Norwegian Wood is Japan's The Catcher in the Rye

Everyone who reads Norwegian Wood runs out to buy copies for friends and lovers... Drawing on Fitzgerald, Capote, Chandler and the Japanese tradition, his books are at once disarmingly direct and slyly, charmingly evasive. They are playful and melancholy; full of wrong turns and red herrings, corridors that lead nowhere and - above all - girls who disappear

A masterly novel. . . . Norwegian Wood bears the unmistakable marks of Murakami's hand

This book is undeniably hip, full of student uprisings, free love, booze and 1960s pop, it's also genuinely emotionally engaging, and describes the highs of adolescence as well as the lows

Catches the absorption and giddy rush of adolescent love... It is also, for all the tragic momentum and the apparently kamikaze consciousness of many of its characters, often funny and quirkily observed. Quietly compulsive and finally moving

A heart-stoppingly moving story... Murakami is, without a doubt, one of the world's finest novelists

Evocative, entertaining, sexy and funny; but then Murakami is one of the best writers around

Norwegian Wood . . . not only points to but manifests the author's genius

An intimate and dark story... A beautifully introspective novel that made me feel all the emotions

Murakami must already rank among the world's greatest living novelists

Such is the exquisite, gossamer construction of Murakami's writing that everything he chooses to describe trembles with symbolic possibility

Vintage Murakami [and] easily the most erotic of [his] novels

[A] treat...Murakami captures the heartbeat of his generation and draws the reader in so completely you mourn when the story is done

Murakami's most famous coming of age novel of love, loss and longing

Buckle up for an emotional rollercoaster ride . . . A genuinely moving read

A poignant coming-of-age story

A surreal, engrossing meditation on loneliness, womanhood, and what it actually means to have a work-life balance.

Takes office toxicity and how we cope to new heights.

I found myself completely captivated by this novel's unusual and inviting premise and all that it questions and stirs up.

I loved it. It's incredible. Diary of a Void is joyful, exuberant, and triumphant. It made my heart sing.

Filled with sly humor and touching intimacy, Diary of a Void builds from its revolutionary premise into a powerfully resonant story of longing and defiance. An absolutely thrilling read - I didn't want to put it down.

In this fictional diary of a pregnant woman, it is the real, rather than the made-up, aspects of society, such as single parenting and discrimination against women in the workplace, that are powerfully depicted.

Yagi artfully blurs the boundary between truth and lies with this riotous solution to women's workplace challenges.

[A] penetrating look at working life and gender expectations... In a tone perfectly modulated in Boyd and North's translation, Shibata's dry observations and choices are both relatable and humorous...At the heart of the story is Yagi's wry and witty consideration of how one woman, tangled up in a web of deceit, struggles to live a meaningful life through work and her relationships with others.

Charming and funny