Book Haven discussion

hi all i'm looking forward to reading 1q84 with you all. being blind it is not always easy for me to get books in a accessable format but managed to get thisone

Ian McNamara

Ian, I hear you and I hope you get this message. I used to have a grandpa who was blind but that didn't stop him from allowing me to listen to his Talking Books or giving me Fig Newtons on occasion. I grew to love him for being Grandpa, and the blindness thing doesn't bother me at all. I hope you like 1Q84. I'm hoping to get it from the library BUT it may take a while--at least 105 people are ahead of me! OOOO the suspense is killing me! Anyway, that's my message and I leave with a very Merry Christmas to you and yours!

I've ordered IQ84 but it won't get to where I am until just before Christmas. Grrr!

BTW, I subscribe to BookDaily.com and get excerpts every day. When I read the short excerpt from IQ84, I was impressed with the concept, but not so much with the actual writing. But for this group, it's unlikely I would have ordered it. However, part of the reason for this group (for me, at least) is to force me to read outside my normal reading patterns.

I'm looking forward to sharing my impressions and discovering how others react to the same material I'm reading.

And to you as well. (And thanks especially for noticing my "impressinve list" tho' I prefer to be humble and allow other geniuses to share the limelight with me. That way I never forget who I am.

Has anyone started reading this yet? I started it a few days early (I'm such a cheater!) but I'm only about 6 chapters in. I don't really know what to think about it so far, except that every other chapter deals with this one character I find incredibly boring. I hope that picks up soon.

You're prob'ly luckier than most. I'm still waiting for my copy at the library, and there's still at least 95 people ahead of me, so the book must be more popular than I thought!

I got mine for the Kindle, so I didn't have to wait.

I put mine on reserve in November so it got her on the 30th. I am enjoying it so far although only 50 pages in. To be honest it being part of a group read is merely coincidence for me, it just happened to be my next read. :)

I just picked a copy up from the library and will try to start it soon.

Hi. I've just joined this group. Looking at the date I assumed that this group read was over, but looking at the posts here I guess not yet? Or maybe people are still waiting for the book to arrive? I have a copy on my kindle . Never read Murakami before though. Going to have a look to see if I can suggest a book or a group read one day. ;) (got so many new books now)

I just got my copy, only a couple of months behind XD Really gotta keep up with my group reads XD

Finally got the kindle edition from the library. I like the philosophical cabbie. I hope he come back. nit sure what to make of it yet, only two chapters. in, and this is my first Murakami.

Did anybody ever actually finish this?

I have made it through the first section (33% completion).

It's kind of like a really big and detailed episode of Seinfeld, isn't it? Nothing happens. Or rather, things happen and they have a sense of nothing to them. Even the relatively exciting things (like what Aomame does) have a sense of ... blah. Ho-hum-ness.

I was really excited in starting it ... the walk down the staircase, particularly, and what it portended ... and then ... pages and pages and pages of ordinary.

I also didn't know that it was 900+ pages ... it's a beast of nothing. I doubt that I will be able to finish it before the library yanks it back out of my kindle. :P

I have read parts one and two, so far. It is much more turgid that anything else he has written but worth it, although I am putting off reading part three until I know that I will the time to appreciate it. He has a strange style, which may be partly in the translation, of hiding the momentous and surreal within the day to day detail of an apparently ordinary lives.

Do you have any suggestions on a better book of his to start with?

Dance Dance Dance, Kafka on the Shore or The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle are all excellent. Expect recurrent musical themes and lots of cats (often talking).

I entered a promotional short story contest run by a bookshop when 1Q84 came out last year - I put the story in question into my book (it didn't win), but now that Murakami's book has been published I can see that my own effort was way wide of the mark!