“Haruki Murakami often seems most at home in his short-story collections, cycling through his various fixations unburdened by the narrative mechanics of his novels. 'Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey' is a standout that will appeal especially to readers enchanted by Murakami's surrealist turns, which blur the line between dreams and reality.

What is it all about, his frequently awestruck and befuddled characters wonder repeatedly-and contagiously. Murakami's plainspoken short stories, like his more complex novels, raise existential questions about perception, memory, and the meaning of it all-though he's the opposite of heavy-handed, and rarely proposes answers. The eight stories in First Person Singular are classic Murakami, filled with multiple recurrent obsessions - jazz, classical music, Beatles, baseball, and memories of perplexing young love. “Haruki Murakami is a master of the mesmerizing head-scratcher. His fiction, whether long or short, highlights life's essential strangeness and unfathomability. This mesmerizing collection would make a superb introduction to Murakami for anyone who hasn’t yet fallen under his spell his legion of devoted fans will gobble it up and beg for more.” The themes become a kind of meter against which all the stories make their particular, chiming rhythms.

Music’s power to make indelible impressions. the at once intransigent and fragile nature of the “self.” Guilt, shame, and regret for mistakes made. Memory’s power and fragility how identity forms. Nostalgia and longing for the charged, evocative moments of young adulthood. The stories echo with Murakami’s preoccupations. All are told in the first person, most by narrators looking back from the vantage point of middle age on youthful experiences, obsessions, or encounters. Here we have a taut and tight, suspenseful and spellbinding, witty and wonderful group of eight stories. “ First Person Singular marks a blazing and brilliant return to form. David Means, The New York Times Book Review Describing how these stories succeed is like trying to describe exactly why, more than 50 years later, a Beatles song still sounds fresh.”

his own voice to enter the narratives, creating a confessional tone that reminded me of Alice Munro’s late work. Whatever you want to call Murakami’s work-magic realism, supernatural realism-he writes like a mystery tramp, exposing his global readership to the essential and cosmic (yes, cosmic!) questions that only art can provoke: What does it mean to carry the baggage of identity? Who is this inside my head in relation to the external, so-called real world? Is the person I was years ago the person I am now? Can a name be stolen by a monkey?. That’s the thought that occurred to me often as I read First Person Singular, the brilliant new book of stories by Haruki Murakami.

First person singular paperback