Ever since getting into the Japanese language through my love of video games, way back in junior high school, I've steadily grown more and more infatuated with just about every other facet of Japanese culture. When I started to get acquainted with Japanese literature through my cousin (Whom I got into the language, as well. She loved it so much that she ended up majoring in Japanese at George Washington University) I took to it immediately. I was never really much of a non-fiction book reader, but that all changed once I started reading Japanese authors' works. One author in particular has captured my attention: Haruki Murakami. Now I know he's pretty much the ubiquitous Japanese author at this point. Lots of pretentious people throw his name out when Japan is the topic of conversation and they want to be an impresario, also people that know "famous" authors and no one else now know him, too. However, to feed the cliche more, I liked him before it was cool to like him here in the US. I'm writing this because I just finished reading A Wild Sheep Chase and I just started reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I'm also in the process of reading the first book of The Guin Saga by Kaoru Kurimoto. The Guin Saga is a (so far anyway) 122 volume series of novels that has been going since 1979 and has continued uninterrupted until today. I'll post individual novel synopses somewhat soon.
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