I haven't had a chance to read much lately, I've been busy writing, which is good I guess, but if you don't read you'll never be a very good writer.

I knew a good Murakami novel would make me drop what I was doing and start reading again,

I haven't had a chance to read much lately, I've been busy writing, which is good I guess, but if you don't read you'll never be a very good writer.

I knew a good Murakami novel would make me drop what I was doing and start reading again, so a couple weeks back I solicited the advice of friends, drank a few glasses of whiskey and hit Amazon.com (what's the point of the internet if not to shop drunk in your pajamas?) and came away with both Norwegian Wood and this one.

I started with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle because Mike said it was weird. And he's write about that. At times it's reasonably normal, but then something starts to go slightly awry in that magically strange way that only Murakami really knows how to pull off. And I don't by magical mean to imply some sort of magical realism, which this is most definitely not, but rather that world in which everything is just a bit more meaningful and a bit more "off" than the one we normally inhabit.

And this is the first time I've seen Murakami tackle actual history (here it's Japan's involvement in Manchuria just prior to WWII) and he handles it well, not romanticizing and not dry, proving that even the past can work its way into what I like to call A Murakami World where almost nothing is what you expect.

By turns quite beautiful and yet brutal as well, this is definitely one of his best. I think in the end I still prefer Kafka on the Shore, but The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a very very close second.

Fantastic portrait of the Balkans and beyond. Kaplan more or less does the exact route I've been wanting to do -- from eastern Europe through Turkey, Syria and several 'stans. He doesn't go all the way across Mongolia and China and Russia, but for at

Fantastic portrait of the Balkans and beyond. Kaplan more or less does the exact route I've been wanting to do -- from eastern Europe through Turkey, Syria and several 'stans. He doesn't go all the way across Mongolia and China and Russia, but for at least the beginning, his trip mirrors my planned trip.

Of course, Kaplan's a well-respected journalist and has all sort of contacts and connections that I lack, but that's part of what makes this a great read, it's not just a travel narrative, but an in-depth study of the entire region. Naturally a lot has changed in the past few years, but Kaplan points out most of the conflicts that we're dealing with today. Too bad no one in power seems to have read this book