17-yr-old book listed as "first published July 3rd 2012"

[Jim]

When I sorted one of my bookshelves today, I noticed that "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" was listed as being published on July 3, 2012.

At first, I thought I had selected the "date pub (ed.)" option, instead of the "date pub" option, but I hadn't.

It appears that the paperback edition that came out on that date (ISBN13: 9780965341981) is listed with that date as its "date pub", while its "date pub (ed.)" is listed as "unknown".

This book was first published in Japanese in 1994 or 1995, and the official translations into English (both American and British) were first published in 1997.

Shouldn't all editions have the same "date pub" date, if that date is meant to represent the first published date?

For comparison, when I look at the listings for the Pevear and Volokhonsky translations of the three Dostoyevsky books on my shelf, each of those has its "date pub" set to a year in the 19th century.

I would argue that the Murakami books should have its "date pub" dates set to the dates that the books were originally published in Japanese. At the very least, each book could be set to the publication date of the first official translation into the language to which the edition in question is translated.

Aha (I should have thought of this earlier)... I just took a peek at the Murakami book I added this weekend: "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World". It's "date pub" is listed as 1985, and that's the year of that book's original publication in Japanese. Also, on my "read" shelf, "A Wild Sheep Chase" is listed with "date pub" of 1982, which is its original publication date in Japanese, too.

Anyway, more info than you needed, but I figured providing this extra info may save someone the time to look it up themselves.

Thanks

Jim

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Corrected date to 1995.