I am and always will be a big fan of Haruki Murakami whose works set the sparkle for my affection for Japanese culture.
To a new reader, many people will recommend to you the book which is considered to be his most famous one, Norwegian Wood.
But for now and forever, my favorite one is always another phenomenal book by him, Kafka On The Shore.
Everything about this book screams “Murakami” from the plot setting to the characters building. You all also experience the unique time-jump in the storytelling style which is carefully constructed by Murakami’s view on modern Japanese society and his childhood shadowed by the past war.
Pages after pages, we follow the footstep of the two protagonists, a runaway teenage boy and a wandering old man, on a journey across Japan. Like two opposing poles, the main characters never know about the others and never meet, still their fates are strongly connected and lead the story to its both wholesome and opening ending.
By reading this book, you can get a glimpse of the dark side of early modern Japan and how lonely and lost people are becoming. Also, many players of philosophy ideas are embedded into the story that when you finish the last line, you will just sit there for a while and wonder about life and human fate.
This is truly a book that will help open your mind and deepen your soul.
Gác Nhỏ Của Lam 