Soooo… a readalong! Alice is hosting a readalong for Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami this month.
I’m not really prone to readalongs, mainly because once I start a book I want to read it straight through. Unless it’s a super-boring book, then spreading it out over a whole month makes it easier to finish. This book is only like 300 pages I think? I can’t remember and I’m too lazy to go get it from my stack of library books.
I never even heard of this author until he released 1Q84 last year and it’s a big-ass book that has gotten a ton of attention. And you know, I figure that though this author intrigued me, I didn’t want to read some giant-ass book to try him out, so I thought this readalong of one of his shorter books was a good start 
All my motivation is pure laziness.
Here’s what the book is about – copied from Amazon (note the laziness previously mentioned):
Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.
A poignant story of one college student’s romantic coming-of-age, Norwegian Wood takes us to that distant place of a young man’s first, hopeless, and heroic love.
Sounds interesting I suppose. Honestly, I’m not big into Asian fiction… I don’t know if that sounds horrible or not. I really liked Amy Tan’s novels when I was a teen, but haven’t really enjoyed much since. It’s just not really a genre I gravitate towards, I guess. Despite how pessimistic I sound, I am excited to start reading if only because it’s part of a readalong with some really cool bloggers.
And I guess that’s it! We’re going to be reading the first 4 chapters this week, so that’s what next week’s post will be about. If you want to follow this readalong posts or want to see all of my posts about it, I’m tagging them with “Norwegian Wood“, “readlong”, etc. You’ll see at the bottom.
Oh and if you want to sign up, today would be a good day. Visit Alice’s blog.
~Sarah
I wouldn’t worry too much about it being Asian fiction. Murakami focuses more on the human condition rather than on Japanese culture. While you’ll probably find a few things that are uniquely Japanese like character names and locations, must of the book will probably feel pretty familiar.
I can’t wait to see what you think about it! This is going to be a lot of fun!
I’m excited about doing the readalong because I’ve never read him either. And it seems as though the blogosphere blew up something fierce when his newest book came out!
Agreed Christina, and usually I avoid books / authors with so much hype, but I have high hopes for this one!
Don’t worry, a lot of my motivation to do things comes out of procrastination in doing other things!
This is my first readalong, but I’ve read one book by Murakami and am excited to tackle another. Good luck with the first few chapters!
Woooo! Yeah, I’m…not so into Asian fiction. Mostly because I don’t know anything about the culture. Which I guess I’d learn by reading more of it. Ah, the vicious cycle continues.
If everyone’s way into it, we might speed up the reading a bit, but I’m assuming people’re gonna want to spend that time doing other things. Buuuut maybe I’m just an extra-lazy reader.