Paperback writer

It seems that no trip to Germany is complete without a visit to a station bookstore and buying the latest Haruki Murakami. I don't know why, but every time I go there I find his latest book on the shelves, so for me so reading his books is indelibly associated with travelling on German trains. Perhaps the Germans have a special love of him. It suits me because English language paperbacks are considerably cheaper in Germany than in the NL.

The latest Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a book of short stories - written between 1980 and 2005. Maybe not the best introduction to him for a novice (for starters you should try Sputnik Sweetheart, Norwegian Wood or Kafka on the Shore) but reading it you get the impression of a writer learning and developing his craft. Some early stuff is clearly derivative (Poor Aunt Story reads like a less dark version of Kafka's Metamorphosis) and other stories later became lietmotifs for complete novels (Norwegian Wood and Sputnik Sweetheart). Its fun to revisit those and see how they first took shape. Some of the stories are truly uplifting, particularly the last and most recent five which were originally published in Japanese as a volume of stories about Tokyo. They contain twists and elements of the unexpected, without veering off completely into surreal dream worlds, which has sometimes been a weakness in some of his more recent novels. All in all a great read, especially as short stories fit well with train journeys.