The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Rupert Degas
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Written by:
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Haruki Murakami
About this listen
A "dreamlike and compelling” tour de force (Chicago Tribune)—an astonishingly imaginative detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets from Japan’s forgotten campaign in Manchuria during World War II.
In a Tokyo suburb, a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife’s missing cat—and then for his wife as well—in a netherworld beneath the city’s placid surface. As these searches intersect, he encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists. Gripping, prophetic, and suffused with comedy and menace, this is one of Haruki Murakami’s most acclaimed and beloved novels.
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Born in 1951 in an affluent Tokyo suburb, Hajime - beginning in Japanese - has arrived at middle age wanting for almost nothing. The postwar years have brought him a fine marriage, two daughters, and an enviable career as the proprietor of two jazz clubs. Yet a nagging sense of inauthenticity about his success threatens Hajime's happiness. And a boyhood memory of a wise, lonely girl named Shimamoto clouds his heart.
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Such a disappointment
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In this engaging book, the internationally best-selling author and famously private writer Haruki Murakami shares with listeners his thoughts on the role of the novel in our society; his own origins as a writer; and his musings on the sparks of creativity that inspire other writers, artists, and musicians.
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Great for writers
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Sputnik Sweetheart
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Performance
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K is madly in love with his best friend, Sumire, but her devotion to a writerly life precludes her from any personal commitments. At least, that is, until she meets an older woman to whom she finds herself irresistibly drawn. When Sumire disappears from an island off the coast of Greece, K is solicited to join the search party—and finds himself drawn back into her world and beset by ominous visions. Subtle and haunting, Sputnik Sweetheart is a profound meditation on human longing.
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The Elephant Vanishes
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
With the same deadpan mania and genius for dislocation that he brought to his internationally acclaimed novels A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami makes this collection of stories a determined assault on the normal. A man sees his favorite elephant vanish into thin air; a newlywed couple suffers attacks of hunger that drive them to hold up a McDonald's in the middle of the night; and a young woman discovers that she has become irresistible to a little green monster who burrows up through her backyard.
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Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The new novel - a book that sold more than a million copies the first week it went on sale in Japan - from the internationally acclaimed author, his first since IQ84. Here he gives us the remarkable story of Tsukuru Tazaki, a young man haunted by a great loss; of dreams and nightmares that have unintended consequences for the world around us; and of a journey into the past that is necessary to mend the present. It is a story of love, friendship, and heartbreak for the ages.
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Another narrator is much needed!!!
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After Dark
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Here is a short, sleek novel of encounters, set in Tokyo during the witching hours between midnight and dawn, and every bit as gripping as Haruki Murakami's masterworks The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore. At its center are two sisters: Eri, a fashion model slumbering her way into oblivion, and Mari, a young student soon led from solitary reading at an anonymous Denny's toward people whose lives are radically different from her own.
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Kitchen
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- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Mikage is an orphan raised by her grandmother, who has passed away. Grieving, Mikage is taken in by her friend, Yoichi, and his mother (who is really his cross-dressing father), Eriko. As the three of them form an improvised family that soon weathers its own tragic losses, Yoshimoto spins a lovely, evocative tale with the kitchen and the comforts of home at its heart.
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First Person Singular
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
From the internationally acclaimed Haruki Murakami comes a mind-bending new collection of short stories, all touching beautifully on love and solitude, childhood and memory...all with a signature Murakami twist. The eight stories in this new book are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator. From memories of youth, meditations on music, and an ardent love of baseball, to dreamlike scenarios and invented jazz albums, together these stories challenge the boundaries between our minds and the exterior world.
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Underground
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On a clear spring day in 1995, five members of a religious cult unleashed poison gas on the Tokyo subway system. In attempt to discover why, Haruki Murakmi talks to the people who lived through the catastrophe, and in so doing lays bare the Japanese psyche. As he discerns the fundamental issues that led to the attack, Murakami paints a clear vision of an event that could occur anytime, anywhere.
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Insightful look at a tragic incident
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Written by: Haruki Murakami
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Before the Coffee Gets Cold: A Toshikazu Kawaguchi Book Set
- Written by: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
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- Unabridged
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What would you do if you could travel back in time? Discover the internationally bestselling novels of Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, now a worldwide phenomenon and BookTok sensation, in this special new book set. Step inside Tokyo’s whimsical Café Funiculi Funicula and travel back in time with a cast of unforgettable characters.
Written by: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
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Men Without Women
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- Written by: Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel - translator, Ted Goossen - translator
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are lovesick doctors, students, ex-boyfriends, actors, bartenders, and even Kafka’s Gregor Samsa, brought together to tell stories that speak to us all. In Men Without Women, Murakami has crafted another contemporary classic, marked by the same wry humor and pathos that have defined his entire body of work.
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Loved it!
- By Nuria on 2018-03-20
Written by: Haruki Murakami, and others
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Poor Things
- Written by: Alasdair Gray
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- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Godwin Baxter's scientific ambition to create the perfect companion is realized when he finds the drowned body of the beautiful Bella, who he brings back to life in a Frankenstein-esque feat. But his dream is thwarted by Dr. Archibald McCandless's jealous love for his creation... But what does Bella think?
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Brilliant
- By Eugenia Pavlakos on 2023-10-29
Written by: Alasdair Gray
What the critics say
"Dreamlike and compelling.... Murakami is a genius." (Chicago Tribune)
“Mesmerizing.... Murakami’s most ambitious attempt yet to stuff all of modern Japan into a single fictional edifice.” (The Washington Post Book World)
“A significant advance in Murakami’s art ... a bold and generous book.” (The New York Times Book Review)
What listeners say about The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Performance
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- Zed G.
- 2019-03-24
Performance ruined it for me
Regret so much my decision to persist through this narrative torture... ‘Acting’, obnoxious voicing of female characters... Murakami did not deserve this. Rupert.... never again
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- Amazon Customer
- 2018-09-19
Haruki is Great
A while back I read 1Q84, and was intrigued, so I decided to see if the quality of the writing was still good in his early career. It definitely is. I particularly enjoy the narration in this recording. The VO is distinct and I think adds a lot to each of the characters voice lines. I would recommend for anyone interested in Japanese literature. #Audible1
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- iPちゃん
- 2019-10-02
One woman narrator more would be better
I don't like he plays the women’s voice, especially the little girl’s. That makes me feel wired all the time.
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- Anonymous User
- 2022-04-08
Mixed feelings
I am not sure what to think about this book. Some of the stories inside were extremely powerful and interesting. Some seamed weird. I might just not be able to see the bigger picture. I definitely learnt some stuff from it.
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- Owen Willis
- 2020-04-03
My first Murakami
My first Murakami did not disappoint. Thank you Patti Smith. Not my usual literary genre but it was engaging, if at times disturbing. Fortunately funny too. Enjoyed the narration— especially Okada and May Kisahara.
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- Cal
- 2024-06-15
Voice Actor takes you out of it
The voice Actor makes some pretty bold choices in character voices. The voices for basically every female character are extremely over the top and lack the gravity of other murakami works. Great novel, but probably best enjoyed in a physical book.
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- Harley
- 2022-09-18
It's good. Read it.
I've read several Murakami books, but not all yet. So far, this is definitely my favorite. Highly recommend. Interesting and weird as usual. The narrator is bad at female voices, but it's not a big deal - kind of funny.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Timothy, Toronto, ON.
- 2024-01-12
Many story lines that come together. May Kasahara’s voice is fine!
First of all a comment on the narrator’s voicing of May Kasahara’s. Her voice is strange but so is May. She’s an irreverent 17 year old, who asks lots of annoying questions and has hair brained ideas. She’d flakey but endearing. It took me awhile to get used to her voice, but as her personality becomes familiar, the tone of her voice seems exactly right for her character. Now for the story. Like most of Murakami’s work, the story develops through multiple story lines that seem unrelated at first. Gradually, the connections emerge and everything begins to make sense, sort of. There isn’t’ enough space here to map out the story but it ‘s heartbreaking, funny, historically complex, shockingly violent and somewhat erotic. As in many of Murakami’s novels his female characters are very striking and interesting. He’s clearly fond of women and gives them great authority and influence. As usual, there’s a cat mixed up in the story line. Unfortunately, he ‘s not a talking cat. Darn! His talking cats are priceless.
To sum up, I enjoyed this book, the narration, in my opinion, is first rate.
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- Ed White
- 2018-01-14
Unfortunate voicing
The story is one of my favourites. It’s a Lynchian drift into a dream-influenced real/surreal world. I bought the audiobook after reading it twice.
The narrator’s voice is generally excellent in non-dialogue sections, relatively good with male voices, but dreadful with female voices, of whom there are many. The dreadfulness, especially with May, almost ruins it. I think books like this need a secondary female narrator for female dialogue. It’s not really the reader’s fault.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Lisa Hardy
- 2021-03-16
So good!
Rupert Degas was brilliant and the wetting breathtaking. Mystical, otherworldly and deep! I highly recommend it.
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