[Columbine]

I really like Murakami's work; I find a lot of detail and humanity in it that often seems lacking in other books. However, I DIDN'T like Kazuo Ishiburo's The Unconsoled, at all, which is strange because The Remains of the Day is very powerful. It's been compared to Kafka and Greene, but oddly I liked others by them, but not this. The prose is very dry and the pace is slow and the characters seem flat and boring.

Anyway, absolute favorite is probably 'Kafka on the Shore', although there's some stiff competition there. I also really liked one of Kenzaburo Oe's short stories, but I've sadly lost the book and can't remember the title, or honestly, much about the story, just that I really loved it.