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  <title><![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]></title>
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  <description><![CDATA[Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada.  He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife  (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.<p>  Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em> is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century.<p>  If it were possible to isolate one theme in <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em>, that theme would be responsibility. The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China keep rising to the surface like a repressed memory, and Toru Okada himself is compelled by events to take responsibility for his actions and struggle with his essentially passive nature. If Toru is supposed to be a Japanese Everyman, steeped as he is in Western popular culture and ignorant of the secret history of his own nation, this novel paints a bleak picture. Like the winding up of the titular bird, Murakami slowly twists the gossamer threads of his story into something of considerable weight. <em>--Simon Leake</em></p></p>]]></description>
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  <original_publication_year type="integer">1992</original_publication_year>
  <original_title>Nejimaki-dori kuronikuru</original_title>
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    <![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]>
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    <![CDATA[Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada.  He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife  (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.<p>  Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em> is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century.<p>  If it were possible to isolate one theme in <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em>, that theme would be responsibility. The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China keep rising to the surface like a repressed memory, and Toru Okada himself is compelled by events to take responsibility for his actions and struggle with his essentially passive nature. If Toru is supposed to be a Japanese Everyman, steeped as he is in Western popular culture and ignorant of the secret history of his own nation, this novel paints a bleak picture. Like the winding up of the titular bird, Murakami slowly twists the gossamer threads of his story into something of considerable weight. <em>--Simon Leake</em></p></p>]]>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[Anyone open to the odd.  Those that can handle mixed, random plots]]></recommended_for>
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  <read_at>Wed Apr 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009</read_at>
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    <body><![CDATA[<strong>WATER IS GOOD!</strong><br/> <br/><em><strong>You, the politician with the psychopath eyes on the T.V.!  I hate you!</strong></em><br/> <br/>Russian scheming<br/> <br/><em>Where the fuck is my cat?!!!  And why did I name him after you Mr. Psychopath EYES!</em><br/> <br/>War<br/>Blood<br/>Death<br/> <br/>Zoo animals?<br/> <br/><em>My...</em><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/50392970">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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      <review>
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    <![CDATA[Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada.  He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife  (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.<p>  Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em> is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century.<p>  If it were possible to isolate one theme in <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em>, that theme would be responsibility. The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China keep rising to the surface like a repressed memory, and Toru Okada himself is compelled by events to take responsibility for his actions and struggle with his essentially passive nature. If Toru is supposed to be a Japanese Everyman, steeped as he is in Western popular culture and ignorant of the secret history of his own nation, this novel paints a bleak picture. Like the winding up of the titular bird, Murakami slowly twists the gossamer threads of his story into something of considerable weight. <em>--Simon Leake</em></p></p>]]>
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    <rating>2</rating>
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  <read_at>Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007</read_at>
  <date_added>Thu Jul 05 15:14:45 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Dec 16 23:43:35 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Spoilers...<br/><br/>I enjoyed the first half tremendously. The bits of mystery stacking on top of poor Mr. Wind-Up Bird.  The cast of characters like no other.  The slip in and out of reality.  Then it left reality behind.  Once Nutmeg and Cinnamon hit the scene, my stress level rose and it never...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2748473">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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      <review>
  <id>16079009</id>
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    <name><![CDATA[Kelly]]></name>
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    <![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]>
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  <description>
    <![CDATA[3 books in one volume: The Thieving Magpie, Bird as Prophet, The Birdcatcher. This translation by Jay Rubin is in collaboration with the author.]]>
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    <rating>3</rating>
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  <date_updated>Mon Jul 14 06:35:54 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I absolutely adored the book upon starting out. It is exquisitely crafted, with each seemingly casual word chosen to illustrate the world into which we have entered. It is a lonely world full of half finished stories, abrupt departures, missed connections and deep silences. &quot;Poor Mr. Wind-Up Bi...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/16079009">more...</a>]]></body>
    
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      <review>
  <id>2167427</id>
    <user>
    <id>14102</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Erika]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[The United States]]></location>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]>
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  <average_rating>4.22</average_rating>
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    <![CDATA[Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada.  He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife  (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.<p>  Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em> is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century.<p>  If it were possible to isolate one theme in <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em>, that theme would be responsibility. The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China keep rising to the surface like a repressed memory, and Toru Okada himself is compelled by events to take responsibility for his actions and struggle with his essentially passive nature. If Toru is supposed to be a Japanese Everyman, steeped as he is in Western popular culture and ignorant of the secret history of his own nation, this novel paints a bleak picture. Like the winding up of the titular bird, Murakami slowly twists the gossamer threads of his story into something of considerable weight. <em>--Simon Leake</em></p></p>]]>
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    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>12</votes>
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  <read_at>Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007</read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Jun 20 10:34:55 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Dec 16 22:06:37 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[The book jacket recommends The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle as &quot;dreamlike and compelling&quot; which I initially understood as cliche review talk. But several hundreds of pages in, I realized I really did felt compelled to read it, compelled during work, compelled on the subway, compelled during any ...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2167427">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2167427]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2167427]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>24941126</id>
    <user>
    <id>543625</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Valerie]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Madison, WI]]></location>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]>
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  <average_rating>4.22</average_rating>
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    <![CDATA[Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada.  He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife  (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.<p>  Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em> is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century.<p>  If it were possible to isolate one theme in <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em>, that theme would be responsibility. The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China keep rising to the surface like a repressed memory, and Toru Okada himself is compelled by events to take responsibility for his actions and struggle with his essentially passive nature. If Toru is supposed to be a Japanese Everyman, steeped as he is in Western popular culture and ignorant of the secret history of his own nation, this novel paints a bleak picture. Like the winding up of the titular bird, Murakami slowly twists the gossamer threads of his story into something of considerable weight. <em>--Simon Leake</em></p></p>]]>
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    <rating>3</rating>
  <votes>15</votes>
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  <read_at>Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Thu Jun 19 18:06:26 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Aug 13 19:16:30 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[When I tried to write a review of this book, it came out sounding like this:<br/><br/>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle<em> is a beautifully written, complexly woven book that takes us into the life of Toru Okada, who quit his ordinary job and seems to be waiting to see where his life will take him next. How...</em><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/24941126">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/24941126]]></url>
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</review>
      <review>
  <id>6298649</id>
    <user>
    <id>292072</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Dave]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Buffalo, NY]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/292072-dave]]></link>
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    <![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]>
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    <![CDATA[Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada.  He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife  (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.<p>  Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em> is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century.<p>  If it were possible to isolate one theme in <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em>, that theme would be responsibility. The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China keep rising to the surface like a repressed memory, and Toru Okada himself is compelled by events to take responsibility for his actions and struggle with his essentially passive nature. If Toru is supposed to be a Japanese Everyman, steeped as he is in Western popular culture and ignorant of the secret history of his own nation, this novel paints a bleak picture. Like the winding up of the titular bird, Murakami slowly twists the gossamer threads of his story into something of considerable weight. <em>--Simon Leake</em></p></p>]]>
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    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>18</votes>
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  <read_at>Tue Sep 18 14:21:14 -0700 2007</read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Sep 16 18:27:44 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Tue Sep 18 14:20:07 -0700 2007</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[So before long, you find yourself 340 pages into this book, and you have no idea what's happening.. Rather, you understand all you have read to this point, but still can't determine the direction Murakami is taking you in.  <br/><br/>Still, the book is compelling.  You can't seem to put it down.  ...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6298649">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6298649]]></url>
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</review>
      <review>
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    <name><![CDATA[Imogen]]></name>
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    <![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]>
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  <average_rating>4.23</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>15481</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[3 books in one volume: The Thieving Magpie, Bird as Prophet, The Birdcatcher. This translation by Jay Rubin is in collaboration with the author.]]>
  </description>
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    <rating>1</rating>
  <votes>15</votes>
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  <read_at>Sat Dec 06 00:00:00 -0800 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Sat Dec 06 12:33:06 -0800 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sat Dec 06 19:08:11 -0800 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Y'know what? I give up. I'm never going to finish this. I don't think Murakami's a hack, and I know that everybody except me thinks he's a genius, and I also understand- or, more specifically, have had it angrily explained to me- that my dislike for Murakami has to do with me being an American assho...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/39456993">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/39456993]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/39456993]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>23368867</id>
    <user>
    <id>811687</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Sandi]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Fountain Valley, CA]]></location>
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  <isbn>0679775439</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780679775430</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">524</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173405965m/284066.jpg</image_url>
  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/284066.The_Wind_Up_Bird_Chronicle</link>
  <average_rating>4.22</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>3639</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada.  He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife  (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.<p>  Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em> is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century.<p>  If it were possible to isolate one theme in <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em>, that theme would be responsibility. The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China keep rising to the surface like a repressed memory, and Toru Okada himself is compelled by events to take responsibility for his actions and struggle with his essentially passive nature. If Toru is supposed to be a Japanese Everyman, steeped as he is in Western popular culture and ignorant of the secret history of his own nation, this novel paints a bleak picture. Like the winding up of the titular bird, Murakami slowly twists the gossamer threads of his story into something of considerable weight. <em>--Simon Leake</em></p></p>]]>
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    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>11</votes>
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  <read_at>Wed Aug 06 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Sat May 31 07:11:16 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Aug 06 16:49:19 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I’ve heard so much hyperbole about this book and this author that I was expecting it to be mediocre.  However, “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle” by Haruki Murakami actually lived up to the praise that’s been heaped upon it.  It absolutely falls into the category of Literature with a capital “L...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/23368867">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/23368867]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/23368867]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>43366875</id>
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    <id>1727205</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Megha]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[India]]></location>
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  <text_reviews_count type="integer">524</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173405965m/284066.jpg</image_url>
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  <average_rating>4.22</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>3639</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada.  He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife  (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.<p>  Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em> is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century.<p>  If it were possible to isolate one theme in <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em>, that theme would be responsibility. The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China keep rising to the surface like a repressed memory, and Toru Okada himself is compelled by events to take responsibility for his actions and struggle with his essentially passive nature. If Toru is supposed to be a Japanese Everyman, steeped as he is in Western popular culture and ignorant of the secret history of his own nation, this novel paints a bleak picture. Like the winding up of the titular bird, Murakami slowly twists the gossamer threads of his story into something of considerable weight. <em>--Simon Leake</em></p></p>]]>
  </description>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>15</votes>
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  <read_at></read_at>
  <date_added>Sat Jan 17 11:38:56 -0800 2009</date_added>
  <date_updated>Tue May 05 21:01:28 -0700 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[A part of me wishes that I hadn't read it yet so that I could still read it for the first time and be mesmerized.<br/><br/>It is quiet difficult for me to describe what this book was like. It is surreal and psychedelic. It is mysterious, something out of this world. You just need to stop questioni...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/43366875">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/43366875]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/43366875]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>2964627</id>
    <user>
    <id>185835</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Yulia]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[New York, NY]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/185835-yulia]]></link>
    <image_url><![CDATA[http://photo.goodreads.com/users/1247934049p3/185835.jpg]]></image_url>
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  <id type="integer">284066</id>
  <isbn>0679775439</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780679775430</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">524</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173405965m/284066.jpg</image_url>
  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/284066.The_Wind_Up_Bird_Chronicle</link>
  <average_rating>4.22</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>3639</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada.  He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife  (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.<p>  Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em> is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century.<p>  If it were possible to isolate one theme in <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em>, that theme would be responsibility. The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China keep rising to the surface like a repressed memory, and Toru Okada himself is compelled by events to take responsibility for his actions and struggle with his essentially passive nature. If Toru is supposed to be a Japanese Everyman, steeped as he is in Western popular culture and ignorant of the secret history of his own nation, this novel paints a bleak picture. Like the winding up of the titular bird, Murakami slowly twists the gossamer threads of his story into something of considerable weight. <em>--Simon Leake</em></p></p>]]>
  </description>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>6</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Tue Sep 23 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Jul 11 20:50:47 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu Dec 17 00:19:36 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[From my comments on Constant Reader:<br/><br/>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was actually written while Murakami was a writer-in-residence at Harvard, where his translator also worked conveniently. According to an interview with Jay Rubin, as soon as Murakami would finish a section, he would give it t...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2964627">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2964627]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2964627]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>5277592</id>
    <user>
    <id>36341</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Chris]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[New York, NY]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/36341-chris]]></link>
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  <text_reviews_count type="integer">1917</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166468418m/11275.jpg</image_url>
  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11275.The_Wind_Up_Bird_Chronicle</link>
  <average_rating>4.23</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>15481</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[3 books in one volume: The Thieving Magpie, Bird as Prophet, The Birdcatcher. This translation by Jay Rubin is in collaboration with the author.]]>
  </description>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>6</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
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  <read_at></read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Aug 29 04:07:33 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu Dec 17 07:36:12 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[This book is impossible to describe, except in perhaps in some abstract generalities: unsettlingly surreal, disturbingly violent, fantastically illogical.  One part Kafka, two parts David Lynch's &quot;Lost Highway,&quot; this book twists and turns with the surreal logic of a nightmare, probing the ...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5277592">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5277592]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5277592]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>2600459</id>
    <user>
    <id>155411</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Michael]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Denver, CO]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/155411-michael]]></link>
    <image_url><![CDATA[http://photo.goodreads.com/users/1249525384p3/155411.jpg]]></image_url>
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    <book>
  <id type="integer">284066</id>
  <isbn>0679775439</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780679775430</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">524</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173405965m/284066.jpg</image_url>
  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/284066.The_Wind_Up_Bird_Chronicle</link>
  <average_rating>4.22</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>3639</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada.  He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife  (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.<p>  Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em> is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century.<p>  If it were possible to isolate one theme in <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em>, that theme would be responsibility. The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China keep rising to the surface like a repressed memory, and Toru Okada himself is compelled by events to take responsibility for his actions and struggle with his essentially passive nature. If Toru is supposed to be a Japanese Everyman, steeped as he is in Western popular culture and ignorant of the secret history of his own nation, this novel paints a bleak picture. Like the winding up of the titular bird, Murakami slowly twists the gossamer threads of his story into something of considerable weight. <em>--Simon Leake</em></p></p>]]>
  </description>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>6</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
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  <read_at>Mon May 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Sun Jul 01 14:52:22 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Wed Dec 16 23:18:49 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I don't have the faintest idea how to review this book properly, a fact that will surely deny me points on GR. Inevitably, I want to compare it to <em>Kafka on the Shore</em>, which I found more affecting but equally well-written. The story is, or should have been, one great cathartic journey; the ending was...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2600459">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2600459]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2600459]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>29481112</id>
    <user>
    <id>1033675</id>
    <name><![CDATA[tadpole]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Cape Girardeau, MO]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1033675-tadpole]]></link>
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  <id type="integer">11275</id>
  <isbn>0965341984</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780965341981</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">1917</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166468418m/11275.jpg</image_url>
  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11275.The_Wind_Up_Bird_Chronicle</link>
  <average_rating>4.23</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>15481</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[3 books in one volume: The Thieving Magpie, Bird as Prophet, The Birdcatcher. This translation by Jay Rubin is in collaboration with the author.]]>
  </description>
</book>

    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>5</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Sat Aug 23 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Aug 06 20:31:01 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sat Aug 23 23:25:07 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Throughout reading this book, I kept coming back to an idea that I have been toying with for awhile. Please note that the experimental group here consists mainly of my wife and myself and a few random observations, so massive sampling error may be afoot. I'm also sure that I am not the originator of...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/29481112">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/29481112]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/29481112]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>19885047</id>
    <user>
    <id>160319</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Seth]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Rancho Santa Margarita, CA]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/160319-seth-hahne]]></link>
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  <isbn>0965341984</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780965341981</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">1917</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166468418m/11275.jpg</image_url>
  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11275.The_Wind_Up_Bird_Chronicle</link>
  <average_rating>4.23</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>15481</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[3 books in one volume: The Thieving Magpie, Bird as Prophet, The Birdcatcher. This translation by Jay Rubin is in collaboration with the author.]]>
  </description>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>11</votes>
  <spoiler_flag>false</spoiler_flag>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[anyone smarter than a bag of hammers]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Thu Apr 10 13:49:48 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu Apr 10 15:41:37 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/search/search?q=Murakami" title="Murakami">Murakami</a>'s <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em> is actually probably the best novel I've read in a long time. Granted, many of the novels I've read over the last two years have not been spectacular. There was <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/search/search?q=The Lovely Bones" title="The Lovely Bones">The Lovely Bones</a>. And then <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/search/search?q=The Ass and the Angel" title="The Ass and the Angel">The Ass and the Angel</a>. And then <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/search/search?q=His Dark Materials" title="His Dark Materials">His Dark Materials</a>. And others, none of wh...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/19885047">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/19885047]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/19885047]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>11888552</id>
    <user>
    <id>343940</id>
    <name><![CDATA[B]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Somerville, MA]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/343940-b]]></link>
    <image_url><![CDATA[http://photo.goodreads.com/users/1189441876p3/343940.jpg]]></image_url>
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  <isbn>0965341984</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780965341981</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">1917</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166468418m/11275.jpg</image_url>
  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11275.The_Wind_Up_Bird_Chronicle</link>
  <average_rating>4.23</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>15481</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[3 books in one volume: The Thieving Magpie, Bird as Prophet, The Birdcatcher. This translation by Jay Rubin is in collaboration with the author.]]>
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    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>8</votes>
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  <read_at>Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Mon Jan 07 11:08:39 -0800 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Mon Jan 07 11:19:14 -0800 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[This novel took me for freaking ever to read.  I think I started it in August?  Yeah.  I just finished it.  Mostly because much of the book is about dreams, I think.  It made me sleepy.  Not that it was poorly written, not at all.  The dreams were just so mysterious and sensual that it made me want ...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11888552">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11888552]]></url>
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      <review>
  <id>6101648</id>
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    <name><![CDATA[August]]></name>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166468418m/11275.jpg</image_url>
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  <average_rating>4.23</average_rating>
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  <description>
    <![CDATA[3 books in one volume: The Thieving Magpie, Bird as Prophet, The Birdcatcher. This translation by Jay Rubin is in collaboration with the author.]]>
  </description>
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    <rating>4</rating>
  <votes>5</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[Lovers, painters, those who yearn to get lost in moonlight or a water well.]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005</read_at>
  <date_added>Wed Sep 12 10:46:42 -0700 2007</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu Dec 17 10:15:15 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I took this book on a loner road trip with me through the Desert Southwest. I read it going through Southern Nevada, New Mexico, and Arizona. This was the perfect landscape for me to be with this book.<br/><br/>I'm not going to be able to begin describing details of the book itself. It is too full...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6101648">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6101648]]></url>
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      <review>
  <id>22743679</id>
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    <name><![CDATA[Party]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Byron, GA]]></location>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]>
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  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166468418m/11275.jpg</image_url>
  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11275.The_Wind_Up_Bird_Chronicle</link>
  <average_rating>4.23</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>15481</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[3 books in one volume: The Thieving Magpie, Bird as Prophet, The Birdcatcher. This translation by Jay Rubin is in collaboration with the author.]]>
  </description>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>9</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[People asleep, but the dream's ending. People coming out of the well.]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[Thom Yorke.]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at></read_at>
  <date_added>Thu May 22 07:25:59 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Thu May 22 07:50:18 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Prior to reading this book I had fallen down in my regular reading. Where I was once reading at least one, but usually more books a week, I was reading a book maybe every 7 or 8 months and dreadfully slowly. Concurrent to the start of me reading this, I had just gone through a break up and things ju...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/22743679">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/22743679]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/22743679]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>17170224</id>
    <user>
    <id>966475</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Sally ]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Fort Collins, CO]]></location>
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  <id type="integer">284066</id>
  <isbn>0679775439</isbn>
  <isbn13>9780679775430</isbn13>
  <text_reviews_count type="integer">524</text_reviews_count>
  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173405965m/284066.jpg</image_url>
  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/284066.The_Wind_Up_Bird_Chronicle</link>
  <average_rating>4.22</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>3639</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada.  He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife  (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.<p>  Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em> is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century.<p>  If it were possible to isolate one theme in <em>The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle</em>, that theme would be responsibility. The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China keep rising to the surface like a repressed memory, and Toru Okada himself is compelled by events to take responsibility for his actions and struggle with his essentially passive nature. If Toru is supposed to be a Japanese Everyman, steeped as he is in Western popular culture and ignorant of the secret history of his own nation, this novel paints a bleak picture. Like the winding up of the titular bird, Murakami slowly twists the gossamer threads of his story into something of considerable weight. <em>--Simon Leake</em></p></p>]]>
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    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>5</votes>
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  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Sun Jan 11 00:00:00 -0800 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Thu Mar 06 11:07:45 -0800 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sun Jan 11 16:08:24 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[I remember purchasing this book in about 2004.  I didn't remember that I'd started reading it, but here it is, I had.  <br/>Passages are vaguely familiar, but in the nicest, misty dream sort of way possible.  <br/><br/>Here is why I love Murakami:  The passage on ironing shirts put me in the mood...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/17170224">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/17170224]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/17170224]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>34503941</id>
    <user>
    <id>436793</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Julie]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Eureka, CA]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/436793-julie]]></link>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]>
  </title>
  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166468418m/11275.jpg</image_url>
  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11275.The_Wind_Up_Bird_Chronicle</link>
  <average_rating>4.23</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>15481</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[3 books in one volume: The Thieving Magpie, Bird as Prophet, The Birdcatcher. This translation by Jay Rubin is in collaboration with the author.]]>
  </description>
</book>

    <rating>5</rating>
  <votes>4</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
  <recommended_by><![CDATA[]]></recommended_by>
  <read_at>Fri Feb 27 00:00:00 -0800 2009</read_at>
  <date_added>Sat Oct 04 08:24:50 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Fri Feb 27 19:22:58 -0800 2009</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[Uh,  Wow.<br/><br/>This book is...<br/>Well it is really hard to explain what this book is like.<br/>I have compared it to a David Lynch movie, but it's not exactly like that really-- it's just that there is a sense of strangeness like you are being told a story out of order and you have to put ...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/34503941">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/34503941]]></url>
  <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/34503941]]></link>
</review>
      <review>
  <id>29890954</id>
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    <id>933518</id>
    <name><![CDATA[Jason]]></name>
    <location><![CDATA[Chandler, AZ]]></location>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/933518-jason]]></link>
    <image_url><![CDATA[http://photo.goodreads.com/users/1237138855p3/933518.jpg]]></image_url>
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  <title>
    <![CDATA[The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle]]>
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  <image_url>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166468418m/11275.jpg</image_url>
  <link>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11275.The_Wind_Up_Bird_Chronicle</link>
  <average_rating>4.23</average_rating>
  <ratings_count>15481</ratings_count>
  <description>
    <![CDATA[3 books in one volume: The Thieving Magpie, Bird as Prophet, The Birdcatcher. This translation by Jay Rubin is in collaboration with the author.]]>
  </description>
</book>

    <rating>2</rating>
  <votes>3</votes>
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  <recommended_for><![CDATA[]]></recommended_for>
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  <read_at>Sat Aug 23 23:30:00 -0700 2008</read_at>
  <date_added>Mon Aug 11 17:29:39 -0700 2008</date_added>
  <date_updated>Sat Aug 23 23:30:00 -0700 2008</date_updated>
  <read_count></read_count>
    <body><![CDATA[this book is VERY weird...<br/><br/>one thing that's occurred to me is the theme of the incertitude of accurate communication between human beings...<br/>the telephone becomes a major symbol here...<br/>at the time in which the novel is set, the early 80's, the telephone represented an insoluble...<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/29890954">more...</a>]]></body>
    
  <url><![CDATA[http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/29890954]]></url>
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