"Murakami
is like a magician who explains what he's 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." -- The New York Times Book Review The year is 1984 and the
city is Tokyo. A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's
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. As Aomame's and Tengo's 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. A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a
novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell's-- 1Q84 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.