16.99.  SOLD! Little did I realise that this lovely wee tale is in fact a short story, bound in a beautifully illustrated (and lovely smelling - very important) pink hard-cover edition with a library ...