Great product!</br></br>Product Description</br></br>Murakami is like a magician who explains what hes doing as he performs the trick and still makes you believe he has supernatural powers . . . But while anyone can tell a story that resembles a dream it's the rare artist like this one who can make us feel that we are dreaming it ourselves. <i>The New York Times Book Review</i><br><i> </i><br>The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.<br><br>A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi drivers enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered she realizes a parallel existence which she calls 1Q84 Q is for question mark. A world that bears a question. Meanwhile an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that soon his previously placid life begins to come unraveled. <br><br>As Aomames and Tengos narratives converge over the course of this single year we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful?? dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive?? wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector.<br><br>A love story?? a mystery?? a fantasy?? a novel of self-discovery?? a dystopia to rival George Orwell??s?<i>1Q84</i> is Haruki Murakami??s most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan?? and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers.</br></br>Amazon.com Review</br></br><strong>Amazon Best Books of the Month?? October 2011:</strong> The year is 1984?? but not for long. Aomame?? on her way to meet a client--the gravid implications of which only come clear later--sits in a taxi?? stuck in traffic. On a lark?? she takes the driver's advice?? bolts fr"s onto the elevated Tokyo expressway?? descends an emergency ladder to the street below?? and enters a strange new world. <br/><br/>In parallel?? a math teacher and aspiring novelist named Tengo gets an interesting offer. His editor has come upon an entry for a young writer's literary prize?? a story that?? despite its obvious stylistic drawbacks?? strikes a deeply moving chord with those who've read it. Its author is a mysterious 17-year-old?? and the editor proposes that Tengo quietly rewrite the story for the final round of the competition. <br/><br/>So begins Haruki Murakami's <em>magnus opus</em>?? an epic of staggering proportions. As the tale progresses?? it folds in a deliciously intriguing cast of characters: a physically repulsive private investigator?? a wealthy dowager with a morally ambiguous mission?? her impeccably resourceful bodyguard?? the leader of a somewhat obscure and possibly violent religious organization?? a band of otherworldly "??"a door-to-door fee collector seemingly immune to the limits of space and time?? and the beautiful Fuka-Eri: dyslexic?? unfathomable?? and scarred. <br/><br/>Aomame names her new world "4" in honor of its mystery: "Q is for 'question mark.' A world that bears a question.'" Weaving through it?? central motifs--the moon?? Jan??ek's Sinfonietta?? George Orwell's 1984--acquire powerful resonance?? and Aomame and Tengo's paths take on a conjoined life of their own?? dancing with a protracted elegance that requires nearly 1??